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Ford Hall Forum

The Ford Hall Forum is the nation's oldest continuously operating free public lecture series. Its mission is to foster an informed and effective citizenry and to promote freedom of speech through the public presentation of lectures, debates, and discussions. Forum events illuminate the key issues facing our society by bringing to its podium knowledgeable and thought-provoking speakers. These speakers are presented in person, for free, and in settings, which facilitate frank and open debate.

http://www.fordhallforum.org/

Championing A Cause: The Voice Of Today's Athlete

Tue, Oct 22, 2019

Today's professional athletes have increasingly leveraged their powerful voices and the platforms their mediated profession provides to influnce opinion and affect change. But should they? Join a unique and intimate conversation with some of the nation's most charitable and vocal athletes and representatives from across Boston's business and non-profit community. Image: [Pexels.com](http://www.pexels.com/photo/helmet-on-the-ground-2862718/)

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Frye Gaillard on his book "A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s"

Tue, Mar 26, 2019

Frye Gaillard discusses his book, "A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility, and Innocence". It's a personal history of a pivotal time in American life. Gaillard explores the political and social movements of the times ― civil rights, black power, women’s liberation, the War in Vietnam, and the protests against it. He also examines the cultural manifestations of change at that time ― music, literature, art, religion, and science . Gaillard looks at the influence of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr. as well as Malcolm X, Gloria Steinem, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash, Harper Lee, Mister Rogers, James Baldwin, Andy Warhol, Billy Graham, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, Angela Davis, Barry Goldwater, and the Beatles. Gaillard is joined for this Ford Hall Forum by Robert Poulton, Vice President, Marketing & Branding, NBC10 Boston, NECN & Telemundo Boston.

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Boston Talks About Racism

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The "First Amendment Award" Presented to Marty Baron

Wed, May 1, 2019

Watch Marty Baron, Executive Editor of _The Washington Post_ and former Editor of _The Boston Globe_, receive the Ford Hall Forum's First Amendment Award. The award recognizes Baron for his fearless defense of the free press. Baron’s relentless pursuit of the truth over his storied career and his defense of journalists especially in these turbulent times for the Fourth Estate has resulted in impactful and important journalism, with implications for years to come.

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Former Chief Justice Margaret Marshall's Radical Career

Wed, Apr 10, 2019

Former Chief Justice Margaret Marshall was the first woman to serve on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, a position that she held from 1999 until she retired in 2010. During her tenure, she worked to ensure equal access to justice for all, including our most vulnerable populations. Born and educated in South Africa, Marshall actively opposed the apartheid regime and served as the President of the National Union of South African students, a leading anti-apartheid organization. In 1968, she came to the United States on an academic scholarship. Unable to return home because of her political activism, she graduated from Harvard University with a master’s degree in education and Yale Law School and worked in private practice until the 1990s. From her early days in South Africa, Marshall has been a defender of human rights and equality for all individuals, as reflected in her judicial decisions. Margery Eagan, co-host of WGBH’s midday program Boston Public Radio, was the evening’s moderator.

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Safi Bahcall: Loonshots

Wed, Mar 20, 2019

Physicist and biotech entrepreneur Safi Bahcall reveals a surprising new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behavior that challenges everything we thought we knew about radical breakthroughs. Bahcall shows why groups will suddenly change from embracing wild new ideas to rigidly rejecting them. Mountains of print have been written about culture, yet Bahcall argues that small shifts in structure control these transitions, the same way that temperature controls the change from water to ice. Image Source: Book Cover

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The Enemy of the People? Freedom of the Press and Democracy

Wed, Feb 6, 2019

Marjorie Pritchard, deputy managing editor for the editorial page at The Boston Globe, and Bryan Trabold, author of Rhetorics of Resistance: Opposition Journalism in Apartheid South Africa and assistant professor and chair of the Suffolk University English Department, will examine The Boston Globe's response to President Trump's efforts to discredit the media. The Globe mobilized editorial boards of all political orientations across the country to argue that a free press is essential for sustaining democracy. This conversation will situate the Globe's initiative within Ford Hall Forum's tradition of promoting the free expression of ideas, as when Margaret Sanger, wearing a gag, defied the Boston ban on promotion of birth control in her 1929 address to the Ford Hall Forum and anti-apartheid activist Beyers Naudé delivered a blistering attack on the South African government in his 1985 forum address, despite repeated attempts to silence him. The Boston Globe's editorial initiative is thus part of a much longer history of challenging the powerful to promote freedom of expression.

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The Ongoing Life of Virginia Woolf

Thu, Jan 31, 2019

Recognizing Public Domain Day For the first time since the passage of the [Copyright Term Extension Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act "Wikipedia Entry") in 1998, works will enter the public domain in the United States due to the expiration of the copyright term. This event at Suffolk University celebrates the legal and public policy rationale behind copyright limits and the public domain, as well as the creativity of those individuals whose works will soon enter the public domain. Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize winning author of _The Hours_ will participate with his lecture "Past Tense, Present Tense: The Ongoing Life of Virginia Woolf". Image: [George Charles Beresford - Virginia Woolf in 1902 via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Charles_Beresford_-_Virginia_Woolf_in_1902_-_Restoration.jpg "")

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Surveillance Capitalism and Democracy

Wed, Jan 23, 2019

Surveillance capitalism is the foundation of a new economic order. Firms compete on the manufacture of "prediction products" traded in lucrative new "behavioral futures markets." Surveillance capitalism's proprietary digital architectures -- what Shoshana Zuboff calls "Big Other" -- are designed to capture and control human behavior for competitive advantage in these new markets, as the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification" that favors private market outcomes free of democratic oversight or control. Acclaimed scholar and author Shoshana Zuboff, Ph.D., Harvard Business School professor emerita speaks on the publication of her new book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight For a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. The event is moderated by Christopher Lydon, radio host of WBUR's Open Source. Image: Book cover

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Gary Pomerantz: The Last Pass

Mon, Oct 29, 2018

Bob "Cooz" Cousy, the Hall of Fame Boston Celtics captain who led the team to its first six championships, has a lot to be proud of. But now, at age 90, he has one last piece of unfinished business. He seeks to make amends with his great partner on the Celtics, fellow Hall of Fame member Bill Russell, now 84. Cooz tells author Gary M. Pomerantz in the new book, [_The Last Pass_](http://www.garympomerantz.com/books/the-last-pass "The Last Pass book link"), that he should have been more publicly opposed to the prejudice Russell faced. **WATCH LIVE:** Join us for this important conversation about loyalty and bravery in the face of racism. Streaming here at 4 p.m. on October 29th.

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Daniel Ziblatt: How Democracies Die

Thu, Oct 11, 2018

Is American democracy at risk? Daniel Ziblatt, Harvard political scientist and coauthor of The New York Times bestseller, “How Democracies Die,” discusses how we can look to a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow to show how democracies die—and how ours can be saved. Professor Ziblatt’s talk is followed by a panel of Suffolk scholars –Brian Conley, Greg Fried, and Renee Landers – and is be moderated by Acting Provost Sebastian Royo. [http://www.lowellinstitute.org/](http://www.lowellinstitute.org/event/925/ "The Lowell Institute ")

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