Past, Present, and Future of Brooklyn For Peace: Our LOCAL Peace and Justice Organization.
Brooklyn For Peace has been committed to eliminating war since the organization’s founding in 1984, by actively educating and empowering our community to be a productive force in building a world where peace is the first response to conflict. Michaela Czerkies, Brooklyn For Peace’s new Executive Director, will speak about Brooklyn For Peace’s history, discuss the organization’s current activities, and share their vision for moving forward amidst the challenges and opportunities faced by the peace movement today.

Michaela Czerkies has been organizing for peace and progressive US foreign policies since 2014, beginning as a student organizer with University at Albany Peace Action. She worked for several years with the Syracuse Peace Council, focusing particularly on advocacy campaigns for justice in Palestine and nuclear disarmament. She has additionally been involved in efforts to cut US military spending and to promote diplomatic US policies toward Yemen, Iran, and Afghanistan.
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The universality of humanity is exposed in the oral histories retold by the author of Japanese Reflections on WWII.

"...the Porters have woven together the memories of students and factory workers, nurses and midwives, teachers, sailors and kamikaze pilots to create a rare account of ordinary life during extraordinary times in the Japanese countryside...Ultimately, Japanese Reflections on World War II is a clear picture of how the tragedy and suffering of war affect ordinary people and their perceptions." (from Japan Times -book review)

Edgar Porter has worked in higher education in four countries; Japan, United States, China, and Austria. He holds a doctorate in Education from Vanderbilt University and an Honorary Doctorate from the Mongolian Academy of Governance.

Most of his adult life has been spent in China, Hawaii, and Japan. His publications are in the area of biography and oral history, They include: The People’s Doctor: George Hatem and China’s Revolution, Journalism from Tiananmen, Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation, China in Oceania, and Foreign Teachers in China: Old Problems for a New Generation.

He currently resides in Brooklyn, New York where he writes fiction and non-fiction. He is married to Ran Ying Porter, co-author, novelist, researcher, and translator.


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From the Salem witch trials to the modern humanist and Ethical culture movements.
Accompany us for an adventure across archives of America's academic elite and beyond. From the rabbinical rejection of Felix Adler to Harvard's hellish minister and the ancestry of A.D. White, this talk will go beyond the pious puritans of the Salem witch trials to explore Victorian resistance to religion, creepy contradictions, and the secrets of a society in the making.

Tyler Lurie-Spicer is an ethical humanist who grew up in the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, and has just begun to sit on the Board of Directors. As a young person, he was active in the Children's program, Youth of Ethical Societies, and the Future of Ethical Societies. Currently, at Cornell University, Tyler recently worked in the Society for the Humanities where he looked after the home of Cornell's first president, Andrew Dickson White.
http://bsec.org

Everyone understands the urgency of addressing climate change, but few of us have the opportunity to make a significant and measurable impact.
Jeremy Griffiths will tell how he is applying his long and varied business experience, and knowledge of new technologies to help bring renewables, sustainability, resilience, and eco-agriculture to Puerto Rico.

Bio:
Brooklyn Society For Ethical Culture member Jeremy Griffiths is a Chemical Engineer and English Chartered Accountant.
He has worked as CFO at several large UK and US companies and with non-profits, including as a financial consultant to the United Nations on the investigation in the Oil for Food program led by Paul Volcker. Presently he runs a private equity fund with a partner and a unique eco-agriculture endeavor in Puerto Rico.
http://bsec.org

Corporations are not people and they are undermining our democracy!
We, the People of the United States of America, reject the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and other related decisions. MOVE TO AMEND our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
Move to Amend's petition can be found at:
https://www.movetoamend.org/motion

The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture (BSEC) The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture seeks to be an inclusive community focused on social justice and personal growth.
http://bsec.org

Although more students are religiously unaffiliated, there are only a few ‘Humanists’ serving their needs on campuses of higher education. This needs to change.
About Anne Klaeysen
A retired clergy leader of the New York Society for Ethical Culture, Anne serves as a chaplain at Columbia University and New York University. She holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from Hebrew Union College and masters’ degrees in German from SUNY Albany and in business administration from NYU. She is a member of the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture where she was married and raised her two children.
http://bsec.org

How a local grassroots organization struggled (and is winning) to remain in its neighborhood.
Executive Director, Alyssa Aguilera, will share their story of how this local grassroots organization of those impacted by HIV/AIDS, the drug war, mass incarceration and homelessness struggled (and is winning) to remain in its neighborhood in Park Slope!

VOCAL (voices of community activists and leaders)-NY a 22-year old grassroots organization to build power among low-income people affected by HIV/AIDS, the drug war, mass incarceration and homelessness in order to create healthy and just communities.
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A Lucy's Children Presentation.
Many things can be said about "The Movement" and its functioning in the Deep South in the 1960s. Our target was the right to vote for Black people. The vote is fundamental and irreplaceable in a democracy. Voting work has tangents, the activity doesn't stay in one place nor is the activity simply one thing. The counter-action was strong! Nonetheless, through all of that white-savage hatred, "The Movement" managed to prevail.

Here we are some 60 years later, having some of those same conversations about voting: the wishes, and duties on behalf of the citizenry being at the heart of the matter. Some would reverse time and others of us will press ever forward.

Movement Veterans in Discussion of Their Experiences
Marion Cunningham - Nurse, Medical Committee for Human Rights
Dorothy Zellner - frontline demonstrator, field and office administration
Muriel Tillinghast - frontline demonstrator, field and office worker
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A book talk and discussion with Emily Bass, author of “To End a Plague: America’s Fight to Defeat AIDS in Africa”. In this interactive event, Bass, the author of the first comprehensive history of America's investment in fighting global AIDS, will read from her book and then engage the audience in a discussion about what the history of transnational AIDS activism accomplished, what remains undone, and what lessons can be applied to the present Covid-19 and “pandemic preparedness” agendas. Touching on legislative histories, activist intervention, “recipient country” agency in developing and implementing successful programs, and the crucial role of civil society in global governance, this event will search the historical record for the roadmap for a more just, equitable future”.

Emily Bass has spent more than twenty years writing about and working on HIV/AIDS in America and East and Southern Africa. Published in July 2021, her first book, “To End a Plague: America’s Fight to End AIDS in Africa," chronicles the transnational activism that impelled the United States to launch the largest pandemic-fighting effort in the history of the country–and the world. Bass’s writing has appeared in numerous books and publications including Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, The Lancet, Esquire, and n+1, and she has received a notable mention in Best American Essays. A lifelong social justice activist, Bass has helped create and launch transnational activist coalitions bridging the US, East and Southern Africa, with a focus on securing comprehensive, rights-based health care for all. She has served as an external expert for the World Health Organization and a member of the What Would an HIV Doula Do collective. She is the recipient of a Fulbright journalism fellowship and a Martin Duberman Visiting Research Fellowship from the New York Public Library. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.
Dec 5, 2011
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To celebrate International Workers Day we will welcome Gale Johnson from the New York City Network of Worker Cooperatives, (NYCNOWC), and a worker-owner at Brooklyn Hopewell Cooperative. She will speak on the joys and struggles of work when you own the company with others, collaborate with deep purpose and passion and have to make it work in an economy where injustice and inequality persist. Gale is a strong advocate for social and economic justice, believes in democracy, is open to learning and evolving, as she says, "I am like a butterfly! I'm curious, willing, adventurous, love challenges and aspire to new horizons."

Gale Johnson is a Brooklyn resident, an immigrant from the Caribbean, a mother of 1 and a nanny for many years. She is a founding member of Hopewell Care Cooperative that provides childcare services throughout the five boroughs of NYC. They are immigrant women run. Gale has been an organizer and advocate for Carroll Gardens Nanny Association since 2015, and a member of the National Domestic Workers Association, a board member of the Carroll Gardens Association, and serves on the Advocacy Council of the NYCNOWC. Gale proudly represents these organizations as she fights for worker rights and better work standards, advocating for changes and improving the lives of many New Yorkers.
http://bsec.org

Too often, we are quiet, we don’t speak up and we do what’s expected of us—because we are afraid of the risks involved. Edel Rodriguez will talk about his family’s journey from Cuba, how those events influence his work today, and the power that art has to speak for a people when they are at a crossroads of history.

Edel Rodriguez is a Cuban American artist who has exhibited internationally with shows in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Havana, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Spain. Inspired by personal history, religious rituals, politics, memory, and nostalgia, his bold, figurative works are an examination of identity, mortality, and cultural displacement.

Edel Rodriguez was born in Havana, Cuba in 1971. He was raised in El Gabriel, a small farm town surrounded by fields of tobacco and sugar cane. In 1980 Rodriguez and his family boarded a boat and left for America during the Mariel boatlift. They settled in Miami where Rodriguez was introduced to and influenced by American pop culture for the first time.  Socialist propaganda and western advertising, island culture, and contemporary city life, are all aspects of his life that continue to inform his work.

In 1994, Rodriguez graduated with honors in painting from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. In 1998, he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from Manhattan’s Hunter College graduate program. Throughout his career, Rodriguez has received commissions to create artwork for numerous book publishers, advertising agencies, and editorial publications.   He is a regular contributor to The New York Times Op-Ed page and The New Yorker magazine.  He has created over a hundred newspaper and magazine covers for clients such as TIME Magazine, Der Spiegel, Newsweek, The Nation, Businessweek, The New Republic, and The Village Voice.  He has created dozens of book covers for clients such as Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random.
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Photographer Saskia Kahn will present her collaborative photo project, Skatepark Baltimore, about a self-created youth community that grew to make a Baltimore skateboard park a more inclusive space. Skaters who felt uncomfortable using the park alone realized the need to work cooperatively in order to claim this space as safe—particularly those who identified as transgender, gender-nonconforming, Black-femme, women, and/or queer. The portraits in Skatepark Baltimore celebrate the young people who fight for their access to joy. This art project also used the social-work methodology of Photovoice, which uses photography to spark conversation around social issues.

Saskia Kahn is a photographer from the Manhattan Beach section of Brooklyn, NY. Her work features portraits of youth, a fascination that stems from the stories of her grandmother surviving WWII during her teenage years. Kahn also works in collaboration with the people she photographs. She teaches free photography programs in Baltimore, MD, Hudson, NY, and Yaoundé, Cameroon. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, EW, The Brooklyn Rail, and BmoreArt Magazine, among others. She lives in Baltimore, MD.
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As Ethical Humanists, we strive to live our values. We are committed to ethical action and relationship building. Reciting our values and living them are two totally different things. How do we put our values into action? Which ones are hardest to implement in our daily lives? Does everyone deserve to be treated fairly and kindly? Join Leader-In-Training Louise Jett in exploring radical kindness, Humanist values and Ethical Culture.

Bio:

Louise Jett is a lifelong learner and an educator at heart. She is a full-time faculty member and coordinator of the Graphic and Web Design programs at Lewis and Clark Community College in Godfrey, Illinois. An American Ethical Union Leader-in-Training, she also works in communication roles at the Ethical Society of St. Louis and the Westchester Community for Ethical Culture. Louise considers herself a congregational Humanist and is truly inspired by people who are dedicated to empowering others.
http://bsec.org

Film Director and Producer Edwian “Eze” Stokes will speak about making his film “CONVERSATIONS: The Black Radical Tradition” which features legendary figures of the resistance including Harry Belafonte, Herbert Daughtry, Amina Baraka, Mumia Abdul Jabar, Ramona Africa, Ruby Sales, and Sonia Sanchez.
From Black Power to Black Lives Matter, “CONVERSATIONS” is an important account of the history of the African American struggle in the United States and an important message to the grassroots.

Bio:
A native of Brooklyn, NY, Edwian “Eze” Stokes attended Long Island University before his career in media production and film. CONVERSATIONS is his directorial debut. Primarily an editor, Stokes works in both narrative and documentary films. Stokes worked on Books Through Bars Brings Literature To The Incarcerated (2018- BRIC TV) as well as Black In The Holy Land (dir. Marc Lamont Hill) and Something In The Trees (dir. Alfonzo Johnson, 2021 Release). Stokes’ work in media production has led him to work with companies such as BLACK ENTERPRISE, Okayplayer, ARISE News, and other media outlets. Through an extension of his work, Stokes considers himself an internationalist. Stokes lives in New York and can be found covering local protests, political conferences, and sporting events.
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http://bsec.org
The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture (BSEC) The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture seeks to be an inclusive community focused on social justice and personal growth.

The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture's (BSEC) Ethics for Children program celebrates Mother's Day 2022.
Video by Angel Thompson.
http://bsec.org

Maureen speaks on Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved as a case for reparations. She will explain the design of the novel, in particular in connection with the title character and in relation to U.S. history, especially African American history. Dr. Fadem will show how Morrison’s novel was designed to function as a clarion call for truth, reconciliation, and reparations regarding that history.

A Professor of English at Kingsborough-CUNY, Maureen Fadem has taught at The Graduate Center-CUNY, Drew University, Hunter College-CUNY, and Eugene Lang College. She is a postcolonial scholar working on Anglophone writing of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Maureen specializes in historical literature, particularly that of Ireland and African America, as well as the wider literatures of partition. Her research looks at imperial borders and national partition, at political justice, especially reparations, at social justice of race, class, and gender, and at the poetics of conflict, trauma, and silence in poetry and in prose.
http://bsec.org

This program was presented by the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture's Lucy's Children group, which focuses on racial justice and education while examining the myth of "race" and the painful reality of racism.
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400 years of systemic racism and white supremacy in the United States has caused horrific damage to people and communities of color. Whites who acknowledge this damage and want to help heal the wounds of racism, however, sometimes are paralyzed by the weight of this history.
Explore how to use history to recommit yourself to anti-racism activism. How can we get beyond unproductive guilt and contribute to campaigns for real racial justice?

Hugh Taft-Morales has taught philosophy and history for twenty-five years in various institutions in Washington, D. C. He became a certified Ethical Culture Leader in 2010. Connecticut born and raised, Hugh was educated at Yale and the University of Kent at Canterbury, England. He resides in Tacoma Park, Maryland with his wife. His three children are grown.

In the spirit of diversity and multiculturalism, Dennis Febo explores our common understanding of race and deconstructs many of the models presented to us that create division, injustice, and dehumanization.

Dennis Febo , MAH, is a speaker, community organizer, artist, abolitionist, and CEO and founder Guazabara Insights, LLC. Dennis is a native of Brooklyn, NY, raised in many different parts of the US and Puerto Rico. He attained his master’s degree from the Universities of Buffalo, Havana, Cuba, and Bahia, Brazil. Dennis has been working with thousands of our incarcerated community members and juveniles for the past 9 years. By devising a curriculum on Cultural and Social Consciousness Education, he has been able to educate thousands around the country on self-knowledge and self-actualization. Guazabara now provides many educational/recreational services and events for the community at large, with a focus on success for youth. Dennis also founded the Amend the 13th movement in NJ, a lobbying strategy to remove the "exception clause" and add anti-slavery language to the New Jersey constitution. Mr. Febo is also a professor of graduate and undergraduate studies in Health Sciences at New Jersey City University
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Join us to hear from our newly elected Council Member Shahana Hanif for the 39th District. We will celebrate her as she enters the chamber, representing our neighborhood at the NY City Council. We will honor her deep commitment to social justice and equity, welcoming her with joy and solidarity as she carries the banner of progress for a Beloved Community in the spirit of Martin Luther King. Music by DuPree and Barry Kornhauser.

Council Member Shahana Hanif is the newly elected Council Member for Brooklyn’s 39th District in the New York City Council. She was born and raised in Kensington, Brooklyn, and is the daughter of Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants. She is a product of public schools having attended P.S. 230 and Brooklyn College, an activist, community organizer, and public servant. Most recently she served as the Director of Organizing and Community Engagement in Council Member Brad Lander’s office where she led grassroots initiatives like Participatory Budgeting. Shahana is the first Muslim woman ever elected to the New York City Council and the first woman Council Member for the 39th District.

Forging New Pathways. Challenges and Opportunities in a Polarized Time – guest speaker Carolyn “Rusti” Eisenberg.
Carolyn “Rusti” Eisenberg, co-Founder of Brooklyn For Peace and Professor of US History and American Foreign Policy at Hofstra University will share the history of honoring individuals and organizations forging new pathways to the elimination of war and describe the challenges and opportunities for such pathways in a time of polarization.

Carolyn Parker, AEU Ethical Action Committee and past president, Ethical Society of Austin, will be joining Issues and Action to follow up on our discussion of the Texas abortion law and other critical issues from a Texas perspective.
http://bsec.org

The recent legislative sessions in Texas are a glimpse into the conflicts between religion and science, knowledge and myth, past and future. Are these "culture wars" spreading beyond Texas? What are some ways to protect ourselves? – guest speaker Carolyn Parker, member Austin Society for Ethical Culture and Chair of the American Ethical Union's Ethical Action Committee.
http://bsec.org

Hear Evan Pritchard (descendant of Mi'kmaq people) speak on the importance of establishing an accurate record of North American history, especially in regards to racial relations. Instead of brave tales about Columbus, tell about his criminal record, prominence in the slave trade, the genocides in Hispaniola, and the fate of North America's indigenous peoples and their unique understanding of the natural world.

As ethical norms are established in law by argument and discussion based on accurate written records, ethical norms in society are established by discussion based on previous discussions, both oral and written. If these words are not spoken truthfully, those societal norms can never change. And if we make casual banter about "savage indians" (and other racial stereotypes) we become part of that false record, one that leads to poor judgement in the future. If Indigenous People's Day were devoted each year to the research of the local native history, good or bad, over the course of twenty years it would certainly deepen the discussion, and even bring changes in law. I believe it would lead to a happier society and a better relationship between the people and the earth they stand upon.

Bio: Evan Pritchard, of MI'kmaq descent, has been the director of Center for Algonquin Culture since 1998 and has taught classes in Native American studies, and also in philosophy and ethics at Marist, Pace, and Vassar during that time, and has lectured at John Jay, Columbia, SUNY, Ramapo State, and countless other colleges and universities. He has interviewed native elders all over the country to help preserve the oral tradition, and is the author of over fifty books on native topics and lectures frequently.
http://bsec.org

Tough times invite us to be tenderhearted. As we aspire to live into our values and principles, let us challenge ourselves to deepen our understanding of, and commitment to, welcome and inclusion. We can choose to build bridges to community with empathy, compassion, and competency.

Dr. Janice Marie Johnson is Co-Director of Ministries and Faith Development at the Unitarian Universalist Association. She supports, sustains, and advances multicultural, anti-oppressive, justice-centered, and innovative Unitarian Universalist lay and professional leadership and ministry for all ages. Janice fervently believes in her maxim, “Masakhane,” a rich and resonant word from the South African Nguni family of languages of which Xhosa and Zulu are two. Loosely translated into English it means, “Let us build together”.
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Hubert Harrison’s “voice” and analysis reverberated through the decades from the turn of the 20th century through the Harlem Renaissance with the establishment of the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture right up to Malcolm X’s imprint on modern Black radical thinking. Harrison’s bellwether analysis clearly rings in current conversations on the Critical Race Theory (CRT).
Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918

About Jeffrey B. Perry, Ph.D.:

Jeff Perry has been active in the working class movement as a rank- and-file worker and as a union shop steward, officer, editor, and retiree for over 50 years. He has also been involved in domestic and international social justice issues including affirmative action, tenants’ rights, union democracy, anti- apartheid, anti-war, and anti- imperialist work.

A vast collection of his materials in these areas is currently being prepared for repository placement. He has already placed the Hubert H. Harrison Papers at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Theodore W. Allen Papers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and a portion of his Labor Papers at U- Mass Amherst. Dr. Jeffrey B. Perry The brilliant writer, orator, educator, critic, and activist Hubert Harrison (1883 – 1927) is one of the truly important, yet neglected, figures of early twentieth-century America. Known as the father of Harlem radicalism, and a leading Socialist party speaker who advocated that socialists champion the cause of the Negro as a revolutionary doctrine, Harrison had an important influence on a generation of race and class radicals, including Marcus Garvey and A. Philip Randolph.

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This event was presented by Lucy's Children, which is part of The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture (BSEC).

http://bsec.org
We are hosting a lecture and discussion on epidemics and their impact on communities, particularly Communities of Color.

The noted public health researcher Dr. Robert Fullilove will address us on the realities of past and current conditions. In easy to understand language, this scientist will cut through the uneasiness, politicalization and disinformation of today.

Come, listen and learn from someone who works in the field. Ask your questions and go away better informed and continuously prepared.

Robert Fullilove

Associate Dean Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at the Columbia University Medical Center

Using Street Epistemology to gently untangle the why of our most cherished and deeply held beliefs.” – guest speaker Chris West.

What do we believe is true? Why do we believe it is true? In a time when the truth of what someone believes is open to question, it is good to have a set of tools to unpack why someone believes these things. Here it isn’t about the What you believe but the Why. Many of us hold beliefs which we took on before we were able to think critically or just didn’t feel the need to think critically about them. Most of the reasons we hold some beliefs to be true are hidden in our past. We believe them because we were told by our parents, or other trusted adults instead of submitting these beliefs to well reasoned and skeptical thought about why we believe them. Street Epistemology is a modern approach to gently revisit the why of what we believe.
Join Chris West , BSEC member and amateur Street Epistemology practitioner to learn about why it is a good set of tools to learn for yourself and for society as a whole for what we believe informs how we act in society. How we vote. What we support and nurture in our society. With Street Epistemology we are not trying to de-convert anyone, but give them a path to revisit the why of deeply held beliefs in a safe and non-threatening environment.
BIO:
Chris West spent his formative years living and going to school in Park Slope. After getting a BA in Cultural Anthropology from SUNY Purchase in 1988, Chris co-founded A Temple of the Apotheosis (1992 to 1999), a non- denominational, community, social, and spiritual/humanist group operating in and around Park Slope. In 1999 he met his wife and they moved to the Netherlands for 10 years (the Bush years 2) where Chris raised his two young children as a stay-at-home-dad and earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, NL (Technical College of Amsterdam). Chris also studied and became one of 3 Americans to become a Certified Dutch Wind Miller. In 2010 he moved back to the US, this time to the woods and lakes of Vermont, with his wife and two children. This past year Chris formed The Humanist Being, a non-profit humanist organization here in Vermont.

Honoring the history of Black Liberation struggles and the particular uprisings of 2020 and 2021, the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture is proud to host, along with other ethical and humanist societies, a Juneteenth celebration entitled “Where is the Joy in Freedom?” with guest speaker NYC Deputy Mayor J. Phillip Thompson. J. Phillip Thompson is NYC’s Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives. Prior to joining the de Blasio administration, he was Associate Professor of Urban Planning at MIT. He is the author of Double Trouble: Black Mayors, Black Communities and the Call for a Deep Democracy.

The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture (BSEC) and Lucy's Children ( Racial Justice Group) present Jerrie Stewart, 5x Great Granddaughter of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson , who will talk to us about what she thinks and knows, and what is family lore. As a member of the Hemings family, an exceptionally talented family group even under slavery, this is an opportunity to lift some edge of the curtain. The familial relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his Black family has long been discussed. And, until the DNA test proved otherwise, that he even had a Black family, was vigorously disavowed.

About Lucy's Children:
Lucy’s Children is part of the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture and it is a community effort to examine the fiction of Race in order to address the fact of Racism. Our plan is to provide information, opportunities, and events that can help us come together as a society to end racism.

To learn more, visit https://bsec.org/

What does it mean to be a ‘Humanist in the Hood’ in a New Jim Crow era of deep racial, gender and economic inequality?

“Humanists in the Hood is an acute reminder of the struggle we as Black women have and still experience. It has documented in one place, our travels and travails.” —Bridgette Crutchfield, Black Nonbelievers of Detroit

Sikivu Hutchinson is an educator, author, and playwright. She is the founder of Black Skeptics Los Angeles and the Women’s Leadership Project, a mentoring and civic engagement program for South L.A. girls of color. Sikivu is recipient of the 2020 Harvard Humanist of the Year Award. Sikivu was raised and lives in Los Angeles, though she received her doctorate from New York University.
http://bsec.org

Though police reform has been in the spotlight recently, the need for restructuring law enforcement has been an ongoing issue for many years. On Sunday, August 16th, 2020 the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture will host a platform featuring Maya Wiley, an American civil rights activist and former board chair of the NYC Civilian Complaint Review Board. Among her many accomplishments, she founded and served as president of Social Inclusion, a national policy strategy organization dedicated to dismantling structural racism. Until recently, Maya was an MSNBC legal analyst.

Our Ethics for Children program provides a fun, focused learning environment for kids to explore topics that foster empathy, respect and a deeper understanding of self and others. These include our relationship to the natural world, the diversity of world religions and philosophies, social justice and action, and peaceful problem-solving.
The goal of Ethics for Children is to provide children with skills and knowledge to help them make ethical choices and learn to respect the inherent worth of every human being. We do not impose a fixed set of values or beliefs. Rather, we encourage children to respect and learn about themselves and their environment and examine how their ideas and actions impact the greater world.

The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture (BSEC) is a congregation of individuals and families who choose to emphasize personal growth and social progress as high on their list of priorities.
We are a community of communities, attracting good people from all traditions, backgrounds, races, family configurations, and sexual orientations.
All are welcome to our Sunday morning platforms (11AM, except for summer).
Sunday School:
http://bsec.org
Our historical building is available for rental for weddings and other events.
We are located at 53 Prospect Park West
​Brooklyn, NY 11215

Our Ethics for Children program provides a fun, focused learning environment for kids to explore topics that foster empathy, respect and a deeper understanding of self and others. These include: our relationship to the natural world, the diversity of world religions and philosophies, social justice and action, and peaceful problem solving.
The goal of Ethics for Children is to provide children with skills and knowledge to help them make ethical choices and learn to respect the inherent worth of every human being. We do not impose a fixed set of values or beliefs. Rather, we encourage children to respect and learn about themselves and their environment and to examine how their own ideas and actions impact the greater world.

The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture (BSEC) is a congregation of individuals and families who choose to emphasize personal growth and social progress as high on their list of priorities.
We are a community of communities, attracting good people from all traditions, backgrounds, races, family configurations and sexual orientations.
All are welcome to our Sunday morning platforms (11AM, except for summer).
Sunday School:
http://bsec.org
Our historical building is available for rental for weddings and other events.
We are located at 53 Prospect Park West
​Brooklyn, NY 11215

The Coming of Age Ceremony is the culminating event for the Ethics for Children Program Sunday School of the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture.
The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture (BSEC) is a congregation of individuals and families who choose to emphasize personal growth and social progress as high on their list of priorities.
We are a community of communities, attracting good people from all traditions, backgrounds, races, family configurations and sexual orientations.
All are welcome to our Sunday morning platforms (11AM, except for summer).
Sunday School:
Our Ethics for Children program provides a fun, focused learning environment for kids to explore topics that foster empathy, respect and a deeper understanding of self and others. These include: our relationship to the natural world, the diversity of world religions and philosophies, social justice and action, and peaceful problem solving.
The goal of Ethics for Children is to provide children with skills and knowledge to help them make ethical choices and learn to respect the inherent worth of every human being. We do not impose a fixed set of values or beliefs. Rather, we encourage children to respect and learn about themselves and their environment and to examine how their own ideas and actions impact the greater world.
http://bsec.org
Our historical building is available for rental for weddings and other events.
We are located at 53 Prospect Park West
​Brooklyn, NY 11215

Platform celebrating the 94th birthday of Annemarie Mogil and the fight of residents to stay at The Prospect Park Residence.
Speakers include Brad Landers, New York City Council Member,
Judith Goldiner, Legal Aid Society
K. Webster of Neighbors to Save Rivington House
The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture (BSEC) is a congregation of individuals and families who choose to emphasize personal growth and social progress as high on their list of priorities.
We are a community of communities, attracting good people from all traditions, backgrounds, races, family configurations and sexual orientations.
All are welcome to our Sunday morning platforms (11AM, except for summer).
Sunday School:
Our Ethics for Children program provides a fun, focused learning environment for kids to explore topics that foster empathy, respect and a deeper understanding of self and others. These include: our relationship to the natural world, the diversity of world religions and philosophies, social justice and action, and peaceful problem solving.
The goal of Ethics for Children is to provide children with skills and knowledge to help them make ethical choices and learn to respect the inherent worth of every human being. We do not impose a fixed set of values or beliefs. Rather, we encourage children to respect and learn about themselves and their environment and to examine how their own ideas and actions impact the greater world.
http://bsec.org
Our historical building is available for rental for weddings and other events.
We are located at 53 Prospect Park West
​Brooklyn, NY 11215

This is a video of a short play, "The Doll" by Tasha Paley about The Birmingham Children's Crusade in May, 1963;
It is a continuation of "End of The Road" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxGoQbBt_20). Thirty years later. Setting the home of Buster and Lettie in Birmingham, Alabama May 2, 1963 Cast: Buster- Marjorie Bryant, Lettie- Donna Coles
Video by: Dror Kahn
The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture (BSEC) is a congregation of individuals and families who choose to emphasize personal growth and social progress as high on their list of priorities.
We are a community of communities, attracting good people from all traditions, backgrounds, races, family configurations and sexual orientations.
All are welcome to our Sunday morning platforms (11AM, except for summer).
Sunday School:
Our Ethics for Children program provides a fun, focused learning environment for kids to explore topics that foster empathy, respect and a deeper understanding of self and others. These include: our relationship to the natural world, the diversity of world religions and philosophies, social justice and action, and peaceful problem solving.
The goal of Ethics for Children is to provide children with skills and knowledge to help them make ethical choices and learn to respect the inherent worth of every human being. We do not impose a fixed set of values or beliefs. Rather, we encourage children to respect and learn about themselves and their environment and to examine how their own ideas and actions impact the greater world.
http://bsec.org
Our historical building is available for rental for weddings and other events.
We are located at 53 Prospect Park West
​Brooklyn, NY 11215

Play by Tasha Paley performed at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture by theatre group of the UFT (United Federation of Teachers) This play touches on prison justice, cruelty, race relations, ethics.
http://BSEC.org

"Ethics For Children" is a non-religious Sunday School guided by ethics and learning how to be a responsible, caring and involved person. The school has three age appropriate classes plus a "coming of age" program for teens. The school is at the Brooklyn Society For Ethical Culture, 53 Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, NY. Classes meet at 10:45 - 12:30 on Sundays. All are welcome.

The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture (BSEC) is a congregation of individuals and families who choose to emphasize personal growth and social progress as high on their list of priorities.
We are a community of communities, attracting good people from all traditions, backgrounds, races, family configurations and sexual orientations.
All are welcome to our Sunday morning platforms (11AM, except for summer).
Sunday School:
Our Ethics for Children program provides a fun, focused learning environment for kids to explore topics that foster empathy, respect and a deeper understanding of self and others. These include: our relationship to the natural world, the diversity of world religions and philosophies, social justice and action, and peaceful problem solving.
The goal of Ethics for Children is to provide children with skills and knowledge to help them make ethical choices and learn to respect the inherent worth of every human being. We do not impose a fixed set of values or beliefs. Rather, we encourage children to respect and learn about themselves and their environment and to examine how their own ideas and actions impact the greater world.
http://bsec.org
Our historical building is available for rental for weddings and other events.
We are located at 53 Prospect Park West
​Brooklyn, NY 11215

Helen Zuman, the founder of the Brooklyn Gift Circle talks about this new economy of sharing, giving and receiving which is in contrast to the economy of money which drives most American's lives. This platform talk was given on November 16, 2014.
The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture (BSEC) is a congregation of individuals and families who choose to emphasize personal growth and social progress as high on their list of priorities.
We are a community of communities, attracting good people from all traditions, backgrounds, races, family configurations and sexual orientations.
All are welcome to our Sunday morning platforms (11AM, except for summer).
Sunday School:
Our Ethics for Children program provides a fun, focused learning environment for kids to explore topics that foster empathy, respect and a deeper understanding of self and others. These include: our relationship to the natural world, the diversity of world religions and philosophies, social justice and action, and peaceful problem solving.
The goal of Ethics for Children is to provide children with skills and knowledge to help them make ethical choices and learn to respect the inherent worth of every human being. We do not impose a fixed set of values or beliefs. Rather, we encourage children to respect and learn about themselves and their environment and to examine how their own ideas and actions impact the greater world.
http://bsec.org
Our historical building is available for rental for weddings and other events.
We are located at 53 Prospect Park West
​Brooklyn, NY 11215

http://bsec.org
The destructive effects on people and communities of the criminal justice system are the subject of this talk by Eddie Ellis. This was the Sept. 23, 2012 Sunday Platform at the Brooklyn Society For Ethical Culture, presided by Gregory Tewksbury and with the music of Bev Grant. This platform was organized by the Ethical Action Committee of BSEC. It is the 2012 annual Charley Horwitz memorial platform.

Activists like Eddie Ellis of the Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions in Brooklyn are trying to turn around a prison and policing system that dehumanizes people, particularly in communities of color.

Ellis, the Charley Horwitz Memorial Platform speaker, gives hope and provides a lifeline to young people in NuLeadership youth programs and to incarcerated people through "On the Count," a weekly radio program on Pacifica WBAI he produced with former prisoners.

Ellis died of a heart attack on July 24, 2014. Following is an excerpt from his obituary.
"Beloved by many, Ellis was born in 1941. He became nationally known as a staunch prison reformer and advocate of the non-traditional approach to the “criminal punishment system” Ellis’ take on the criminal justice system. Ellis was a Black Panther and served 25 years in prison- being one of the last people to remain in Attica after its famed rebellion. Back in 1979, Ellis was one of a small group of incarcerated men who berthed the Seven Neighborhood Study, a project that gave spotlight to the phenomenon of New York State prisons being filled up disproportionately by Black and Latino men from just seven neighborhoods in New York City.

Ellis, founder of the nonprofit Center for Nuleadership On Urban Solutions was perhaps most famous for his distinctive, throaty voice every Saturday mid-afternoon on the radio show “On The Count”, a popular weekly radio show on WBAI that prides itself on being the city’s only show about, for, and produced by people who were formerly incarcerated.

However, Ellis had not personally been on air since late 2013. Fiercely private in his personal affairs, Ellis had been silently suffering from a long bout with chronic conditions, suffered since his time at Attica, which frequently sent him to and from hospitals.

Ellis earned his undergraduate degree and post-graduate degree as a theologian. Ellis was considered by many professionals and advocates working in and out of New York criminal justice system, as a rare, credible and legitimate appraiser of its dollar for dollar value. So much so that several political luminaries, like former Governor NYS Eliot Spitzer and former US President George W. Bush’s domestic policy advisor,continued to tap Ellis for his expertise to serve in consultant and advisory roles.

In, 2011, Harvard University’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice recognized Ellis’s life long commitment to reforming America’s punishing criminal justice system.

Ellis’ passing comes in the midst of efforts by his colleagues to edify his non-traditional approach to criminal punishment system in the form of The Eddie Ellis Academy for Human Justice."

More information http:// BSEC.org
http://www.centerfornuleadership.org/

The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture (BSEC) is a congregation of individuals and families who choose to emphasize personal growth and social progress as high on their list of priorities.
We are a community of communities, attracting good people from all traditions, backgrounds, races, family configurations and sexual orientations.
All are welcome to our Sunday morning platforms (11AM, except for summer).
Sunday School:
Our Ethics for Children program provides a fun, focused learning environment for kids to explore topics that foster empathy, respect and a deeper understanding of self and others. These include: our relationship to the natural world, the diversity of world religions and philosophies, social justice and action, and peaceful problem solving.
The goal of Ethics for Children is to provide children with skills and knowledge to help them make ethical choices and learn to respect the inherent worth of every human being. We do not impose a fixed set of values or beliefs. Rather, we encourage children to respect and learn about themselves and their environment and to examine how their own ideas and actions impact the greater world.

Our historical building is available for rental for weddings and other events.
We are located at 53 Prospect Park West
​Brooklyn, NY 11215

http://bsec.org
Chris Hedges speaking at the Brooklyn Society For Ethical Culture Charley Horwitz Platform. "The Global Culture of Violence: What Is The Path to Peace and Justice? Sept. 28, 2014.
About Chris Hedges from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hedges) Christopher Lynn "Chris" Hedges (born September 18, 1956) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist specializing in international warfare, religion and politics. Hedges is also known as the best-selling author of several books including War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002)—a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction—Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (2009), Death of the Liberal Class (2010) and his most recent New York Times best seller, written with the cartoonist Joe Sacco, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (2012).

Hedges is currently a columnist for the progressive news and commentary website Truthdig,[1][2] a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City,[3] and a contributing author for OpEdNews.[4] He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than fifty countries, and has worked for the Christian Science Monitor, NPR, the Dallas Morning News, and the New York Times,[5] where he was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years (1990–2005).

In 2002, Hedges was part of a group of eight reporters at the New York Times awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the paper's coverage of global terrorism. He also received the Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism in 2002.[6] He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, Princeton University[5] and the University of Toronto. He currently teaches prisoners at a maximum-security prison in New Jersey.[6] He writes a weekly column on Mondays for Truthdig and authored what the New York Times described as "a call to arms" for the first issue of the Occupied Wall Street Journal, a newspaper associated with the Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park, New York City. He is a political activist and describes himself as a socialist.[7][8][9]

The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture (BSEC) is a congregation of individuals and families who choose to emphasize personal growth and social progress as high on their list of priorities.
We are a community of communities, attracting good people from all traditions, backgrounds, races, family configurations and sexual orientations.
All are welcome to our Sunday morning platforms (11AM, except for summer).
Sunday School:
Our Ethics for Children program provides a fun, focused learning environment for kids to explore topics that foster empathy, respect and a deeper understanding of self and others. These include: our relationship to the natural world, the diversity of world religions and philosophies, social justice and action, and peaceful problem solving.
The goal of Ethics for Children is to provide children with skills and knowledge to help them make ethical choices and learn to respect the inherent worth of every human being. We do not impose a fixed set of values or beliefs. Rather, we encourage children to respect and learn about themselves and their environment and to examine how their own ideas and actions impact the greater world.

Our historical building is available for rental for weddings and other events.
We are located at 53 Prospect Park West
​Brooklyn, NY 11215