Hugh Taft-Morales Leader, Philadelphia Ethical Society In two nonconsecutive terms as mayor of Bogota, Columbia, starting in 1995, Antanas Mockus used non-traditional cultural and creative methods to induce positive social change. From hiring mimes to improve crosswalk safety to melting down guns to make baby spoons, Mockus motivated and unified his constituents. Today, when the [...]

Casarae Abdul-Ghani Assistant Professor of English, Temple University Abdul-Ghani will explore the legacy of 1960s civil unrest as captured by the contemporaneous Black Arts Movement (BAM) in drama, fiction, and poetry. BAM forged new conversations about the union of art, activism, and social justice; it also centralized the African American perspective in narrative. In the [...]

Hugh Taft-Morales Leader, Philadelphia Ethical Society After the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln hoped to bind the nation’s wounds. “Let ’em up easy,” he told the Union Army, trying to discourage retribution. But following the President’s assassination, the federal government, in alliance with formerly enslaved people, radically reconstructed the South, enfranchising and electing Black Americans. Then [...]

From the all AEU Program recorded on January 30, 2022 Special guest Dennis D. Parker of the National Center for Law and Economic Justice presents a speech that civil rights' icon W.E.B. Du Bois gave to the NYSEC in 1949. Join here online at the scheduled time: tiny.cc/pesprograms

Hugh Taft-Morales Leader, Philadelphia Ethical Society What is forgiveness? How should humanists approach forgiveness so that it elevates our quality of life and strengthens our commitment to ethical living? Felix Adler wrote that “to forgive is not to forget—quite the contrary. To forgive is to remember the past action, but to remember it as belonging [...]

Marisa Fuentes Rutgers University Historical and contemporary records are consistently unreliable for understanding Black lives in precarity. Historian Marisa Fuentes will consider the ethics of historical research into vulnerable subjects by analyzing a document from the Barbados colonial slave archives alongside the police investigation into the killing of Breonna Taylor. She also will offer ethical [...]

Hugh Taft-Morales Leader, Philadelphia Ethical Society Animals have long supported human life, from their non-consensual role in our diets to their loving place in our homes. Humans often go to great lengths to care for them: rescuing wild animals in distress or feeding feral ones. Hugh will share two stories—one about dogs and one about [...]

Dorothy Roberts University of Pennsylvania Acclaimed scholar Dorothy Roberts exposes the foundational racism of the child welfare system. Roberts argues it is a “family policing system” designed to put Black families under intense state surveillance and regulation, driving many Black children into juvenile detention and imprisonment. She calls for both dismantling this system and reimagining how to [...]

Hugh Taft-Morales Leader, Philadelphia Ethical Society The French call it “joie de vivre,” a term that first appears in the pantheistic writings of Jules Michelet. Humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers praises it as “spontaneous relaxed enjoyment” and "the quiet joy in being one's self.” We see it in photos of the giggling delight that bonded Bishop [...]

Naomi Washington-Leapheart Villanova University Rev. Washington-Leapheart, an adjunct professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova, is a Black-queer church girl, preacher, teacher, and activist. She develops spaces of spiritual candor, disruption, reflection, transformation, and action. Washington-Leapheart will speak about how to make faith-based organizations more inclusive. Join here online at the scheduled time: tiny.cc/pesprograms