Nov. 12 Town Hall Meeting Aims to Spark Civic-Public Dialogue on Creating Compassionate Cities While Honoring Abe Lincoln

Rutgers IECME Coordinates Newark meeting, one of only 13 in U.S.

(Newark, N.J., Oct. 21, 2009) –  The 200^th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth is the impetus for a Nov. 12 “Lincoln Town Hall meeting” at the Newark Museum from 6 to 8 p.m.

The free public program, in the Billy Johnson Auditorium, is coordinated by the Rutgers Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience (IECME) with the federal Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, and civic partners from the Newark public schools and several arts and community development organizations. 

Newark is one of only 13 cities in the U.S., and the only one in New Jersey, to be selected by the Bicentennial Commission to host a town hall meeting.

“The Humane City: Race, Ethnicity, and Freedom in Urban America” will  be a “civic conversation on building compassionate cities, where the challenges of social justice are confronted daily on the streets, in the schools, and along the halls of power,” according to Mark Krasovic, Geraldine R. Dodge Postdoctoral Fellow at IECME. IECME director, Clement Price, calls the Town Hall Meeting a way to “acknowledge Lincoln's long shadow over American history and culture” as well as an “opportunity for the University to reclaim the high ground for what a town hall meeting is supposed to look like, and how citizens are supposed to behave at such an assemblage.”

 Historian James O. Horton of George Washington University will moderate a panel discussion that examines whether urban America is “poised to continue building on Lincoln's legacy of freedom and equality of opportunity,” or has become “one of the least likely places to find Lincoln's legacy alive. Horton is a member of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and a Newark native. 

Other panelists include Eric Foner, Columbia University; Nancy Foner, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York; Jeff Johnson, award-winning journalist, social activist and political commentator;  Pedro A. Noguera, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University; and Maria Vizcarrondo, who heads Newark’s Department of Child and Family Well-Being.

 

Media Contact: Carla Capizzi
973/353-5263
E-mail: capizzi@rutgers.edu