Freedom Forum 2024
HANDS ACROSS OUR COMMUNITIES:
HEROES STORIES FOR OUR TIME
As the Long Island representative of a statewide initiative launched by the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy in 2017, Herstory Writers Network, our social justice fellows, and the students of Wyandanch High School invited the community to participate in an afternoon of listening, music and dance and collective meditation on what might happen if our words had the power to change hearts, minds, and policies one story at at time.
Watch Our Video
With the generous support from Suffolk County’s Office of Cultural Affairs, Herstory Writers Network was able to build exponentially on the six Freedom Forums that our organization has developed since having been chosen to represent Long Island in a statewide initiative to use literature to examine the cracks in the liberty bell. On September 15, 2024, for the fourth year in a row, it took place in the Wyandanch Plaza overlooking the railroad station. With attendance of about 100 people in person, as well as 110 views of the livestream during and after the event...
Community Voices for an Equitable Earth
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What are the stories the world needs to hear as we look at environmental justice through the lens of community equity, well- being and health?
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Sunday, October 10, 2021 @ 4PM-6PM
Wyandanch Plaza, Wyandanch, NY
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In a full-length film by 6-Time Emmy Nominee Waldo Cabrera, we are taken into a world where the cry for racial and environmental justice rises up with each word. In the interval between the coming of trains, in the shadow of the Wyandanch railroad station, Herstory and community writers interweave their stories. Narratives cry out for an equitable earth, while exposing the injustice of toxic dumping in minority neighborhoods, youth share their despair about inheriting a declining landscape and health disparities are exposed, all in an effort towards change and hope. Hear business owners, health care workers, school teachers, high school students, and court advocates raise their voices, while an engaging chorus punctuates their messages.
“The earth is moaning, groaning, waiting for the answer…” sings the Greek Chorus at the start of this remarkable event staged by Renee Joshua-Porter, narrator of the audio books Zora Neale Hurston: Stories and Novels, I, Too, Sing America: Three Centuries of African American Poetry, and Only Passing Through: The Story of Sojourner Truth, and author of Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful.
This project was conceived and developed by Herstory’s founder and director, Erika Duncan and the Herstory team, directed and developed by Renee Joshua-Porter and the Black, Hispanic and intergenerational writers she gathered around her, in partnership with the Babylon Citizens Council on the Arts (BACCA), and the Wyandanch Plaza Association. Special thanks for generous funding from Suffolk County Department of Economic Development, Office of Film and Cultural Affairs, Humanities NY, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts. Other partners include: Peconic Land Trust, OLA of Eastern Long Island, Canio’s Books, Suffolk County Office of Women’s Services, and Long Beach Latino Civic Association.
Herstory has been the representative of a statewide Freedom Forum movement, initiated in 2018 at Federal Hall through the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy.
Terror Firma
We invite you to watch our video recording of story shapers from the Wyandanch community and beyond.
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Voices from the community share narratives from their lives and the impact and triumph of living on "uneven" land. Intertwined through the quilt of stories are Indigenous, African and Latinx drums, punctuated by a chorus of acapella voices. In rhythm they beat back the terror inflicted on the terra (land) and its people.
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A Herstory production presented by Renee Joshua-Porter.
Partnerships for this project include...
This program is made possible by a special grant from Humanities New York and Suffolk County Office of Cultural Affairs (SCOCA).
Suffolk County Office of Women's Services