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About this event

Join the Leventhal Map and Education Center with a panel of invited guests for a roundtable discussion on narratives of environmental justice. The roundtable will discuss how investigating historical and present-day patterns of urban inequality, and documenting these patterns through narrative and visual works, bring an important perspective to bear on efforts for climate justice organizing.

This event will be held in person in the Commonwealth Salon, Central Library. We invite you to visit the Map Center’s current exhibition, More or Less in Common: Environment and Justice in the Human Landscape, before the discussion.

For this roundtable, we’re thrilled to be joined by:

Dr. Tracy Corley, Director of Research and Partnerships at Conservation Law Foundation, thrives on bringing people together to tackle the complex issues that drive climate action and environmental justice. With communities across New England, she co-facilitates action research that aims to transform policies and practices to advance environmental justice. She led the authorship of From Transactional to Transformative: The Case for Equity in Gateway City Transit-Oriented Development and, with GBH, co-produced a companion webinar series on equitable development. Dr. Corley lectures part-time at Northeastern University, is a Grist Fixer, and is a Biden-administration appointee to the Social and Community Science subcommittee of the EPA’s Board of Scientific Councilors (BOSC).

Professor Chad Montrie of the UMass Lowell History Department teaches courses on American Environmental History, Food in American History, Radicalism in American History, Malcolm X, Historical Methods, and other topics. He is also the author of five books, including Whiteness in Plain View: A History of Racial Exclusion in Minnesota (2022), The Myth of Silent Spring: Rethinking the Origins of American Environmentalism (2018), and To Save the Land and People: A History of Opposition to Surface Coal Mining in Appalachia (2003). Most recently, he was selected for a Fulbright Canada Research Chair at the University of Calgary, 2022-23.

Dr. Karilyn Crockett is the author of People before Highways: Boston Activists, Urban Planners, and a New Movement for City Making (2018) and co-founder of Multicultural Youth Tour of What’s Now (MYTOWN), an award winning, Boston-based, educational non-profit organization. Karilyn holds a PhD from the American Studies program at Yale University, a Master of Science in Geography from the London School of Economics, and a Master of Arts and Religion from Yale Divinity School. She holds a faculty appointment as professor of urban history, public policy and planning in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies & Planning and is currently leading the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce in a partnership with the Boston Federal Reserve Bank to revisit the 2015 Color of Wealth report on closing the racial wealth gap. Previously, she served as the first Chief Equity Officer, the Director of Economic Policy and Research, and Director of Small Business Development for the City of Boston.

Presented as part of Climate Preparedness Week 2022.