Just down the street from The Embrace monument and our new building in Downtown Crossing, we celebrated 1965 Freedom Plaza Honoree José Massó III and the 51st year of his radio show, ¡Con Salsa!, with the help of legendary orchestra El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico.
Downtown is the heart of the city. There is a photograph that still circulates across Boston social media of three young men, including Hip-Hop pioneer Rusty Pendleton, standing downtown with a boombox and dressed in the unmistakable uniform of the 1980s Hip-Hop generation. It captures the downtown I remember
Eight dollars is almost four rides on the T and barely enough to buy a Happy Meal at McDonald’s. It’s also the number the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston put on paper a decade ago when it measured the median net worth of a U.S.-born Black Bostonian.
Eight dollars, full stop.
Juneteenth has passed, but our celebration of Black culture doesn’t end there.
June also marks Black Music Month, first recognized under President Carter in 1979 to commemorate the multitude of ways Black music has shaped American life—its influence on popular genres like rock and roll and pop, its innovation and expression through hip hop culture, and its raw, radical messaging in the hands of truth-tellers like Billie Holiday.
On Saturday at Faneuil Hall, Embrace President and CEO Imari Paris Jeffries, Ph.D., sat down with Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of Between the World and Me, The Message, and Black Panther, for an honest accounting of America’s first 250 years and a critical discussion about its next 250.
A fireside chat with award‑winning writer and journalist Ta‑Nehisi Coates and Dr. Imari Paris Jeffries, president and CEO of Embrace Boston, reflecting on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, Boston’s revolutionary legacy, and realizing the promises of the Revolution today.
Juneteenth has passed, but our celebration of Black culture doesn’t end there.
June also marks Black Music Month, first recognized under President Carter in 1979 to commemorate the multitude of ways Black music has shaped American life—its influence on popular genres like rock and roll and pop, its innovation and expression through hip hop culture, and its raw, radical messaging in the hands of truth-tellers like Billie Holiday.
For Twin Cities residents, the upheaval is just the latest trauma to hit Minneapolis and St. Paul, which also witnessed and protested the murders of Philando Castile and George Floyd in the last 10 years.
That’s why one, a father of two, refuses to be silent—both in calling out injustice and creating the community he wants for himself and his family—not matter what it costs.
Marcus Board Jr., Ph.D. grew up knowing there was something deeply wrong with the country he lived in, but also that speaking out only got him into more trouble. So, he “embraced the trouble.”
With the Oscars behind us, it’s clear: awards season isn’t just about who wins, it’s about who gets protected, whose dignity is safeguarded, and whose presence is taken seriously. For BAFTA, this year’s ceremony offered a stark contrast, one that, if someone were deliberately scripting how not to build a sense of belonging, couldn’t have been better executed
