Free Day: Juneteenth

DJ KNSZWRTH is gender blending, Afrocentric open-format DJ from Boston. As an ‘Energy Modulator’, his style invites you to embark on a cultural and rhythmic celebration of community through music, dance, and shared joy.

Amanda Shea is a renowned spoken word and multidisciplinary artist, educator, mentor, activist, publicist, power networker, and mother. She knows, loves, and uplifts artists all over Greater Boston across New England to the DMV, Atlanta, Chicago . . . and beyond. Amanda is a community heartbeat. She's hosted BAMSFest and countless poetry events; she facilitates youth workshops for spoken word poetry, visual arts, and public speaking; she is a publicist for hip hop artist Brandie Blaze; she has managed and supported countless other artists in Boston. Last year, she was named among WBUR The ARTery's 25 artists of color transforming the cultural landscape. To top all of that_ she co-founded and curated five iterations of Activating ARTivism, a community festival to amplify POC through art, activism, and resistance. This event has featured artists from Boston, Brockton, Chicago, Virginia, D.C., and more. Importantly, it has raised awareness and provided support for local nonprofits like Mission Safe, The New England Innocence Project, Trans Resistance MA, The Simple Good (Chicago), and the LDB Peace Institute. Amanda is versed in running a community event, putting together an impactful, inclusive lineup of artists, and bringing people together.

Wylsner Bastien is a musician, producer, engineer, arranger, poet, and artist. He's had the pleasure of teaching Music theory at Bunker Hill Community College’s music club. While studying there, he shifted his life’s focus to music. After his departure from Bunker Hill, he went on to be the Jazz Ensemble Director for his ensembles at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Music has been in his family for generations and is something he immerses himself in every day. He’s been in multiple bands, performed with many artists around Boston, and much more. Wylsner is a music director and teaching artist and believes that music education is something that can help us all grow.

Rob Stull is a luminary, accomplished artist, storyteller, curator, and teacher from Boston, Massachusetts. He has worked professionally for 30-plus years in the comic book, advertising, and entertainment industries. His projects include Spider-Man Adventures, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Marvel vs Capcom, Iron Man, Uncanny X-Men, X-Force, Wolverine, Nightwing, 52, Firestorm, and more. He has been published by Marvel, DC, Image Comics, Top Cow Productions, Chaos Comics, Crusade, Dark Horse Comics, Aspen, Lion Forge, and others. Stull was the first African-American artist-in-residence at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where his work was featured in the ground-breaking exhibition Writing The Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation. He co-developed The Mural Project, a multi-part project highlighting the intergenerational connections and importance of youth participation in cultivating Hip-Hop culture.

Photo courtesy of JayPix Belmar.

Aziza Robinson-Goodnight is an avid artist, educator, activist, entrepreneur, and community organizer committed to shaping, reenergizing, and creating systemic, sustainable changes. The daughter of Paul Goodnight, famed painter and entrepreneur best known for his vibrant depictions of Black culture around the world, and employee of the family-owned business Color Circle Art Publishing Inc. that was founded 25 years ago. Aziza was born into the arts, having grown up in the Piano Factory, a historical art space well noted for its artist living spaces and arts advocacy. Boston has been the base for her activism from serving as Chair of the upcoming Frederick Douglass Sculpture Project (2011-Present) to sitting on the executive board of the Boston Branch NAACP as the Chair of the ACT-SO Committee (2012-2016). She has spent the last year (2017-2018) after a ten-year separation from working in the school system to work as the Arts and Ethics to all 220 students at Davis Leadership Academy as well as the Director of Afterschool programs and Enrichment. Learning the Beauty and power of young Black children has empowered her to work towards the advancement and development of our cultural gems, Our youth. She is also the managing partner of ‘Gallery-Z’ on Dudley which is both an art gallery and community teaching space, where young people are at the heart of all decisions. Aziza’s lifelong understanding of being a person of color and the power of the arts to create change pushes her to continue to serve and believe in a beautiful future.

Carl Chandler is a Generational Boston resident, grandfather, educator, and executive producer of Reckoning in Boston. Early in life, he did not want to be a full participant in the so-called ‘American dream’ since he felt that his people were not respected or embraced by America. As a consequence, he feels his education was incomplete. He went on to teach lectures and presentations on Indigenous culture in southern New England and when his youngest daughter went away to college, he struggled with what to do next. He found the Clemente Course in the Humanities and there, he received a first-rate education and a new direction in his life. He went on to become the producer of the documentary film Reckoning in Boston and continued his education at Harvard University.

James Rutenbeck is a two-time recipient of the Alfred I.du Pont Columbia Journalism Award for his work as episodic producer of the PBS series, Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? (2008), about health disparities in the U.S., and Class of ’27 (2016), which he executive produced, directed, and edited. Class of ’27, which explores the lives of young children in three rural American communities, aired on the World Channel series America Reframed and streams as Editor’s Pick at The Atlantic. James’ films have screened at Cinema du Reel, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery, the Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival, and the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar. His feature film Scenes from a Parish, about cultural change at a working-class Catholic parish, aired on Independent Lens in 2009. A Reckoning in Boston premiered at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in 2021 and has been screened at many festivals, including Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival, where it won Best Feature Documentary. The Sundance Documentary Fund, LEF Moving Image Fund, Southern Humanities Media Fund, and Corporation for Public Broadcasting have supported James’ films. Editing credits include God in America, Zoot Suit Riots, Jimmy Carter, and Roberto Clemente for the PBS series American Experience and American Denial and Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness for Independent Lens. James was a 2019-20 Fellow at the Film Study Center at Harvard University and a 2021 Poynter Fellow at Yale University.

Movie Synopsis Kafi Dixon and Carl Chandler enrolled in a rigorous night course in the humanities at a community center in their Boston neighborhood of Dorchester. Kafi, 44, sharp, witty, and restless, dropped out of school at 15. She had her first baby a year later and two more soon after. Carl, 65, who lives on a small pension and disability payment in one of Boston’s most dangerous neighborhoods, began the class with a keen interest in learning but little faith in educational institutions. White suburban filmmaker James Rutenbeck came to Dorchester to document the students’ engagement with the Clemente Course in the Humanities. The Clemente Course is taught in 34 sites across the U.S.--to those who have experienced homelessness, transitioned out of incarceration, or faced barriers to a college education. The Clemente mission is to foster critical thinking through deep engagement with history, literature, philosophy, and art history. Clemente students, its proponents assert, become fuller and freer citizens. But over time James is forced to come to terms with a flawed film premise and his own complicity in racist structures. As he spends time with Carl and Kafi, he’s awakened to the violence, racism, and gentrification that threaten their very place in the city. Troubled by his failure to bring the film together, he spends more time listening than filming and enlists Kafi and Carl as collaborators- producers with a share in the film revenues. Five years on, despite many obstacles, Kafi and Carl arrive at surprising new places in their lives, and following their lead, James does too.