Freedom Dreams in America
Date and Time
Join us for a free public conversation.
The Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture and The Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University welcome you back to The Embrace for another season of public conversations on democracy, justice, memory, and values.
The series kicks off on Wednesday, May 14, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. and will be followed by a free public dinner and reception. This event will be co-hosted by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
Professor Peniel E. Joseph and Professor Danielle S. Allen will explore the meaning of “Freedom Dreams in America” and discuss the importance of using our imagination as a tool for individual and collective liberation. Brandon M. Terry, the John Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University will introduce the event. Seating will be provided. Stay for a book signing with the speakers!
What does it mean to dream of freedom in a time of deep division—and how can we turn those dreams into a new reality? At this special conversation at The Embrace, Danielle Allen, a leading political theorist, classicist, and former Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate, and Peniel Joseph, a prominent historian of the Black freedom struggle, will invite us to think boldly and critically with them about the past, present, and future of American democracy. What would it mean to create a democracy built not on fear and exclusion, but on real power-sharing and mutual recognition? How can freedom be reimagined—not just as the absence of oppression, but as the hard, collective work of building a society where dignity and opportunity are widely shared? And at a time of rising cynicism, how should we think about democracy itself—its promises, its failures, and its possibilities? This conversation will be a space for hope, doubt, imagination, and serious reckoning with the question of how we might still rethink the traditions we have inherited in order to shape the future together.
Peniel Emmaus Joseph is the Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values, founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, and Distinguished Service Leadership Professor and professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. His research, teaching, and writing reside at the intersection of race, democracy, civil, and human rights at the local, national, and global levels. In 2022 he was named the grand prize winner of the Hamilton Book Award, the University of Texas at Austin’s highest research honor, for his book, The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. This book served as the inspiration for the award-winning eight-part National Geographic series, “MLK/X.” Joseph frequently comments on race, civil rights, and democracy in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and is a contributor to NPR, C-SPAN, CNN, and the PBS NewsHour on issues related to American history and democracy. He is an internationally recognized scholar, author, speaker, and editor of eight award-winning books. His most recent, Freedom Season: How 1963 Transformed America’s Civil Rights Revolution, brings to life the dramatic year when James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr., and a generation of activists reshaped the fight for freedom, influenced President John F. Kennedy and his approach on civil rights, and changed the nation’s destiny.
Danielle S. Allen is one of Harvard’s esteemed “University Professors,” and a prolific political theorist and classicist who has devoted her career in academia and beyond to exploring the foundations of democracy and the question of justice. Her work, including Justice By Means of Democracy and Our Declaration, reimagines key democratic texts and ideals in ways meant to confront our contemporary struggles. A former gubernatorial candidate in Massachusetts, Allen is a tireless advocate for civic engagement and participation. Her work reminds us of our individual and collective responsibilities in creating and protecting and strengthening a more democratic future. In her most recent book, Justice by Means of Democracy, she offers a bold, inspiring vision for rebuilding democracy through real equality, power-sharing, and a commitment to embracing difference without domination.
RSVP is encouraged and will be required to attend reception. This event is free and open to the public, so we hope to see you there!