Common Ground

Mothers of the Movement: Gwen Carr & Valerie Bell

Weekly conversations with activists, social justice practitioners, and changemakers

 

1 p.m. Eastern / 10 a.m. Pacific

Join us for a conversation with the Mothers of the Movement to end police violence, in partnership with Theater of War.

A poster for 10/15 Mothers of the Movement Event with Theater of War

Please join us for our seventh installation of Common Ground, in partnership with Theater of War Productions, when we will be joined by Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner and author of This Stops Today: Eric Garner’s Mother Seeks Justice After Losing Her Son, and Valerie Bell, mother of Sean Bell and author of Just 23: Thoughts from a Mother in Spoken Word by Kisha Walker for a conversation on their tireless work as Mothers of the Movement to end police violence. This event will be cohosted by Dominic Dupont and Bryan Doerries of Theater of War Productions, and will open with a reading from 2020 National Student Poet Manasi Garg, who will read her poem “For Tamir Rice.”

“My son was murdered in 2014. George Floyd was murdered in 2020. Those were not the only two murders that happened. Every time that you hear another Black unarmed man being killed, shot in the back, or banged up against the sidewalk, or tased to death, you say, ‘Oh my God, that’s my son again.’” –Gwen Carr

“I couldn’t watch the video. I said to myself ‘here we go again.’” –Valerie Bell

About this event

The event Zoom link will be distributed and available to registered attendees starting 2 days prior to the event.

We will open the discussion to the audience, co-facilitated by Bryan Doerries and Dominic Dupont. During the discussion, please raise your hand using the button at the bottom center of the screen. If called upon, you will be promoted to speak and you will be visible and heard by the entire audience for the duration of your comments. If you would prefer not to be seen, please disable your video when entering the event.

The Rail has a tradition of ending our conversations with a poetry reading, and we’re fortunate to have Manasi Garg reading.

Manasi Garg

A photograph of Manasi Garg
Manasi Garg is a rising senior at Saratoga High School. For her, poetry is a way to translate trauma into meaning, to breathe life into untold stories and unspeakable thoughts. Her work explores immigration, ancestry, and girlhood.

❤️ 🌈 We'd like to thank the The Terra Foundation for American Art for making these daily conversations possible, and for their support of our growing archive.