Bob Moses Conference
Fall 2025
SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 2022
Lecture I - 11:30 am - 2:00 pm EST
Lecture II - 2:30 pm - 5:00 pm EST
“Caste in the Classroom” Film Screening & Fireside Chat - 5:30pm - 7:00pm EST
11:30 am - 2:00 pm EST
Speaker Series Lecture & Discussion I
Topic: The Future of Bob Moses’s Work
Bob Moses was rightly revered for specific things he did—the voting rights work with SNCC in Mississippi, the Algebra Project, the Young People’s Project—but we shouldn’t forget that there was a broad (and evolving) vision that tied all his work together. It was rooted in a historical understanding of the political, economic, and social systems in which Black Americans have lived. In my talk, I will lay out Bob’s ideas about what these systems were and how they can be changed. I want to make it especially clear why voting and education were so closely related for him, and why, even as he touched so many individual lives, addressing systems was of paramount importance to him.
Concurrent Discussion Groups
Discussion Group #1:
Creating Legal Strategies to a Federal Right to Education
Resource Expert:

Peggy Cooper Davis
John S. R. Shad Professor of Lawyering and Ethics, Director, Experiential Learning Lab
Discussion Group #2:
“Establishing Rights of Access to Literacy and an Antiracist Education”: supporting grassroots struggles for educational justice and against the phony attacks on CRT”
Resource Expert:

Mark Rosenbaum
Robins Kaplan, Director, Opportunity Under Law
Discussion Group #3:
Building a teaching corps capable of delivering a 21st century education: How to recruit, retain and support Black educators.
Resource Expert:

Jon Rochkind
Senior Director, Policy Evaluation Research Center (PERC) Admin at Educational Testing Service (ETS)

LECTURE CLOSING REMARKS

Ben Moynihan
Interim Executive Director,
The Algebra Project
LECTURE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Dani Johnson
Founder,
Special Gathering
2:30 pm - 5:00 pm EST
Speaker Series Lecture & Discussion II
Topic: Schooling for democratic Citizenship and Schooling for 2nd Class Status Citizenship
“It is crucial for an understanding of American educational history...to recognize that within American democracy there have been classes of oppressed people and that there have been essential relationships between popular education and the politics of oppression...........”
WELCOME & INTRO

Ben Moynihan
Interim Executive Director,
The Algebra Project
CO-MODERATOR

Charles M. Payne
Henry Rutgers Distinguished Professor of African American Studies and Director of the Joseph Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Research, Faculty African American and African Studies
LECTURER

Dean James D. Anderson
Dean of the College of Education, the Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell Professor of Education, and affiliate professor of History, African American Studies, and Law at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
CO-MODERATOR

Joan T. Wynne, Ph.D.
Writer/Educator, Florida International University

Concurrent Discussion Groups
Discussion Group #1:
Artivism Show & Tell
Resource Expert:

Dr. Nettrice R. Gaskins
an African American digital artist, academic, cultural critic and advocate of STEAM fields. In her work she explores “techno-vernacular creativity” and Afrofuturism
Discussion Group #2:
Algebra Project Math Literacy
Organizing at King Open
Resource Experts:

Lynne Godfrey
Educator, Cambridge Public Schools

Ben Moynihan
Interim Executive Director,
The Algebra Project
Discussion Group #3:
Children are required to attend school. Schools are not required to educate children.
Is Homeschooling an Answer?
Resource Expert:

Alan & Michelle Shaw
Activists, Volunteers,
the Algebra Project

LECTURE CLOSING REMARKS

Cliff Freeman
Director of STEM PROGRAMS of The Young People’s Project
LECTURE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Dani Johnson
Founder,
Special Gathering

5:30pm - 7:00pm EST
“Caste in the Classroom” Film Screening & Fireside Chat
The movie explores the roots of the current poor academic outcomes for children of African descent in the history of slavery and Jim Crow. Education for liberation is a theme that underscores the film. The film can be used as an organizing tool in local communities.

Paul Parravano
Co-Director, Government and Community Relations, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Manuel J Fernandez
Interim Chief Equity Officer at Cambridge Public Schools

Janet Moses
Creator & Producer,
Caste in the Class

Moderator: Chad Milner
National Director of Technology & Communications at The Young People’s Project, Inc.

Phillip Agnew
Executive Director,
Black Men Build

SUNDAY, APRIL 10, 2022
11:30 am - 2:00 pm EST
Speaker Series Lecture & Discussion III
Topic:
The Fugitive Life of Black Teaching: A History of Pedagogy, Power, and Liberation
Throughout our history, African Americans marshaled an insurgency against American laws and violence carried out to ensure that Black people remained mis-educated. The story of that insurgency is a beacon of light as we again face the prospect of having to educate our own.
LECTURER

Jarvis R. Givens
Assistant Professor of Education, Faculty Affiliate, African and African-American Studies Harvard Graduate School of Education
CO-MODERATOR

Phillip Agnew
Executive Director,
Black Men Build
CO-MODERATOR

Cliff Freeman
Director of STEM Programs at The Young People’s Project

Concurrent Discussion Groups
Discussion Group #1:
Accelerate, Don’t Remediate: Insurgent Pathways toward College and Career Math Literacy
Resource Experts:

Dr. Gregory Budzban
Emeritus Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Nell Cobb, Ed.D
Professor Emerita, DePaul University- College of Education

Bill Crombie
Director of
Professional Development,
The Algebra Project Inc.
Discussion Group #2:
Creating a Pipeline of Black and Brown Teachers in the Boston Public Schools
Resource Expert:

Abdi M. Ali, Ed.D.
Senior Director of BPS Teacher Pipeline Programs, Office of Recruitment, Cultivation & Diversity Programs, Division of Equity, Strategy, & Opportunity Gap, Boston Public Schools
Discussion Group #3:
Teaching What Really Happened
Resource Experts:

Kathleen FitzGerald
​Teacher, Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School

Rachel R.
Williams-Giordano
Teacher, Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School

LECTURE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Dani Johnson
Founder,
Special Gathering

2:30 pm - 5:00 pm EST
Speaker Series Lecture & Discussion IV
Topic:
Bob Moses and the Ideal of Constitutional Citizenship
This is a discussion of Bob Moses’s concept of constitutional citizenship and how we can use it to pursue struggles for justice today.
LECTURER

Imani Perry
Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, faculty associate, Programs in Law and Public Affairs, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Jazz Studies
MODERATOR

Cynthia Silva Parker
Institute Interaction for Social Change

Concurrent Discussion Groups
Discussion Group #1:
The Future is Now: Black Consciousness in the World of Artificial Intelligence
Resource Expert:

Dr. Nettrice R. Gaskins
an African American digital artist, academic, cultural critic and advocate of STEAM fields. In her work she explores “techno-vernacular creativity” and Afrofuturism
Discussion Group #2:
Freedom Schools: Education for Liberation in the 21st Century
Resource Expert:

Charles M. Payne
Henry Rutgers Distinguished Professor of African American Studies and Director of the Joseph Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Research, Faculty African American and African Studies
Discussion Group #3:
Credentialing Young People to Teach Math
Resource Experts:

Maisha Moses
Executive Director of
the Young People’s Project

Cliff Freeman
Director of STEM PROGRAMS of
The Young People’s Project

Remarks and Introduction

Janet Moses
Organizer, Bob Moses Conference
Lecture Closing Remarks

Dr. Cornel West
Professor, Philosopher, Author, Activist

Acknowledgments
Thank You to Our Partners






