Anne Hawley is the former director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, MA and a Spring 2016 Fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics. Read here for an abridged excerpt of the interview: Harvard Political Review: I would like to start talking about a really recent development. The mayor of Boston has introduced … Read more
Bernie Sanders has been called many things: a socialist, an “elderly dyspeptic Bilbo Baggins,” and most recently—in the words of climate change activist and Sanders supporter Bill McKibben—a “hurricane.” Fittingly, on October 3, more than 26,000 Bostonians flooded the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center to hear to the unconventional Democratic presidential candidate speak. Walking up to the podium, … Read more
Hours after Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards squared off against the GOP in a five-hour House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing, dozens of Harvard students and community members gathered in Adams House to show their support for the reproductive health organization. The local event, part of a national “Pink Out Day,” aimed to send … Read more
Across the country today, fast food workers are walking off the job to show their support of increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour. The economic justice campaign, known as “Fight for $15,” has been described as the “largest-ever mobilization of underpaid workers,” with rallies taking place in over 200 cities. In Boston, #WageAction supporters gathered at the Harvard Square … Read more
Updated: 12:45 p.m. April 13, 2015 On Sunday evening, members of the group Divest Harvard launched a mass sit-in around Massachusetts Hall, heralding the beginning of Harvard Heat Week. By 9 p.m. over 150 students, alumni and community members surrounded the office of Drew Faust, calling for Harvard to divest its $35.9 billion endowment of fossil fuels. The action … Read more
Three North Korean defectors addressed Harvard students at the Fong Auditorium last Tuesday, sharing their personal stories of acclimatizing to life outside their birth country. The trio, now North Korean human rights activists, also shed light on their efforts to ameliorate human rights violations in the country. The event was facilitated by Harvard Human Rights in North Korea (HRiNK) and Woorihana, … Read more
Brandon Stanton’s blog, Humans of New York (HONY), started out as an unassuming personal project to capture New York’s larger-than-life characters. Five years later, Stanton has garnered 12 million viewers, launched a United Nations-sponsored photography tour and snagged a meeting with President Obama. On his recent visit to Harvard University, HPR journalist Mattea Mrkusic sat down with Stanton to discuss his personal … Read more
Thirty-four Harvard students staged a sit-in at Harvard University today, demanding that Harvard completely divest its endowment of the top 200 publicly traded fossil fuel companies. The peaceful protest action comes after Harvard University invested tens of millions of dollars in the fossil fuel industry this January. Shortly after 10:00 a.m. on Thursday morning, members of the … Read more
On December 4, thousands of protestors flooded the streets downtown Boston to protest against the non-indictment of Daniel Pantaleo, a white police officer who choked unarmed black man, Eric Garner to death. Throughout the evening, activists staged multiple “die-in” demonstrations, temporarily disrupting traffic. Similar demonstrations have been seen in cities across the nation, such as New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta and San Francisco. … Read more
Grendel’s Den, a Harvard Square staple, has a history all its own. Opened in 1971, the restaurant chugged along faithfully at first, under the careful watch of Herbert and Sue Kuezler. Eventually, they got tired of one particularly burdensome Massachusetts state law: under I.XX.138.16c, the Holy Cross Armenian Catholic Church, their next-door neighbor, had veto power over … Read more