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Want to talk to your kids about race? Have questions? Join other families with children birth to 8 years who live or work in Cambridge for learning and discussion.

Want to talk to your kids about race? Have questions? Join other families with children birth to 8 years who live or work in Cambridge for learning and discussion.

Want to talk to your kids about race? Have questions? Join other families with children birth to 8 years who live or work in Cambridge for learning and discussion.

Is King Philip’s War really part of the past? Four Indigenous speakers tell us that it’s still deeply present. People who are not Indigenous often think of Metacom’s Resistance – more commonly known as King Philip’s War – if they know of it - as part of a distant past. If we have read children’s stories of an idealized colonial life, or educated with traditional textbooks, we might think of the war as a single violent chapter in an otherwise quaint, albeit colorful, history, with colonial heroes bravely conquering their enemies. Historical markers dotting the New England countryside, especially in Massachusetts, reinforce this idea: it was brutal, but the colonists emerged victorious, and in any event it was long ago – nothing to do with life today. For Indigenous communities, the past is not so easily left behind – and nor should it be for non-Indigenous people. We all live today with its aftermath. King Philip’s War continues to shape daily life, experience, and memory. Panelists include: Hartman Deetz, Mashpee Wampanoag Brad Lopes, Aquinnah Wampanoag Brittney Walley, Hassanamisco Nipmuc Elizabeth Solomon, Massachusett at Ponkapoag, moderator On the eve of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, this panel invites audiences to grapple with a foundational war of Indigenous resistance on its 350th anniversary - and to see that it is not past, but deeply present, for us all.

Join us for a discussion with 5 Black men working restoratively in different contexts: at home with family, through meditation and yoga, on the sports field, in business, and in the courts providing health and mental wellness. How and why have these men chosen to create a Restorative climate inside institutions that have a history of violence against Black men and what tools are they using to keep the fire for this practice alive outside of the Talking Circle? Panelists include Sam Williams, a yogi, professor and healer; Damon Banks, a Social Worker and Chief Probation Officer; Omo Moses, the CEO of Math Talk and the author of The White Peril; Herman Banks, an educator and consultant; and Vinson Givans, a mitigation manager and football coach. The conversation will be moderated by Indi Wit The Tea, a journalist and media personality. This event is cosponsored by Cambridge Public Library.

Join us as we celebrate the official acceptance of the Cambridge-Yerevan Sister City Association Records into the Cambridge Public Library’s Archives and Special Collections. Learn about the collection and three significant objects given by Yerevan to the city of Cambridge with guest speaker, Gary Lind-Sinanian, Collections Curator of the Armenian Museum of America. We’ll be treated to a selection of traditional Armenian music sung by a local student. A sampling of hors d’oeuvres and Eastern Armenian desserts will be served following the program.

This event was rescheduled from May 22 and will now take place on May 28. The new king Charles II sent royal commissioners to New England in 1664 in order to pressure colonists into compliance with his metropolitan agenda. When these royal commissioners tried to claim full authority over local courts and militias, Cambridge inhabitants were among the first to act in defiance. Their grassroots petition campaign drew on the experience of the English civil wars and pointed the way forward to the American Revolution. Adrian Chastain Weimer is a Professor of History at Providence College and is currently a Long-term Fellow at the John Carter Brown Library. She is the author of A Constitutional Culture: New England and the Struggle against Arbitrary Rule in the Restoration Empire (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023) and Martyrs' Mirror: Persecution and Holiness in Early New England (Oxford University Press, 2011).

Harvard Book Store, the Harvard University Division of Science, the Harvard Library, and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Dr. Anjana Khatwa—award-winning earth scientist, TV presenter, and advocate for diversity in the geosciences and nature—for a discussion of her book The Whispers of Rock: The Stories That Stone Tells About Our World and Our Lives, a 2025 New Scientist Best Book of the Year. Registration is required.

What happens when mental illness meets homelessness and there’s nowhere to turn? What does healthcare look like when you’re sleeping outside, alone, and invisible? Join NAMI Cambridge/Middlesex and the Cambridge Public Library for an unflinching look at healthcare on the margins as Dr. Jim O’Connell, founding physician and President of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP) shares stories, insights, and hard truths from a lifetime spent caring for patients—not in pristine clinics but in shelters, on sidewalks, and under bridges. Moderated by Dr. Rich Parker, this one-night event will explore the barriers so many in our community face when mental illness goes untreated, housing is out of reach, and support feels out of sight. Cosponsored by Cambridge Public Library. Registration is required.

Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Thomas Levenson—professor of science writing at MIT and author of several books, including So Very Small and Einstein in Berlin—for a discussion of his new book, A Pox on Fools: The True Believers, Grifters, and Cynics Who Convinced Us to Reject Vaccines. Registration is required.