ClassACT has enlisted a team from Open Progress/Vote.org (a non-partisan effort devoted to getting out the vote) to train us, the "ClassACT Text Troop," to utilize “text banking” to reach out to  people of color and to young voters in general, to provide them with the information they need to register, vote by mail, or vote in person. Classmates who have already done the training and who are using this platform say it is effective, fun, and easy to understand. Open Progress also has a great support team. So if you know how to email, you can do it.

Hitler. Mussolini. Hirohito. Totalitarian dictators whose names and ideologies are trapped in the pages of 20^th century history lessons – or are they? Is it possible their ideas and policies are taking root in America right now, at a frighteningly rapid pace?

Authoritarianism, illiberalism, nationalism, fascism: these words appear with alarming frequency in editorials, analyses, and popular articles in 2020. What are the shades of meaning among them? How do they play out in the politics of our time? What can we learn from recent history to help us understand and combat a darker future than many would wish to see?

Moderator A'Lelia Bundles ’74, award-winning journalist, writer and historian, will lead our outstanding panelists William Kristol ’73, political analyst; Nadine Strossen ’72, J.D. ’75, the first female President of the ACLU; and Dr. Chad Williams, RI ’17, Chair of African and African American Studies, Brandeis University, in a wide-ranging and provocative conversation.

Join us October 20 for this eye-opening discussion of fascism and its very real presence in our country’s past, present, and possibly its future.

COVID-19 led to school closings across the country in March. Here we are, months later, with more chaos and uncertainty, and a variety of modes of learning from which parents and students must choose: all remote, all in-person and hybrid. Which parents are choosing to keep their children home? Who is sending their children back? What do family income and race have to do with the decisions? Can the gap between the privileged and the disadvantaged get any greater? What can we do to make positive impact as a nation? As individuals?

Moderator Rebecca Miller Sykes ’73, former President of the Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation and former Associate Head of Phillips Academy (Andover), will lead a panel of individuals uniquely positioned to observe and affect the future: John B. King, Jr. ‘96, President and CEO of The Education Trust, Harvard Overseer and former U.S. Secretary of Education in the Obama Administration; Nick Melvoin ’04, Board Member of the L.A. Unified School District; and Angela McEwen Sims, Principal of the Lenart Elementary Regional Gifted Center (Chicago).

Join us November 17 for this conversation about schooling in the time of COVID and what we can do to re-set the course.