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On Tuesday in the Hall of Philosophy, Judy Shepard joined James Fallows to discuss the life of Shepard’s late son, Matthew Shepard, and the importance of embracing the LGBTQ community.

Shepard, advocate for LGBTQ rights and co-founder (with her husband, Dennis) of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, suffered the loss of her son, Matthew, in October 1998, when he was robbed, beaten and tied to a fence in a hate crime commited by two anti-gay men. In her New York Times bestseller, The Meaning of Matthew, Shepard addresses Matthew’s youth, his tragic murder and his legacy.

Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic and co-founder of the publication’s American Futures project, facilitated the conversation as part of Week Two’s Interfaith Lecture Series, “Common Good Change Agents.” 

What follows is an abridged version of the conversation between Fallows and Shepard. Their remarks have been condensed for clarity.

Fallows: Tell us what you think would be surprising to people who have only heard of (Matthew Shepard) as a public figure, about his life as a little boy.

Shepard: Well, I don’t know if there would be anything surprising. He was like any child you’ve seen or know. He was deeply involved in politics at the age of 7. He participated in his first campaign hanging those really annoying pamphlets on people’s doorknobs. He knew all about the candidates, who you should vote for and why. He knew who should win and who was going to win. He was pretty much right all of the time. He was acutely aware of how important elections are, for a 7-year-old. I was an election judge in our town in Wyoming, so maybe that’s where he figured that out. I don’t know. However, politics were his obsession in his short life.

He also loved the theater. He joined our local community theater at the age of 10. I think they were a little weary of having a 10-year-old be a part of their company, but everybody loved him. He took it very, very seriously and was the lead in many plays. He did a lot of college productions. He thought he could sing and dance, but he couldn’t. But, he was very good at interpreting drama and comedy.

He was empathetic. My mother told me, when he was 4, he was the most empathetic person she had ever met. He just knew by being around you if you were having a good day or a bad day. He would ask you about it, and he would listen. And he didn’t feel ever, at any age, that he needed to give advice. So, throughout his life, he was always selected by the student body to be a peer counselor — elementary, junior high and high school. Students really trusted him and looked up to him.

Fallows: Could you describe the process of his coming out, and how, now looking back on it, you think about it?

Shepard: So, I began to wonder if Matt was gay when he was 8. I had many gay friends in college and this wasn’t a new world to me. I never brought it up to him, though, because if I did, I knew he would retreat. So, I waited until he was ready to come out to himself and then when he was ready to come out to anybody else. When he was 18, a freshman in college in North Carolina, we were in Saudi Arabia because Dennis had work there, and Matt called me in the middle of the night and said, “Mom, there’s something I need to tell you.” It was about five in the morning, and he said, “I’m gay.”

There was never a question for me that, if this was him, I understood my role, that I should be educated and ready to help. I agreed to Matt that I would not tell Dennis that he was gay, but I told him anyway. And the reason I did was that Dennis is a lovely individual who sometimes says things without really thinking about them, and I didn’t want him to say something that would hurt Matt — not out of rejection but out of ignorance —  that he wouldn’t have been able to take back in such an important moment. So, I told Dennis and he said, “No, Matt just hasn’t found the right girl yet.” That’s when I said, “No, this is about Matt finding the right man.” He knew it would take him a moment to adjust because, as parents, you map out your children’s future without really knowing it because you expect it to be like yours … and now you’re in a fork in the road. You have no idea what that other road is going to look like, and we had to rely on Matt to be that guide. We were so intent on making him feel welcome and not at all like there was a question of rejection.

Fallows: From your experience, when parents who think one of their children may be gay come to you, what do you tell them?

Shepard: There’s really no blueprint because every family has their own cultural background, religion, environment. I have had kids come to me and say they leave gay publications all over the house, but their mom just keeps putting them back in their room, and they really want their mom to ask them a question. If I had done that with Matt, he would’ve just ran. They’re waiting for mom or dad to start the conversation so you really have to know the individual, child, friend or loved one. You just have to know what works best for them. And, we usually know if someone is gay, we’re just reluctant to bring it forward because we don’t know what to do when we bring it forward. The most important thing to do is make sure they know that you are accepting of them no matter what — you may not understand, but you love them no matter what.

Fallows: For teenagers now, is there a sense that the weight, pressure and trauma both on parent and child is any less than when Matt was a boy?

Shepard: It is absolutely less because it is part of public discourse now. We see the gay community pictured in positive ways in theater, in literature and on television. “Will & Grace” — I wouldn’t exactly call that ordinary, but they’re there and they are in your home. You’re inviting them into your home. So many people of influence are coming out now. The pressure is less, but that also depends on where you live and, again, your cultural environment, religious environment. So many schools now have gay-straight alliances, but some schools don’t have that. Teachers can still get fired for being gay, but the pressure, as a whole, is much less now than it was.

Fallows: Matt’s killing happened in Laramie, Wyoming. Tell us the proper way to think about Wyoming, about Laramie, as the scene of this horrific tragedy.

Shepard: Wyoming is the eighth largest in the union but the least populated with just over 500,000 people. We are 96% white, and the opportunity to see anything but straight, white, Christian, or to express something different than that is difficult. If you go to Laramie, you’ll get three answers (about Matthew Shepard’s murder). They’ll either want to talk to you about it and tell you that the town has changed; they will not want to talk about it at all; or, lastly, you’ll get the person who believes that the story is a lie and say that the rumor ruined the town’s reputation. But that’s their fault. We are one of five remaining states without hate crime laws. With this shady reputation, it is underserved because most people in Wyoming are loving and kind, but they don’t know that they know gay people. What they do know — or think they know — is the mythology, which is a lie. And it’s hard to break through that. The only way for people to do that is to come out and tell their story. … That’s when change happens, when folks have the courage to come out and tell their stories, knowing what the consequences might be, and most of the time, they end up finding acceptance, love and are embraced. That’s the only time things get better.

Fallows: Has the fact that Wyoming was the scene of this horror made them more willing or less willing to face these issues?

Shepard: I feel like they are very defensive. I think it makes them angrier, and they blame Matt for the situation. We go out of our way to talk about how great Wyoming is … but it’s very challenging if you are not a straight, white, Christian man. The wage gap for women is the largest in Wyoming than in any of the other states, but it’s a beautiful state. But, they have their back up and say that isn’t what they’re like. Then make it better. Don’t just fight it, make it better.

Fallows: Tell us how  Wyoming responded to this crime institutionally.

Shepard: We were, in retrospect, extremely fortunate. There were so many moving parts to finding Matt and finding the killers, and it happened in a small amount of time. I was included in much of the trial preparation, the investigation, and they told me as much as they could. They didn’t want me to be surprised. They were just so kind and very intent on making Dennis and I feel like we were a part of their family. They actually had to furlough many employees because it was not in their budget to work with us. And some of them underwent transformations from being your typical, homophobic Wyoming cowboys to strict, strong advocates for the gay community. The prosecutor couldn’t have been more kind and understanding. We felt like the people called on to do the right thing, did the right thing. Since then, we have found out some were not in favor of us, but at the time, they took very good care of us. They were professional and extremely careful in their words.

Fallows: Tell us how your thoughts on the death penalty have evolved over the last 20 years.

Shepard: James Byrd Jr. was murdered in June 1998. We spent time with Matt that summer, and we talked about how these white supremicists did something so deplorable. They tricked him into believing they were all friends and then dragged him to his death by a truck. In Texas, where the trials took place, they carry out the death penalty. We had a conversation that, sometimes, when there is no question of guilt, in certain human beings, this is what they are inviting. We felt that about the three men involved in the murder of James Byrd.

The first person in (Matthew’s) trial changed his plea from not guilty to guilty; he had a hearing, and the judge sentenced him to two consecutive life sentences. When the second individual came to trial — he had an actual trial — he was found guilty and made eligible for the death penalty by Wyoming statute, and it was up to the jury to make this recommendation. We had a conversation with the prosecuting attorney about how we felt about the death penalty because in the statutes this is what is required.

When the verdict came back guilty and the second young man was made eligible for the death penalty … Dennis and I said we will accept the same sentencing as the other young man with no appeal. I was pretty much, in the beginning, the only one who wanted to do that, and I wanted to do it because I wanted it to be over. I knew that if we went ahead with the death penalty sentencing there would be endless appeals — mandatory appeals — and we would be running into him all the time. … I just wanted it to be over. We talked about it. I won, reluctantly, and the rest of them agreed because, while they felt that this one young man totally deserved what would happen to him, we all understood this is what had to happen. Taking another life wasn’t going to solve anything.

Any notion that this was about mercy is misplaced because (the second man on trial) was 21. I mean, he’s going to spend the next 40 to 50 years in prison. In prison. They’re just gone, they’re just gone. Which is fine with us. This is not the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s of Nazi Germany. My son died because of your ignorance and intolerance. I can’t bring him back, but I can do my best to see that this never ever happens to another person or another family again.

Fallows: Tell us how you and Dennis are doing that through your foundation.

Shepard: Well, we started the foundation six weeks after Matt passed, on his birthday, Dec. 1, 1998. We had received so much correspondence while Matt was in the hospital and afterwards of people sending us money. … We wanted to make the money make a difference. So, we started this nonprofit, the Matthew Shepard Foundation. We had no idea what we were going to do with it because we only thought we’d be in existence a couple of years. People have a tendency to move from one tragedy to another. So we created this foundation. It’s morphed into many things over the last 20 years based on what my very small staff thinks we need.

Because of the current political climate … we have started conducting hate crime conferences trying to explain the federal hate crime law named after Matt and James Byrd Jr, what it does and doesn’t do and how important it is for victims of hate crimes to report it so that people who can do something about it know where it’s happening and why. We find there’s a deep-seated mistrust of law enforcement nationwide in that regard. We read about it in social media and in the press all the time, but that’s because that’s what makes the press. There are great cops, and they want to do the right thing, but they need help. They need the community’s help.

Fallows: What is the landscape of organized religion when it comes to the causes of your foundation?

Shepard: In the 20 years since we’ve been doing this, we’ve seen such a magnificent change. However, we do not work with interfaith agencies directly. Many of our conferences include interfaith because we feel it’s important; we feel all of these pillars are important in the work that we do to educate on a broad scale. So, we try to include them in everything we do, but we don’t work with them directly.

Fallows: I work for The Atlantic magazine. We had an article last week by a gay male writer in his mid-30s who was looking back on Stonewall and essentially saying, “Boy, for people of my generation, there’s no problem anymore. You know the discrimination is all melted away.”

Shepard: Oh, you’re just so wrong. What bubble do you live in? All you have to do is go to middle America and you will find that is not what it is like. Come to Wyoming. It is not all OK. Go to Western California. It is not OK. There is so much left to do, and so much of that relies on changing hearts and minds — people coming out and telling their stories so everybody knows who they are and where they are. That is just critical. … In this country, the work is definitely not over.

Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra will celebrate Independence Day with a special guest performer, musical favorites, and what guest conductor Stuart Chafetz calls a “festive party atmosphere.”

The CSO’s Independence Day Celebration will take place at 8 p.m. tonight, July 4, in the Amphitheater. It features Chafetz, principal pops conductor for the Columbus Symphony and CSO timpanist, as well as a newcomer to Chautauqua: baritone Michael Preacely.

Preacely, a professional opera singer and vocal soloist, first met Chafetz at a Cincinnati Pops Orchestra concert, where the two found that their excellent onstage chemistry led to an unforgettable concert.

“There was such good chemistry between he and I that after the concert, we were like, ‘Hey, when is another opportunity for us to connect?’ ” Preacely said. “(Chafetz) took my information, he contacted my agent, and hey — I’m here.”

The concert will feature a broad range of music: Broadway selections, songs from movie soundtracks and classic patriotic tunes. The setlist includes “The Star-Spangled Banner”; “The Impossible Dream” from The Man of La Mancha; “Cantina Band” from “Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope”; a tribute to American composer John Williams; and Alan Silvestri’s “The Avengers” theme, among others.

Preacely will sing with the CSO for seven of the concert’s 17 selections. Preacely said he and Chafetz designed the program to showcase their musical versatility and to make sure that all audience members find something to enjoy.

“(Chafetz is) very aware of my versatility as an artist, so he really wanted to showcase that as well as what he does; he’s very versatile in his program choices and his style of conducting,” Preacely said. “We have this type of platform where we want to show that. You want to give someone something that they can chew on, regardless of what their tastes may be.”

Beyond that, Preacely wants to create an atmosphere where audience members can celebrate independence, music and their local community.

“We’ve had a really good time going back and forth putting together this program, and I want the audience to go away happy and excited — not only about celebrating Independence Day, but about the art,” Preacely said. “We’re going to talk, we’re going to sing, we’re going to dance, we’re going to have a great time in the name of independence — and in the name of just being together under one roof … with this beautiful music.”

Overall, Preacely said he is excited to visit Chautauqua for the first time — especially in such a festive, energetic concert.

“I’m looking forward to just experiencing the electricity of this atmosphere,” Preacely said. “I can’t wait for that.”

Chafetz is a timpanist with the CSO, and every summer he guest conducts the annual Independence Day concert and the Opera Pops concerts at the Institution. He said he tries to bring crowd-pleasing favorites to the audience for Independence Day.

“We try and focus on music that everybody loves,” Chafetz said. “We do a bit of movies, a little bit of Broadway, a bit of patriotic music and we have some American Top 40, which is so much fun to perform, especially with our festive party atmosphere.”

Chafetz said Preacely’s guest performance will play no small part in that atmosphere.

“Michael, he is an absolutely amazing singer and he’s going to just rock the house,” Chafetz said.

Chafetz hopes Chautauquans will enjoy the performance and celebrate Independence Day with CSO and Preacely.

“As with all of the Fourth of July performances, we want people to have a good time, sing and dance, and do whatever they normally would do on a festive holiday: feel right at home,” Chafetz said. “We want the Amphitheater to feel like their favorite party spot to enjoy, unwind and celebrate America with a great performance.”

Bill Rollinger, affectionately nicknamed “coach,” has been teaching swimming for over 35 years — and he does not plan to stop anytime soon.

Rollinger, originally from Erie, Pennsylvania, started his swimming career as a teenager, when he joined his high school’s swimming and water polo teams. His affection for the sport grew as he studied at Slippery Rock University, where he continued swimming at the collegiate level. He moved through jobs as a lifeguard and swim instructor before becoming a physical education teacher in Jamestown 35 years ago.

After retirement, he continued to teach and swim at Chautauqua’s Turner Community Center, and now gives swim lessons.

When he coached high school swimming, Rollinger successfully led his team to become one of the top-rated swimming teams in New York state. His own accolades also landed him in the Erie County Aquatic Hall of Fame as well as the Chautauqua Athletic Hall of Fame.

“Jamestown High School; we were always rated one of the top high school swimming teams in New York state,” Rollinger said.

Jamestown High School is in Section VI of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association — during his time as coach, Rollinger led Jamestown to win three sectional titles; 11 Erie County, New York, championships; and four Lake Shore League championships.

While teaching swimming and water polo in Jamestown, on top of teaching physical education classes, Rollinger was the assistant coach for several other area sports teams during his decades-long career. Within his schedule, Rollinger found time to be an assistant line coach for Lincoln Junior High School’s football team, and was assistant wrestling coach, assistant track coach and head tennis coach at JHS.

But he never let his passion for swimming waver, and after leaving a 30-year coaching career, he had a record of 312-34 with the JHS boys swim team. Though he retired from his teaching posts five years after retiring from coaching at JHS, Rollinger took on private clients for swim lessons, and he began to lead an adult swimming master class, called “Rollinger’s Ducks,” at Turner Community Center.

Entering his seventh season at Chautauqua, Rollinger offers the Ducks class for experienced swimmers and triathletes between 34 and 75 years old. Rollinger said the class allows former high school and college swimmers to remain active in the sport.

Rollinger has not lost his coaching spark over time, sending one woman, Cheryl Burns, to compete in the 2018 World Grand Final Age-Group Triathlon in Queensland, Australia, placing fourth at the age of 57.

In his first official year as an employee of the Institution teaching swim classes, Rollinger does not get paid to teach the Ducks — he does so out of love for sharing the health benefits of swimming. 

“I’m still teaching,” Rollinger said. “I believe everybody should learn to swim, and swimming for adults is a very great thing for longevity of life. Running is good, but that’s hard on the ankles and knees and hips. Swimming is not. Swimming is a lifetime sport and we should have more people doing it. Not only do you feel well physically, but you do mentally, too.”

Rollinger believes that his time swimming at Chautauqua was what led to him being hired by the Institution. He said he has been swimming at Turner Community Center four days a week for seven years to maintain his health.

This season, Rollinger looks forward to the future, continuing to teach swimmers, young and old alike. He plans to stay as long as he can, working high school swim camps in the off-season and continuing to return in the summers.

Risa Goluboff became interested in social justice and equality at a young age.

“I definitely spent much of my childhood thinking about social justice and how one makes change in the world and thinking about racial equality and equality more generally,” Goluboff said. “I think as a result of that interest and that orientation towards the world, I always thought that I would be a lawyer.”

Goluboff, the first woman dean of the University of Virginia School of Law, would go on to lead UVA’s response to the violent August 2017, protests in Charlottesville, Virginia. At 10:45 a.m. today, July 4, in the Amphitheater, Goluboff will discuss these events in Charlottesville and how to move forward.

Through her efforts with the university’s response to the violent events, reviews have been conducted — of state laws and university policies governing weapons on grounds — and UVA Police patrols have increased. Margolis Healy & Associates, a higher education safety and security consulting firm, was hired to oversee a comprehensive review of UVA’s infrastructure, policies and tools. The university also approved the removal of plaques honoring students and alumni who served in the Confederacy from UVA’s Rotunda.

An award-winning author, Goluboff has won the American Historical Association’s 2017 Littleton-Griswold Prize, a 2017 Lillian Smith Book Award, the 2017 John Phillip Reid Book Award and the 2016 David J. Langum Sr. Prize in American Legal History, in addition to other awards.

She has written two books, The Lost Promise of Civil Rights and Vagrant Nation: Police Power, Constitutional Change, and the Making of the 1960s and numerous shorter works. Goluboff gave insight into the writing of her first book and where her inspiration came from.

“The first book, The Lost Promise of Civil Rights, started out as my dissertation for my history Ph.D. from Princeton,” Goluboff said. “The book really tries to open up our conception of what Constitutionally protected civil rights can be by showing what people thought they might be before the major case of Brown v. Board of Education.”

A renowned legal historian, Goluboff has been dean for the University of Virginia School of Law for three years. During her lecture she plans on discussing the events that took place during the 2017 Unite the Right rally.

“I’ll be talking about how one responds in their life, and their professional life and their communities, to an event like what happened in Charlottesville in August 2017,” she said.

The Unite the Right protest, organized by white supremacists in Charlottesville, lasted two days and resulted in the death of Heather Heyer, who was purposely struck by a protestor’s car. The driver, self-proclaimed neo-Nazi James Fields Jr., was recently sentenced to life in prison.

“The question I’m asking is: What does one do in the face of evil like the Nazis and white supremacists, who came to Charlottesville intending violence and committing violence, including the loss of a life?” Goluboff said.

Goluboff will pose a series of questions about how one responds to the events that took place during the rally and how to move forward. Through her lecture she will answer these questions and discuss how to bounce back after such a tragic event — one that took place in her own community.

“How does one respond as a person, as a member of the community — as the leader of an institution — and what kinds of action does a person take and how do we make sense of what happened and where we should be going after what happened?” she said.

David W. Blight does not remember learning about Frederick Douglass in high school.

As a college student in the late ’60s and early ’70s, the current director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University, recalls some mention of Douglass. But it wasn’t until he was creating his own courses in black history as a public high school teacher in Flint, Michigan, and later pursuing his graduate degree in the late ’70s and early ’80s, that Blight properly encountered the man whose name and likeness graces the cover of his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography.

“I just remember thinking, ‘Who is this guy?’ ” he said.

Blight will give the second Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle author presentation of Week Two, a lecture on his biography Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom at 3:30 p.m. today, July 4, in the Hall of Philosophy.

The lecture is co-sponsored by the African American Heritage House, and holds a particular resonance for a talk on the life and legacy of the great American orator, as Douglass delivered his seminal speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” on July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, about a two-and-half-hour drive from the Institution grounds.

At 888 pages, Frederick Douglass is the result of a decade of work and the culmination of Blight’s career as a professor and public historian. Although they received recommendations “on a lot of well-reviewed, mammoth biographies,” Atom Atkinson, director of literary arts, said Blight’s stood out, not only for the potential of a CLSC lecture on the Fourth of July, but also for Blight’s command of language.

“For how long it is, it’s also quite cinematic and quite entertaining,” Atkinson said. “That’s not something you can say about every biography of a major U.S. historical figure.”

So central is Douglass’ own command of language to Blight’s biography that the author describes his book as a “biography of a voice.” (He even considered that as a title, but was quickly vetoed by his editors). Unperturbed, Blight ensured that Douglass’ voice and “genius” with words remained a primary theme, as Frederick Douglass follows its subject from his birth as an enslaved child in Maryland, through his rise as a fierce advocate of abolition and social reform.

“Douglass was a creature of words,” Blight said. “He wrote millions of words. Words were his weapon, his power.”

Frederick Douglass’ page count might be daunting, but it’s a testament to a life spent writing, and it dwarfs in comparison to the boxes in which Blight stored his research.

Characterizing himself as “a paper person,” Blight acknowledged that his writing process involved “a lot of printing” and that his organization system was “at times a bit haphazard.” He took “pounds of paper” with him when he served as the William Pitt Professor of American History at Cambridge University, and wrote at the speed of a chapter a month.

Similar to the time he spent getting to know New Bedford, Massachusetts, and the environment of Maryland’s eastern shore, traveling in the United Kingdom was a chance to situate himself where Douglass lectured against slavery — visits, Blight said, that helped him “gain a sense of texture.” Still, packing up his notes and flying them across the ocean was a nerve wracking lesson in letting go.

“I remember thinking, ‘Well, there’s my career heading over the Atlantic,’ ” Blight said. “ ‘Hope it gets there.’ ”

The first dedication of Blight’s book is to Walter O. Evans and Linda J. Evans, the owners of a private collection of Douglass material — including 10 family scrapbooks — that illuminated the last third of Douglass’ life. Blight spent “four or five” spring breaks from Yale in the Evanses’ home, poring over new details about Douglass’ role as a Washington insider and steeped in the letters that fleshed out Douglass’ “very complicated” extended family.

“One of my proudest moments has been when people have told me, particularly women historians, that they so appreciate the way I handled Anna Murray-Douglass,” Blight said, referencing his book’s portrayal of Douglass’ first wife, the mother of his four children and a woman about whom he wrote little in his three autobiographies.

Unafraid to explore the messier, less heroic aspects of Douglass’ life, Blight admits there are elements of the book he would like to do over. After giving more than 100 interviews and talks as part of a promotional book tour, he discovers new information about Douglass frequently. His decision to conclude his biography with an epilogue about Douglass’ death and its immediate aftermath was purposeful; delving extensively into the man’s legacy would require, according to Blight, “another book.”

“A life is lived in the order it happens,” he said. “It’s not necessarily how you remember it. But I think that’s why the biography is still so attractive to readers because they are reading about a structure of a life at the same time they’re reading about a changing life through time.”

Frederick Douglass is an encompassing journey through that life — a portrait of survival, endurance and supreme literacy. With multiple book prizes and honorary doctorates to his name, Blight may be a celebrated public figure himself, but he likes to think of himself as “a teacher first.”

“I was a high school teacher who just wanted to see if I could become a scholar,” he said. “It took time, but I managed to do it, I guess.”

It was William Faulkner who said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Chuck Yarborough and his students at the Mississippi School for Math and Science couldn’t agree more.

To them, a gravestone is as much of a testament to what’s possible as it is to what’s dead and gone.

“(My) students do public performances in the cemetery, as a culmination of a year-long project,” said Yarborough, a history teacher at MSMS and the director of service projects Tales from the Crypt and the Eighth of May Emancipation Celebration. “Students (in the project) do original research and writing to generate scripts which they then audition and then perform in collaboration with their classmates for the public.”

At 2 p.m. today, July 3, in the Hall of Philosophy, Yarborough will explore his school’s unique performance projects in “Burial Ground is Common Ground,” part of the Week Two Interfaith Lecture Series, “Common Good Change Agents.” Joining Yarborough is James Fallows, reporter for The Atlantic and co-founder of its American Futures project.

Yarborough will also be accompanied by MSMS students Erin Williams and Dairian Bowles.

The Tales from the Crypt project — which is in its 29th year at MSMS — gives Yarborough’s students the chance to research and develop a performance around one of Columbus, Mississippi’s historical dead.

“Erin’s Tales from the Crypt research project involved a woman named Susan Casement Maer,” Yarborough said. “Susan Maer was, I think, the first female publisher and editor of a newspaper in Mississippi, which is notable because this was in the 1880s. Ms. Maer purchased a daily newspaper and operated it until her death in the early 20th century, at which point it was taken over by her son, Percy.”

Yarborough said Williams’ research project soon became an “exploration of not just the biography of Ms. Maer, but also an exploration of women in the late 19th and early 20th century. So it became an exploration of gender, basically.”

Bowles’ project comes from the MSMS’s Eighth of May Emancipation Celebration, a project which allows students to portray some of the area’s late 19th and early 20th century African American leaders.

“(Bowles’) performance was the result of a small group of students researching the life of the late Senator Robert Gleed,” Yarborough said. “He was, to this day, the only African American to represent all of Mississippi County in the state legislature.”

Yarborough said he wants his projects to develop leadership in his students, but that ultimately, his main goal is to empower students.

“I think that every educational program, and education itself, is about empowering people,” he said. “This is about empowering young people to recognize that through their good scholarly work, they can help shape a community. And that’s what we’ve seen, year after year.”

Crucially, Yarborough said his school’s research projects are not meant to operate in isolation.

“It’s transferable to almost any community in the country,” he said. “Now, it’s going to look different than what we do in Columbus. But, for instance, in Indianapolis, a young teacher with middle school students has enacted our program in what they call the ‘Indianapolis Tales from the Crypt.’  ”

For “Burial Ground is Common Ground,” Yarborough said he hopes someone will walk out of the presentation and bring the project model with them back to their own community.

“Ultimately, we have to be in a relationship with one another,” he said. “This kind of program encourages an increased understanding of parts of the community that many people just don’t consider. Then, in conversation with one another about those events, we establish relationships that allow us to improve our local communities. That could happen everywhere.”

To keep track of the web of themes, communities and multiple sources that overflow in her 2018 book Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America, Beth Macy papered her office with Wizard Wall. It was onto those adhesive dry erase sheets that Macy, like a dogged detective hounding a slippery criminal, visually grouped her research on the opioid epidemic, from Roanoke, Virginia, where Macy lives now, to Appalachia, the suburbs and beyond.

“I just started interviewing everyone I could think of,” Macy said. “One person would lead me to another and to another.”

A journalist, New York Times-bestselling author and the first Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle author for Week Two, “Uncommon Ground: Communities Working Toward Solutions,” Macy will discuss her work at 3:30 p.m. today, July 3, in the Hall of Philosophy.

Her talk will cover the trajectory of heroin and fentanyl abuse in the United States and the treatment that still fails to benefit the most desperate — information that fills the pages of Dopesick. She will also focus on new, solutions-based reporting she has conducted since finishing the book over a year ago.

That was one of the reasons Atom Atkinson, director of literary arts, and the CLSC team chose Macy for today’s talk.

“Part of what we found in reading the book is not only that it’s extraordinarily well-written and extraordinarily necessary, but also that it’s very much engaged with the question of how and why people and whole communities fall through the cracks,” Atkinson said, “and what we even mean by that cliché.”

The stories Macy will share in her lecture feature “people getting out of the silo and coming together,” she said. “This work hinge(s) on people willing to change their minds when new data presents itself. Shock among shock.”

Dopesick, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, is Macy’s third work of critically lauded, long-form reportage. Her 2014 book Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local — and Helped Save an American Town and 2016’s Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother’s Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South both center real, marginalized individuals.

Yet Dopesick, which draws extensively from first-person testimony from patients and family members, proved to be more of a challenge than Macy’s two previous books.

For one thing, there was the ever-evolving nature of the crisis.

“(Factory Man and Truevine) both took place in the past,” Macy said. “This is unfolding before my eyes. Most of the last third of (Dopestick) hadn’t happened when I signed the book deal. I had to be nimble and quick on my feet.”

She also had to process the pain and agony of her sources, as well as her own grief.

“It’s always been my greatest strength and my biggest Achilles: getting close to people,” Macy said.

A longtime reporter for The Roanoke Times, Macy always had her notebook when reporting for Dopesick, and ensured her sources knew it. Still, the relationship between interviewer and interviewee — particularly as it pertains to the story of Tess Henry, a woman whose struggle with addiction and eventual death is detailed in the book’s final third — is not a simple one. She estimated that she interviewed Tess’ mom, Patricia Mehrmann, to whom she remains close, “hundreds of times.”

“There were certain things that happen in this book where I had to put my notebook away and be a human being,” Macy said. “There is no guidebook to tell you what to do when your main character is brutally murdered.”

It’s an approach Macy admitted she could be criticized for.“

“But how else could I have done that story justice? … This story is such an internal story that you just have to get into the grist of the matter,” she said.

If, magically, Macy could assign every high school student in the United States a section of Dopesick, she would choose Tess’ story.

“You really learn (about the opioid crisis) from the ground,” she said. “That’s the way I think people learn. And I also think you learn when you’re moved. (Tess is) just an everyday girl. Her father is a surgeon; her mother is a nurse. She had many more advantages than most people in America.”

Immersed in frustration and heartbreak for so long, Macy said her solutions-based reporting helped her escape what she dubbed “the post-Dopesick funk.” She sees, with higher instances of urgent care for the addicted, for example, that “people are starting to get it.”

“The stigma is beginning to lighten a little,” she said. “I’m grateful for whatever extent the book can be credited for opening hearts and minds.”

While she is at Chautauqua, Macy will participate in a filmed roundtable discussion with local mental health, medical care and poverty work professionals and advocates. After the season is over, Atkinson and the literary arts team will package that video into an accessible educational resource. 

Moving forward, Macy hopes to witness a more proactive approach to fighting the grip opioids have on the United States, a reaching out that happens before people commit crimes to feed their addiction. In doing so, “you just have a much better outcome for the person and a better outcome for society,” she said. “There is no community in America where this isn’t a problem now.”

For independent journalist Anna Clark, reporting on stories in Flint, Michigan, isn’t just a job.

“My life’s work is to tell good, true stories that I think deserve to be chronicled,” Clark said. “I ultimately came (to Flint) because the kind of stories I want to tell are in a place like this, where there is far more going on than there are people to chronicle it.” 

Her career hasn’t been idyllic — freelance journalism is a difficult road.

Her stories have appeared in publications like Elle, Columbia Journalism Review, The New York Times, Politico and others. Clark is the author of the book, The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy, where she reports in depth on the Flint water crisis.

At 10:45 a.m. today, July 3, in the Amphitheater, Clark will lead fellow journalist Jiquanda Johnson and entrepreneur Lev Hunter in a panel on grassroots revitalization  efforts and effecting change in Flint.

Each panelist is either self-employed or started their own business that brings new perspectives and shows the strength of individuals in Flint. The panelists present as part of Week Two, “Uncommon Ground: Communities Working Toward Solutions.”

For Johnson, helping create change in her Flint community is an important aspect of her career.

“As a journalist or a person in news, what kind of legacy do I want to leave?” Johnson asked. “Do I want to leave that legacy of ‘I covered the city of Flint, and I was focused on clicks and metrics,’ instead of community impact?”

Johnson is the founder and publisher of the hyper-local online newspaper, Flint Beat.
In her position, she doesn’t let anything get in her way of telling an impactful story that highlights the community.

Johnson founded Flint Beat in 2017 to help tell untold stories and serve the community on a personal level. She said although other news outlets were reporting on the Flint water crisis, she wanted to fill the gaps in story coverage.

“We are there to fill these news gaps that we see in Flint, in hopes of people having well-rounded coverage in the City of Flint,” Johnson said. “Ultimately what we are working on is developing media products in underserved communities.”

At Flint Beat, Johnson serves as reporter, publisher and founder — the business side of news took more time to develop for her. She doesn’t have advertisers and leans toward the nonprofit business model of news. Johnson endeavors to connect with the community in a time where fake news runs rampant. She said she is not concerned about pleasing audiences to get views; all she wants to do is get the facts to the community. 

“The community still has trust — I know that we are in the era of fake news,” Johnson said. “For me, I don’t deal with that, and they know I have no agendas outside of empower, impact and inform.”

Hunter takes a different route — instead of reporting on stories, he uses his love of coffee and entrepreneurship skills to help impact his hometown of Flint.

“I really believe in entrepreneurship being my gift,” Hunter said. “It’s really my viewpoint on what is going to restore this city to its glory days.”

He grew up in a family of entrepreneurs and, inspired by his grandmother’s coffee, created his own business. Hunter sells coffee online and serves as a “pop-up barista.” In addition to the coffee, he is the creator of “The Daily Brew” podcast and livestreams on Facebook.

“We just try to have those conversations that you would have over a cup of coffee,” Hunter said.

Hunter wants to inspire the next generation of business professionals and give back to his community. Flint is a community that needs support in the midst of its ongoing water crisis and economic issues, according to Hunter.

“Places like Flint need outside help,” Hunter said. “So, for entrepreneurs, and what I want people to take away, is that we need their support, we need their resources and their help to help us renew our city and take it to the next level.”

The panelists are intent on sparking conversation about entrepreneurship and showing how their work makes an impact.

“I want people to understand that there are people and newsrooms out there that are still producing good news,” Johnson said, “that we really want our work to impact the communities that we serve.”

Drawing from Artistic Director Hope Muir’s vast array of artists, choreographers and collaborators, Charlotte Ballet returns to Chautauqua Institution with its “International Series” at 8:15 p.m. tonight, July 3, in the Amphitheater.

“The works will cover a broad performance spectrum — from classical ballet to modern dance — and showcase iconic and well-established choreographers,” Muir said. “Look for a range of works from distinguished artists.”

For the classicalist, Charlotte Ballet will present Sir Frederick Ashton’s Balcony Pas de Deux from “Romeo and Juliet”; Frederick’s choreography debuted with the Royal Danish Ballet in 1955.

Contrastingly, the company will stage a series of Merce Cunningham solos from “Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event” — a tri-city event held on April 16, which celebrated what would have been the American modern dance icon’s 100th birthday. Dancer Anson Zwingelberg represented Charlotte Ballet at the New York City-leg of the performance.

Rounding out the four-piece show will be “IN Cognito” by Helen Pickett — commissioned and premiered by Charlotte Ballet in April of this year —  and “Petite Ceremonie” by Medhi Walerski.

Pickett derived “IN Cognito” from North Carolina-native Tom Robbins’ book titled Villa Incognito. In the piece, nine dancers “race with time, wrestle with furniture, hide and re-find their identities, waltz with abandon, wholly connect and willfully disconnect with gusto,” Pickett said in her choreographer’s notes.

The piece draws on Villa Incognito’s themes — transformation, liberation and celebration — and particularly one line from the book: “ … to perform without a net is ecstasy. To perform without focus is fatal.”

“Petite Ceremonie,” by French choreographer Walerski, was commissioned and premiered in 2011 by Ballet BC in Vancouver. Walerski has described it as: “A group of people searching for the right space, the perfect balance. Men and women, different brains. Boxes and wires trying to create a congruent image.”

The piece is set to music by Mozart, Bellini, Justice, Goodman and Vivaldi.

“Even though Charlotte Ballet has been here for so many years, I think we’re going to see some fresh choreography and continue to see growth in the company that we’re excited about,” said Deborah Sunya Moore, vice president of performing and visual arts.

This is Charlotte Ballet’s second season at Chautauqua under Muir’s direction.

Prior to the Amp performance, Muir and company will host a dance preview at 7 p.m. in Smith Wilkes Hall, sponsored by the Chautauqua Dance Circle.

Charlotte Ballet will return to the Institution during Week Four for the company’s second residency and for “Made in Charlotte” — a selection of commissioned works — on July 15.

On Monday in the Hall of Philosophy, James Fallows, a national correspondent for The Atlantic and co-founder of the publication’s American Futures project, shared his experiences from traveling around the country in the past year and witnessing the accomplishments of small communities overlooked by national media.

Before beginning his lecture, Fallows previewed the interfaith lectures for the week. Judy Shepard, whose son was murdered out of anti-gay hate in 1998, spoke with Fallows Tuesday in the Hall of Philosophy. The remaining interfaith lectures this week include a presentation with high school teacher Chuck Yarborough, and two students from the Mississippi School of Mathematics and Sciences in Columbus, Mississippi, on Wednesday; and with Emily and Stuart Siegel on Thursday.

“The (MSMS) is a phenomenal place,” Fallows said. “It is a public, residential high school in Mississippi for students who are from all around the state and gather there. While their stated specialty is math and science … (they use) the arts and humanities to deal with what is Mississippi’s legacy and America’s legacy — slavery and its aftermath.”

Fallows will join the Siegels and their son, who work in Ajo, Arizona, a town being revitalized “in an act of will, creativity, artistic imagination and generosity” by the Siegels and other residents there.

In his lecture, “Is Common Good a Lost Cause? Sources of Strain, and Re-Connection, in Modern America,” which began Week Two of Chautauqua’s Interfaith Lecture Series,  “Common Good Change Agents,” Fallows discussed some of the positive changes communities have made and how this type of action needs to percolate up to more influential levels.

“The two main messages we were trying to convey when we spoke here last year was, number one, the sharp contrast between how the United States of this moment looks at the national level, where most people — regardless of their political affiliation — are concerned, unhappy or downcast about the state of the nation as a whole, and the way it looks city by city,” Fallows said.

After speaking at Chautauqua last year, Fallows and his wife, Deborah,  spent the next 11 months on the road visiting small towns and cities, partly because they are making a film with HBO, based on their book, Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey Into the Heart of America. The Fallows also traveled across the country to learn and to find patterns that “augment what we’ve seen before,” Fallows said.

Fallows then went through a list of 10 cities that he and his wife not only visited, but learned from and were positively impacted by.

The first city was Charlotte, North Carolina, where citizens prided themselves on the city’s thriving industry. One academic study, Fallows said, compared Charlotte to some 100 cities across the United States for “trust across racial lines … and other indications of wholesome civic fabric.”

“Of all the cities on the list, Charlotte came in last, which was shocking to people there,” Fallows said. “The reaction locally was not denialism, defensiveness, challenging the report … but rather saying, ‘This is something we need to take seriously.’ ”

Now, there are a group of foundations, lecture series and libraries that engage more citizens and allow Charlotte to be more inclusive, he said.

The next place was Danville, Virginia, which is known for being the last capital of the Confederacy, and was also known as a mill town. If one didn’t work in the mills, the only other option was to work in tobacco warehouses. With that said, Danville suffered a major economic blow when the mills and tobacco industry left town.

So, Danville sat with no industrialization, a ruined economic foundation and a history of racism and slavery. Despite what sounds like dark times, citizens of Danville have found opportunities to worktogether and across racial lines toward a better future for the town, Fallows said.

“They received a settlement from the tobacco case. … Danville used its money to build the equivalent of a research university, a sort of high-tech center to create new economic opportunities,” Fallows said. “What has been impressive in Danville has been the effort across the lines of the traditional racial divide to make a new future. The downtown historical buildings have been reconverted to lofts, restaurants and markets that draw people back in.”

Third, Fallows discussed Muncie, Indiana, the home of the Ball brothers’ glass canning empire, Ball Corporation, and home to a troubled public school system. As of three years ago, Indiana had to put two public school systems in state receivership — one in Gary, and the other in Muncie, where draining of students from school systems had become a challenge.

Muncie’s step toward “public good” was through Ball State University. For the first time in known American history, this major public university took over responsibility for the City of Muncie public schools.

“The president of Ball State has made this part of his mission to be community involved and to recognize that to create this new school system, it needed to be inclusive and common good-guided in every way it could be,” Fallows said. “For a town with long-standing racial divides, they did everything they could to include people of different racial categories and income categories.”

The fourth location was Fort Wayne, Indiana. Fort Wayne had relied on a General Electric plant, before the company abandoned the town. Groups of young people, older people, public institutions and private institutions decided to turn “the shame of the community into the center of the community,” Fallows said.

“They are using (the plant) as a new hospital space and startup space and living space,” he said. “If you go to Fort Wayne, I encourage you to see this old building, a kind of Stonehenge of one industrial era of America, fostering space for another.”

Next on Fallows’ list was Pensacola, Florida, a town trying to make itself “the laboratory for democracy in the United States.”

There, a man by the name of Quint Studer believes it is his lifelong mission to develop techniques of civic engagement, collaborative reasoning and the common good for his town and then allow the techniques to spread throughout the country.

“If you go to Pensacola, you will see a series they have called CivicCon where they try to enlist people who are working with a newspaper or working with everybody else to express that this is a connected community,” Fallows said.

The Latino-populated and largely impoverished Brownsville, Texas, became the focus of a June tragedy, after a Salvadoran father and daughter both drowned while attempting to cross into Texas via the Rio Grande River. Despite Brownsville’s poverty rate, Fallows said there are minimal drug problems. Fallows attributes this partly to familial ties.

“The family structure of the overwhelmingly Latino families is strong enough that young people have, in particular, a mother and a grandmother who are watching what they’re doing,” Fallows said. “So, Brownsville has a kind of civic fiber despite economic poverty.”

The residents of Brownsville are also working to bring more people to the town. The downtown area is old but has the potential to be made into “a new downtown.”

The seventh city is San Bernardino, California. It’s the most troubled city in California, and one of the most troubled in the United States. But now, Fallows said, the city has arguably “the most impressive public high schools in the state.”

Fallows said a business person, who felt a religious calling to be involved in the schools, worked to develop opportunities for students of all backgrounds to prepare for skilled, technical jobs and higher education.

Fallows then discussed Kenosha and Racine, Wisconsin, which have well-known racial and deindustrialization problems. There, a local college has taken on the responsibility of the city and the community. Additionally, a company called Snap-On, decided that “(its) well-being depends on the well-being of the community.”

Houston, one of the largest U.S. cities, was the ninth location; that city has developed a program called Report for America, whose purpose is to send young reporters to small newspapers throughout the country to do local reporting.

“If you’re looking for somewhere to put your money, I would look at Report for America,” Fallows said. “Their entire goal is to advance the common good.”

Lastly, Fallows talked about the largest city in the United States: New York City. Specifically, in the New York City public libraries, Deborah Fallows reported on an innovation that made books available to the blind.

“These are things Deb and I didn’t know when we saw you all a year ago,” Fallows said, “of how widespread is this sense of innovation to try to address the problems of us in the broadest sense.”

With those cities and towns in mind, Fallows presented an action plan for improving the state of American cities. First, one must keep their eyes open and “simply notice” how much is happening in the country. Then, it is crucial to “see the patterns.”

“The third stage is where we ask, ‘what can people involved in the flotilla of renewed efforts do to magnify their efforts (and) give more leverage to what they’re all doing?’ ” Fallows said.

Fallows said a significant number of faith organizations are involved in efforts like refugee and immigrant resettlement. Many organizations also work with the homeless and try to address drug problems, among other things. There are rural revival centers scattered throughout the country and community foundations and universities. Even libraries are considered to be the new “civic convenors.”

“Deb and I are now thinking of what we can do to better connect, and tell the stories of and increase the power of the local-level groups who have locally based solutions for improvement,” Fallows said. “Then, the good that is happening at the local level can percolate up and offset the bad that is, in many places, seeping down from the national level.”

Fallows posed a series of questions about the actual power of the local level and its influence on the national level.

“What if the power of example, locally, doesn’t work?” Fallows asked. “What if the strains on the national government finally are at a point where they don’t really recover from them? What do we think is the best way forward if that is the case?”

These are the “eternal questions of American life,” Fallows said. The question is one of balance between the central and the local, the federal and the state, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.

“We have been here before,” Fallows said. “Deb and I think that all of us here are part of answering that question of whether we can establish a common good. … It’s something that depends on people’s actions locally; it depends on their imagination springing beyond the community and the local, and it depends on the ever-expanding sense of what the common good is, and that is what we hope to explore through the conversations this next week.”

Hailed as a hero in the “Boston Miracle,” the Rev. Jeffrey Brown helped launch a movement that decreased youth crime rates in Boston by 79%. The way he did it was radical at the time — he went straight to the source.

To share his experiences, Brown, pastor and co-founder of Boston TenPoint Coalition, spoke at the 10:45 a.m. morning lecture Tuesday, July 2 in the Amphitheater, continuing Week Two’s theme, “Uncommon Ground: Communities Working Toward Solutions.”

When Brown first became a pastor, he wanted to serve in a megachurch.

“I wanted a 15 to 20,000-member church,” Brown said. “I wanted my own television ministry. I wanted my own clothing line. I wanted to be a long-distance carrier. You know, the whole nine yards.”

After a year, his church only grew by 20 members, and he realized his dream was farther away than he anticipated. In the meantime, Brown simply wanted to be a “good pastor.”

“I wanted to be with people through all of the passages of life,” he said. “The birth of children, who grow, go to school. To be with families through all of the crises of life; when someone gets sick, to go to a hospital and to visit them and to be there for the final transitions when the matriarchs and the patriarchs pass on, and you gather a family together to remember a life well lived.”

As Brown was embarking on the path “God called him to,” the homicide rates in his Boston community increased dramatically.

“There were young people who were shooting and killing each other for reasons I thought were very trivial,” he said. “Someone stepping on someone’s sneaker in a high school hallway and after school, instead of fisticuffs, someone would get shot.”

It occurred to Brown that he had a congregation at his disposal. He started to preach against the violence and began developing programs in the church he hoped would bring in at-risk youth. At the same time, he was encouraging other pastors to do the same.

“I thought, ‘this is our contribution to the problem, and if we have enough people to do it for long enough, then perhaps we will stem the tide of violence,’ ” Brown said.

But Brown’s efforts fell short, and the violence started to “spiral out of control.”

“The city of Boston experienced, out of 700,000, 152 homicides and 1,100 gun shootings that year,” he said. “Which means the violence was not just focused on those who were out on the streets, but also on folks who had absolutely nothing to do with the violence.”

The violence was so bad that it started to change the character of the city. Gunfire rang like fireworks every night and consequently, hospitals filled with victims of the crimes. Brown realized he was aiding families in the passages of life like he had always dreamed, but not for the matriarchs and patriarchs he had envisioned.

“I was also doing funerals of 18-year olds, 17-year olds and 16-year olds,” he said. “I was standing at the pulpit of a church or a funeral home, struggling to say something that would make a difference.”

Then came the moment Brown said he “will never forget.” At a community meeting about the violence, a woman stood up and said it was caused by a “lost generation.”

“Her solution was this: We need to take the time, talent and resources and plow them into the generation coming up, because this generation that is experiencing this violence is a lost generation,” Brown said.

When Brown left the meeting, two problems occurred to him: First, how can a community survive without an entire generation? Second, even if the community decides to take its time, talent and resources and concentrate them on youth, a generation was still being lost.

“I realized that (her solution) wasn’t the answer,” he said. “So the question was, ‘what is the answer?’ ”

Brown recalled a story of a boy named Jessie. Jessie had bought a brand new leather jacket and when two boys tried to take it, Jessie resisted. They killed him. As Jessie was running away, an eyewitness said he was running toward Brown’s church and died 150 yards in front of the building.

“Not to say he was trying to get to the church, but if he would have gotten to the church, it wouldn’t have made any difference because the lights were out and nobody was home,” Brown said. “When I got there later on and they told me the circumstances of what happened, it was an image that I could not get out of mind. The young man in desperate need of help, but the church would not have been there to help him because there was nobody there.”

A few days later, police caught some of the people involved in the murder, and Brown was shocked to find out they were only a few years younger than him.

“These young men who had done this deed were part of my own generation, but I knew nothing of the world they lived in,” he said.

As Brown contemplated what had happened in his city, a “funny kind of paradox” started to emerge. The paradox was that Brown’s definition of community was excluding the people committing the crimes.

“If I really wanted the community that I was seeking and praying for, I needed to redefine my sense of community and reach out and embrace those I had cut out of that definition,” Brown said.

Brown said that meant not only creating programming for at-risk youth, but engaging those who were committing the acts of violence. However, as soon as he came to that conclusion, another question occurred: “Why me?”

“As soon as that question came up, the answer came back just as quickly,” he said. “Why me? Because I’m the one who can’t sleep at night. Because I’m the one looking around saying, ‘Somebody needs to do something about this,’ and I’m starting to realize that someone is me.”

Just as Brown was finding his individual purpose, an incident occurred that brought the entire community together. Brown called this moment “the morning star.”

During a funeral at the Morning Star Baptist Church in Boston, a young man entered the room. A gang across the street from the church knew him as a member of a rival gang and they ran in after him. The gang started shooting and stabbing the boy in front of the altar.

The pastor at the funeral went on the radio that night and said a line had been crossed, and that the community of faith in Boston needed to come together.

More than 350 clergy members came from around Boston to meet with the pastor. They gave “eloquent speeches” and decided to meet the next Tuesday to talk about what actions could be taken. They did that again and again until nine Tuesdays had passed; only seven clergy members were showing up and zero action had been taken.

At the last meeting, it was recommended that the clergy members break off into committees. Realizing the answers did not lie within the four walls of his sanctuary, Brown made the decision to “meet the youth where they were at,” on the streets. Thus, a street committee formed.

The street committee met in Four Corners, the most violent neighborhood in Boston. Every night from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., the committee would walk the streets, observing the activity around them. At first, Brown said people just stared at them, but eventually, they started to approach the group.

“Then we did an amazing thing as preachers,” he said. “We decided to listen and not preach.”

As Brown listened, he realized he had many misconceptions about the youth in his community.

“What we discovered was our perception was being colored by the 11 o’clock news or by the popular culture of the day, the music, the movies,” he said. “The reality was very, very different.”

The first misconception was that the youth were materialistic.

“We thought these kids were completely materialistic and that all they wanted was clothing and jewelry, ‘the bling,’ as they would call it,” he said. “But we found out that these kids were no more, no less bitten by the consumer bug than we are.”

The second misconception was that the kids would never want to talk about faith. 

“I have had some of my most profound theological discussions, not in the hallowed halls of a seminary, but on a street corner at 1 a.m.,” he said.

Brown recalled a story in Four Corners when the committee tried to get people to stop selling drugs in a local park. There was a fence that separated the park from the street and there was always a boy at the door of the fence to let the pastors in and out. He never spoke, until one day he asked to speak to Brown’s friend, Bob.

At the end of the night, everyone asked Bob what the boy said.

The boy told Bob that out of all the things he had done in his life, he seemed to have lost his conscience and needed help getting it back.

“Imagine walking out with your friend, late at night, shots ringing out, a boy gets hit, you watch the life drain out of his body and you’ve got questions,” Brown said. “Where is he going? What are we doing in all of this? Can we ever get out?”

According to Brown, that is where the movement began — when he saw that people could find common ground through dialogue. Realizing he needed more than the help of other clergy members, Brown created a partnership with the Boston Police Department.

“If you know anything about the City of Boston and its history of race relations, you should know it is no small thing that you have black and Latino pastors coming together with white, Irish, Catholic police officers.”

Brown said the partnership started with the gang unit officers patrolling the streets. The officers started reaching out to clergy members to hear their perspective on the community.

“We started to talk to them about the work that we were doing with these gang members, and they realized that they had community leaders who understood what they had to deal with on a nightly basis,” he said.

The youth in the community agreed to let the clergy be a liaison between them and the police.

“We had this role between the police and the youth as these honest brokers, trying to find a way to make this whole thing work and make the community safer,” Brown said.

Soon enough, probation officers and city officials got involved, and Brown saw a transformation in his city.

“In the beginning, most of the homicides were juvenile related; either a juvenile was being killed or involved in a shooting,” he said. “We went from 152 (homicides) to a 29-month period in which we had zero juvenile homicide.”

“It’s not so much that the youth decided not to shoot, but it was the adults being able to come together and check their egos at the door,” he said.

Although the journey had its ups and downs, Brown has seen stability in his work. To him, the future is not only about making sure the rates of violence stay down, it’s about ending the “dominance and era of violence.”

“You might say ‘Well that’s a tall order,’ ” he said. “Well, I believe in a God that relishes tall orders, who takes the impossible and brings it into the realm of possibility. Even in the midst of our struggle and all the things we are dealing with today, I still believe we are at a moment in which we can come together, even in the midst of our divisiveness, to actually be the community that God means for us to be. I may  just be a believer, but I know I’m not the only one.”

Nancy Gibbs wears many hats: journalist, educator, wife and mother, lifelong Chautauquan and now, trustee.

The former editor-in-chief of Time — and the magazine’s first female editor-in-chief — is one of two newly appointed Chautauqua Institution Board of Trustee members who will serve four-year terms.

In the off-season, Gibbs directs Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and is the Edward R. Murrow professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She has co-authored two best-selling books: The Presidents Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity and The Preacher and the Presidents: Billy Graham in the White House.

The Presidents Club was a finalist for The Chautauqua Prize in 2013.

But before her nearly 40-year career as an author and journalist, Gibbs found her love for writing in the Daily newsroom, she said, covering everything from the Children’s School to the morning lectures.

What was it like growing up at Chautauqua Institution?

This is the one place where I have friends I literally have known since birth, and we remain friends and we still see each other every summer.

I think that’s one of the truly remarkable things about Chautauqua; whatever directions our lives took us since coming here, this is where we come back to. This is ground-zero for our families, our professional lives in many cases — in my case, in journalism, and in my brother’s in music — all had its roots here. I think that’s one of the reasons it’s been so important in my life and our families’ lives.

How would you explain the Institution to someone who has never been here or never heard of it?

College, summer camp, mental health retreat, nature preserve — it’s all of those things. It’s like a gymnasium for your heart and your head and your soul.

Can you explain what a trustee and what the board of trustees does?

I’m still learning because I am a new trustee. … My older brother was a trustee, my father chaired the board of trustees, and so I’ve been watching the Chautauqua (Institution) Board of Trustees for as long as I can remember. It’s a fascinating experience now to get to join it and understand where its influence begins and ends.

I think it’s important the board draw from both the experience and the expertise of its members, inside Chautauqua and outside Chautauqua — what we do when we’re here, what we do the rest of the year — and bring that experience to the challenges and opportunities here.

So what I love about the board is it is such an interesting mixture of people and skill sets, and I think that’s what makes it a successful resource for the administration here.

You’re on the marketing & brand strategy committee. How do you think your professional expertise will translate into that committee?

Well, to the extent that my professional life has always been about storytelling, which is the heart of journalism and in some ways the heart of politics and essential to successful leadership for Chautauqua — to figure out how to tell its story to people who might want to be part of this place, and how to understand its mission both here in this place during the summer, but also outside of the summer and outside of the gates.

I think that aligns fairly obviously with my life as a journalist and my life trying to see patterns and understand what people are curious about, what they want to know more about. I’m hoping I can help Chautauqua where it needs to tell a story for the 21st century that fully draws on values it has held since the 19th (century).

What’s your biggest hope for your first season as a trustee?

Just to keep learning. I think new trustees obviously bring fresh eyes to the challenges, but there is so much we don’t know about the immense amount of work that goes into making this place seem natural and organic and effortless, as though it all just magically happens, as though these grounds just take care of themselves, as though that program just appears on the Amphitheater stage and a million other places around the grounds.

So much work goes into making this happen that I’m still learning an enormous amount about how it operates and how Chautauquans — trustees and not — can help make the place as healthy and successful as possible. 

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

Once a reporter always a reporter; I get up to find out what happened overnight. I’m horribly attached to my devices, so unfortunately about the first thing I do is look in my inbox and read the papers, read 50 newsletters that have appeared. That’s always been true to some extent; it’s particularly true now when we’re in such a fateful political season.

Do you miss being a reporter or being in the thick of the news?

I’m still writing. … And what I’m teaching is so directly connected to — not just what’s happening in journalism — politics and the health of democracy itself. While I’m not responsible for making real-time coverage decisions — and I don’t miss that — I don’t feel like I’ve stepped out of the conversations happening in newsrooms.

What are you most excited about this season?

This feels like a moment when Chautauqua’s almost 150-year mission is needed more than ever, and not only needed, but people are aware it’s needed — of a place where people actually physically come together, actually put down their phones and talk face-to-face or listen to a lecturer or an artistic presentation that challenges them.

I think there’s a mindfulness now that there’s something that has really disrupted the way we talk to each other and think about each other. … The fact that this is a place where people can come and have an actually civilized disagreement — it’s not that everyone comes here and agrees with each other, hopefully people come here and disagree with each other — but in a way that reminds them that it’s okay and that you can still get along and solve problems together.

I think there’s a hunger for that — for modeling that, for experiencing that, for taking some of that back into the rest of our lives — that’s actually new, even though that’s been a mission of this Institution since 1874. I’m excited about the ways in which this place is urgently adapting to the need right now and seeing where that takes us going forward.

According to Jared Jacobsen, Chautauqua’s organist and coordinator of worship and sacred music, some of the most interesting music in America was written by the modernist composer Charles Ives.

“Ives had a very unique way of looking at music,” Jacobsen said. “His father was a bandleader who was very well-known in New England, and (organized) these huge festivals in their town. He would invite bands to march into the town square at the same time from every direction.”

Hearing the sounds of multiple bands overlapping each other as they played became a crucial part of Ives’ childhood and deeply affected his musical composition process, Jacobsen said.

“You would hear two bands playing the same piece but not in the same rhythm,” he said. “Or you would hear two bands playing the same piece but not in the same key. Or you would hear two bands playing the same piece but not really in tune.”

Jacobsen said Ives incorporated bands playing over one another into his music, leading the way on compositional concepts like bitonality, polyrhythmia, altered tunings and altered scales.

At 12:15 p.m. Wednesday, July 3 in the Amphitheater, Jacobsen will showcase distinctly American composers, like Ives, on the Massey Memorial Organ in the mini-concert “The American Organist.”

“These are all the pieces that I, as an American, play on this American organ, in the most American place in America,” Jacobsen said. “Ironically though, the idea for the (Massey) Organ was conceived in Canada and funded by a Canadian family.”

But, he added, the Massey Organ is “essentially a part of American history.”

Jacobsen said he designed the musical program for this mini-concert to complement the rich history of the Massey Organ, which is over 100 years old, and to anticipate Chautauqua’s Fourth of July celebration.

American Composer Dudley Buck’s “Concert Variations on ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ ” is one piece Jacobsen said he included specifically because of the Fourth of July.

“He’s important because he grew up in New England and got a really good American music education,” Jacobsen said. “Then he was sent to Europe by his parents to get the European stamp of approval.”

According to Jacobsen, people in the late 19th century believed that unless a composer had studied in Europe, they couldn’t be any good.

“They thought that since this was the Colonies, we didn’t know anything about making music,” he said, “which was totally bogus.”

Yet when Buck returned from Europe, according to Jacobsen, he became one of the first American organists to have a career as a touring concert artist, traveling up and down the Eastern seaboard.

“Dudley Buck’s piece, which is a blast to play, is a classic 19th century variation for the keyboard,” he said. “Variations involve starting with a tune, gently playing with it for a little bit, and then getting more adventurous with the rhythms or the chord structure. Because this is an organ piece, there’s always a part that shows off what your feet can do on the organ.”

Variations like Buck’s have a uniquely American flavor to them, according to Jacobsen.

“I just love playing American music,” Jacobsen said.

Students in the Chautauqua School of Music’s Voice Program will hold their first recital, “The Music of Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms,” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 3 in Fletcher Music Hall.

Each participating student will sing a piece written by either Brahms or one of the Schumanns; each piece is a lied, a type of German art song — meaning that it is not from a larger work such as an opera or a musical. Each one is about three to four minutes long. Though each song will be sung in German, the translations will be in the programs and before each student performs, Michael Dean and Maria Fortuna Dean — both vocal instructors — will recite the translation of the song the student is about to sing in the style of a poetry reading.

Each lied will also have a musical accompaniment on the piano, which will be provided by one of five of the School of Music’s voice faculty: Julias Abrahams, Michal Biel, Martin Dubé, Katelan Tran Terrell or Jinny Park.

The Voice Program chose to feature work from the Schumanns and Brahms for the first recital largely because this year marks the 200th anniversary of Clara Schumann’s birth. She was one of the most distinguished composers and pianists of the Romantic era — as were her husband, Robert, and Brahms, with whom both Schumanns were especially close.

“I think, nowadays, people are aware of (Clara’s) music, but as is the case with many female composers, especially at that time, it was harder for them,” said Donna Gill, head coach of the Voice Program. “But she wrote a number of really beautiful songs, as did her husband.”

Erin Wagner, a voice student from the Manhattan School of Music, will sing one of Clara Schumann’s pieces titled “Warum willst du and’re Fragen,” which translates to “Why will you question others?” This song sheds light on unconditional love.

“I chose this piece because it has been extremely important to me as a female singer to explore and represent the feminine response to the human experience,” Wagner said.

Wagner sees Clara Schumann as a pioneer for female musicians, since she was able to gain recognition and respect during a time when many female artists could not.

Mackenzie Jacquemin, a voice student from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, will also be one of the performers; she will be singing “Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer” by Brahms, which essentially translates to “Even lighter becomes my slumber.” The piece is about growing close to the end of one’s life; the singer contemplates the time they have left and calls out to their lover.

“I think the melody is beautiful, and I think the way that Brahms kind of intertwines the vocal line and the piano line is incredible and really paints the picture of the story and the scenery,” Jacquemin said. “On a technical side, it’s pretty challenging, but not so difficult that it’s too much; you can enjoy it and be in the moment.”

Marcel Sokalski, another voice student from the Manhattan School of Music, will be singing “An eine Äolsharfe,” or “The Air Harp,” by Brahms. In this piece, the singer ruminates on the sound of a nearby air harp and the emotions it evokes, such as melancholy and nostalgia.

“(The air horn is) this very warm and inviting sound and yet very mysterious,” Sokalski said. “For me, it’s bringing up these melancholic and nostalgic memories. … I love the rich textures in it, and the harmonies and the progression of the poetry.”

In total, 21 voice students will perform more than two dozen songs at the recital, giving audiences and the students a chance to hear some of the program’s vocal diversity and some of the best works of the Schumanns and Brahms.

“Being a part of a recital where you’ll be able to hear so many different interpretations and voices singing these songs is truly so special,” Wagner said.

Complete with stained-glass windows and thick blue carpet, the set of Chautauqua Theater Company’s The Christians has all the elements of a lavish megachurch.

The show, which opened last weekend and continues its run at 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 3 in Bratton Theater, looks at how a single change in belief can ripple outward and affect all aspects of life.

The high, vaulted ceilings of Bratton Theater draw the eyes of audience members toward a large cross hung at the back of the set, and the arrangement of the stage is such that those in the seats are made to feel like members of a real congregation.

According to scenic and projection designer Adam Rigg, these elements are entirely intentional.

“We’ve got people coming in and saying ‘Oh, am I in a church?’ ” Rigg said. “It’s to the point where we’ll be sitting in rehearsal and someone will curse and then look up and say ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ So that feels like a success.”

The design team of The Christians has worked toward blurring the line between theater and church to sell the relatability and universal nature of the issues the play brings up.

“We wanted the set to feel open and contemporary, like it could almost be any church anywhere in the country,” said Masha Tsimring, the show’s lighting designer. “We didn’t want it to feel particularly Catholic or ancient.” 

Tsimring said she used lighting to convey the subtle shifts in scene that occur without the actors ever leaving the church set. When the lighting dims slightly, characters might be in a more intimate setting, while the bright, full nature of the church lights paint a picture of a high-energy sermon.

Tsimring, Rigg and the rest of the design team put thought into the show down to the smallest detail.

Rigg recreated the church of his childhood with wood-paneled walls and bright, lavish carpet, and Tsimring considered how light would look as it emanated from onstage lamps versus ceiling-mounted lights. Costume designer Andrew Jean thought out how the lead character’s appearance could shift and deteriorate alongside his mental state as the show marches on.

But according to the design team, the technical elements of the play aren’t meant to steal the show. Sound designer Mikaal Sulaiman said the true heart of the show lies with the actors.

“Everything we’re doing with our technical elements is in support of the play,” Sulaiman said. “The emphasis is more on what the actors are saying in this show.”

According to Sulaiman, while some plays are certainly design-heavy, others are far more sparse, instead relying on the actors to drive home much of the emotion. He said The Christians is one such show.

To this end, the show’s crew has worked to make the technical parts present, but hard to perceive. Their goal has been to enhance the world of the play through subtle shifts in scene and minute modifications of the mood, all while allowing the play’s message to shine.

“Good design is sometimes pretty transparent and isn’t really always that noticeable,” Sulaiman said. “People thinking to themselves, ‘Oh, wow, that’s a really cool sound cue,’ is nice in a complimentary way, but it doesn’t always serve the play. Ideally, it makes people feel something without noticing they’re feeling it.”

The designers don’t mind that the full extent of their work sometimes goes unnoticed by the audience. Instead, they appreciate the depth of the show and the questions it raises.

“I love this show,” Tsimring said. “The questions it’s asking, and the way it portrays wrestling with a set of beliefs as a community where everyone thinks they’re right, are fascinating. At first glance, it looks very natural and normal, but the way it is written is inherently performative in the subtlest of ways. It’s not flashy or crazy, but there’s a lot there to enjoy.”

Chautauquans can make a charitable donation and enjoy Herb Keyser’s sweet treats at his upcoming baking event.

A baking demonstration with Keyser, known as the “King of Tarts,” will take place from 1 to 4 p.m. Wednesday, July 24, at Keyser’s cottage.

Keyser is a longtime Chautauquan who can regularly be found outside the Amphitheater on Mondays after the morning lecture selling lemon tarts. All proceeds, including tips, that Keyser earns from selling his sweet treats benefit the Chautauqua Fund, and all proceeds from the baking demonstration will also benefit the Chautauqua Fund. Through the sale of his book and other efforts, Keyser has generously contributed to the Chautauqua Fund over the years.

“I wrote a book about lemon tarts 14 years ago,” Keyser said. “Nobody wanted to buy a book about a non-chef and a non-celebrity about food, so I gave it to the Institution. We have raised over $65,000 for the Chautauqua Fund in a 13-year period.”

His book, A Chautauquan Searches Paris for the Best Tarte au Citron, is based on famous dessert recipes from Paris. Keyser had written 100 Parisian pastry chefs and asked that they teach him to bake. Fourteen of those chefs accepted his request, so Keyser and his wife traveled to those restaurants where he was personally taught by professional chefs the very same recipes that he’ll be teaching during the event. According to Keyser, people even use the book as a tour guide when visiting Paris because of its enchanting stories about the neighborhoods and restaurants.

“We went to Paris; we went to all of the most famous restaurants in Paris and they took me in and taught me how to make lemon tarts,” Keyser said. “I had always been writing books, and I just decided to write a book about lemon tarts.”

Keyser said he is most looking forward to raising money at the event and has set a fundraising goal.

“We are hoping to raise about $5,000 through the event,” he said. “It’ll go on for about three hours and they will be able to get samples of all of the desserts. Every participant will receive a treat to go home with.”

With registration and a $250 charitable gift, participants will learn how to make French lemon tarts, chocolate surprise cookies, New Orleans bourbon bread pudding and summer pudding. They will also receive a complimentary copy of A Chautauquan Searches Paris for the Best Tarte au Citron and receive a printed copy of all the recipes and instructions. Two lucky participants will leave with a prize of either an entire bread pudding or summer pudding. Everyone will also leave with a lemon tart, a portion of bread pudding and one chocolate cookie.

Tickets are limited to the first 20 to register, and may be purchased online at fundraise.chq.org/BakingWithHerb or by contacting the Chautauqua Foundation at 716.357.6465 or foundation@chq.org.