White House-honored 'Champion of Change' to speak in Keene for MLK Day

Jan. 10—Keene's Human Rights Committee plans to honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a speaker at the Keene Public Library on Monday, Jan. 15.

Father Greg Boyle, founder of a national gang-rehabilitation program, is scheduled to give a talk titled "Cherished Belonging: Love in Divided Times" at Heberton Hall at 6 p.m., according to a news release from Keene Youth Services Manager Alyssa Bender-Jesse.

Boyle's Homeboy Industries provides "hope, training, and support to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated persons," Bender-Jesse wrote. The organization is based in Los Angeles.

Black and Hispanic people are disproportionately incarcerated in the United States, including in New Hampshire, according to the nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative. That organization found that 813 Black people and 224 Hispanic people were incarcerated in New Hampshire prisons per 100,000 state residents in 2021, versus 144 white people per 100,000 state residents that same year.

According to the National Gang Center, which is funded in part by the U.S. Department of Justice, factors such as family poverty and residence in a disadvantaged neighborhood are risk factors in gang membership, with racial composition of gangs largely based on socioeconomic variables.

The National Youth Gang survey, an annual survey of law enforcement agencies done by the center between 1996 and 2012, found that the officials reported about half of gangs "as Hispanic/Latino and approximately one-third as African American/black. Around 10 to 15 percent of gang members are reported as white/Caucasian."

The White House named Boyle a Champion of Change in 2014, and the University of Notre Dame awarded him the Laetare Medal, the most prestigious award given to an American Catholic, in 2017.

During the upcoming Keene event, "Boyle will also meet with leaders from area faith communities, city officials, school representatives, business leaders and others," the news release states.

Books written by Boyle, including the 2022 anthology "Forgive Everyone Everything," will be available for purchase at the event, with all proceeds going to Homeboy Industries, according to the release.

Before his talk, Boyle will lead a conversation with local youth, open to all students from middle school through college, about making their communities more loving and compassionate, Bender-Jesse wrote. That free event will take place in the library's Cohen HallJan. 15 from 4:30-5:30 p.m.

Sofia Cunha-Vasconcelos, chair of the Keene Human Rights Committee, described Boyle as an "inspiring public figure."

"An author, exceptional presenter, and community leader, he has much to teach all of us about forgiveness and love," she said in the release. "I think people will be surprised how much the lessons he has learned from his decades of work with members of some of the nation's most violent gangs are applicable to our own lives here in rural New England."

The Monadnock Interfaith Project; Keene State College; Keene Public Library; Keene Family YMCA; Monadnock Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Coalition; Bensonwood; and The Community Kitchen in Keene are also co-sponsoring the event, the release added.

Later this month, Keene State College students will reflect on a 2023 spring break trip that visited historical locations related to the Civil Rights Movement, according to Paul Miller, the college's director of strategic communications. Seven students visited sites including the MLK Center in Atlanta, the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., and the International Civil Rights Center and Museum in Greensboro, N.C., according to Miller.

The Edmund Pettus Bridge, named for a Confederate general and grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, was the site of a civil rights event known as "Bloody Sunday." On that day, March 7, 1965, state and local law enforcement attacked around 600 civil rights protesters with billy clubs and tear gas, according to the U.S.National Park Service.

Elsewhere in the region, events are planned in Jaffrey, Rindge and Peterborough.

Peterborough will see a potluck community brunch, speeches and musical performances in Reynolds Hall at All Saints' Episcopal Church from 10 a.m. to noon on Jan. 15. The event will be hosted by the Hancock Community Conversations on Race Group, an initiative founded in 2018 that brings together community members from Hancock, Greenfield and Peterborough to discuss racial discrimination in the state.

The events in Jaffrey and Rindge, hosted by the Jaffrey-Rindge MLK Committee, will occur over two days, with a keynote address on Jan. 14 at 1 p.m. at the Cathedral of the Pines in Rindge. On Jan. 15 at 5 p.m., the Park Theatre in Jaffrey will host Cyndy Jean, who will share her personal story of growing up as a Haitian immigrant in Rindge. All of these events will be free and open to the public.

Christopher Cartwright can be reached at ccartwright@keenesentinel.com or 603-352-1234, extension 1405.

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