Black heritage of New Hampshire talk

PLYMOUTH — The Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire and New Hampshire Humanities will host a community dialogue, Land, Wealth and Policies of Marginalization, on Sunday, Dec. 8, at 2 p.m. at Pease Public Library.

Facilitated by Meg Peterson, founding director of the National Writing Project in New Hampshire, the panel will discuss why racial and ethnic disparities still exist in the U.S., despite improvements in education, social mobility and other areas. 

This year’s expanded Tea Talk series takes place in Plymouth, Keene and Nashua, as part of BHTNH’s statewide expansion drive. These participatory dialogues serve to examine New Hampshire’s black history, and the role it plays in the community today.

Panelists Suzanne Gaulocher, Meghan Howey, and Woullard Lett will explore how policies and environmental issues disenfranchised the groups they aimed to equalize.

Petersen is a writer and instructor at Plymouth State University, with more than 25 years of experience as a teacher educator. Twice awarded Fulbright Scholar grants to work with teachers in the Dominican Republic, Petersen also consulted on the formation of the Proyecto de Escritura Nacional.

Gaulocher is a PSU assistant professor in public health and associate director of the Center for Healthy Communities. Before joining PSU, she directed the Community Engaged Learning Program focused on health at Stanford University. She holds a doctorate of philosophy from the University of Wisconsin at Madison where she was a part of the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, focusing on the intersection of human and environmental health. She also holds a master of public health from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and a master of arts from Oregon State University in applied medical anthropology and a bachelor of science from OSU in cultural anthropology.

Lett is acting regional lead for the New England Region Unitarian Universalist Association. He was previously a nonprofit and community development consultant, a senior college administrator for Southern New Hampshire University, and an adjunct faculty member at SNHU and Springfield College. During his career, Lett provided technical assistance to government agencies, national community development intermediaries, and local community organizations.

The program is an expansion of the BHTNH signature Elinor Williams Hooker Tea Talk Series, named in honor of Elinor Williams Hooker, a long-time resident of Nashua. The series is funded by a grant from the New Hampshire Humanities and sponsored by Keene State College, Pease Public Library, Nashua Public Library, Plymouth State University, Outreach for Black Unity and the Greater Nashua NAACP.

For more information, visit blackheritagetrailnh.org/tea-talks, email info@blackheritagetrailnh.org, or call 603-570-8469.