Overview
How can we face our present, if we don’t know our past? At a time when senior citizens, especially those in communities of color, are particularly vulnerable, we need their wisdom more than ever. Join us for a series of conversations with the elders in our community, as they share the insight they’ve accrued over their lifetimes, and offer guidance to us all as we navigate a uniquely treacherous time.
Every month, Pearls of Wisdom online gatherings will feature members of NJPAC’s’ Council of Elders in conversation with educator and current president of the Newark Branch of the NAACP, Deborah Gregory Smith, and Susan Pope, an Ed.D. candidate at Columbia University and the founder of I Dance Because…., a nonprofit organization that offers social and emotional education to at-risk youth through dance.
Our first Pearls of Wisdom conversation on July 21 will focus on education, with two veteran leaders in the field:
- Eugene Campbell, who became the first Black superintendent of schools in Newark in 1985, and launched an initiative to reform the city’s school system while the district was under state control, and
- Carolyn Wallace, an educator and a co-founder of International Youth Organization, the New Jersey youth corps of Newark and Essex County, which provides after school programs, employment assistance, life-skills training and other services to young people,
Learn the history of Newark’s community, and find strength for the struggle ahead, in these in-depth conversations with leaders who have decades of experiences to share.
