All-Society Presentation

On March 13, 2020, 16 young people from Montana filed a climate lawsuit against the state, asserting that by supporting a fossil fuel-driven energy system, Montana is violating their constitutional rights.

Human-I-Tree is an original vision grown through community engagement at the New York Society for Ethical Culture by Audrey Kindred‘s collaboration with artists, activists, and children of all ages. It honors how every breath we take as humans is integral to the life of trees.

Audrey brings Felix Adler into dialogue with ecological hero and 2004 Nobel Prize for Peace recipient Wangari Matthai by proposing that “bringing out the best in one another and thereby ourselves” is not truly peace unless we honor our interconnectedness by respecting the earth together. Human-I-Tree branches into a whole family of tree concepts that can inspire our human community building processes.

ALL Society Presentation NOTE: 11:00-12:00 ET

“YVote is creating a youth-led civic movement. We equip young people to channel their passions into positive action—at and beyond the ballot box.”

Sanda Balaban, co-founder of YVote, and Audrey Kindred, of the NYSEC will present on how they collaborate to bring Voter and civic engagement activities to hundreds of youth in ongoing democracy reinforcing programs. They will show how other Ethical Societies can do similar civics / voter actions.

The program will include youth who will tell of their concerns and how YVote has prepared them for action and leadership.

Unite Against Book Bans campaign by the American Library Association (ALA) aims to raise awareness of the dramatic rise in censorship and book banning.

The ALA fully supports the right of every parent to control what their child reads, but not the right to restrict what other children read, or to limit the books that are available to young people in the library.

Ethical Culturists from around the country will gather to acknowledge the dark and bring out the light. Let's bring out the best of others and thus ourselves through this heart-centered winter solstice program of many voices.

* * Note 11:00 AM Start time. * * Award-winning investigative journalist, bestselling author, and New York Times contributing Opinion Writer Julia Angwin will dialogue with Ethical Culture Societies around the country about what we are doing to effectively resist and reverse the current slide into authoritarian government, and how to work together to do it better.

* * July 25 to 27 * * “Creating Communities for an Ethical Future” is this year’s theme. We hope you are inspired to bring members, friends, family, and neighbors to a place where we can register our needs for ethical practices in our public and private lives. All fees include food and beverages served at the Philadelphia Ethical Society.

This Labor Day, the outlook for organized labor power in America is grim. Already, the Trump administration has decimated the federal work force, torn up union contracts, broken our system of labor law enforcement, and pushed us down the road to fascism and oligarchy. Despite all that, however, one fundamental, structural truth has not changed: Labor power is still one of the only things that can pull us back from this precipice. What would that look like? Let’s talk about it.

Laura Flanders is the host and executive producer of Laura Flanders & Friends, a nationally syndicated TV and radio program which reports on progressive change-making in the worlds of arts, politics and economics.

Hosted by Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture.