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Murder at the Harvard Medical School
In person, speaker: Honorable Dennis J. Curran, Justice, Massachusetts Superior Court (ret.)
Thursday, April 13, 7:00 p.m.
Location: Charlotte and William Bloomberg Medford Public Library
Free. Register on Eventbrite here.

The case Commonwealth v. Webster, the most legally historical trial in the history of Massachusetts, established the legal principal “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” a requirement that has since been adopted by most other states. This was the first trial to use forensic science, forensic evidence, forensic experts and dental forensic evidence in trial. It also defined “murder” and “manslaughter”.  Few, if any, cases have produced the number of fundamental legal principles used throughout our nation today as Commonwealth v. Webster.  This presentation will address the compelling and intriguing facts behind this landmark decision on so many issues in criminal jurisprudence.
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Medford Arts Council, a local commission that is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the City of Medford

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Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South
Speakers: Patsy Rembert and Erin I. Kelly
Thursday, May 4, 7:00 p.m., Charlotte and William Bloomberg Medford Public Library
Free. Register on Eventbrite here.

Patsy Rembert and Erin I. Kelly, will discuss Winfred Rembert’s memoir, Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South, which in 2022 was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in biography. This program will include slides of Rembert’s remarkable paintings on leather.  Winfred Rembert grew up in Cuthbert, GA, where he picked cotton as a child. As a teen-ager, he got involved in the civil-rights movement and was arrested in the aftermath of a demonstration. He later broke out of jail, survived a near-lynching, and spent seven years in prison. Following his release, in 1974, he married Patsy, and eventually set­tled in New Haven. At the age of 51, he began carving and painting memories from his youth onto leather, using skills he had learned in prison. Rembert passed away on March 31, 2021. He was honored by the Equal Justice Initiative in 2015 and awarded a US Artists Barr Fellowship in 2016.

Patsy Rembert met Winfred while he was in prison and doing forced labor near her home in Turner County, GA. After four years of letter-writing, the two married upon his release in 1974 and moved north, settling in New Haven, CT, where they raised eight children and Mrs. Rembert became a longtime youth advocate.  It was Patsy who first convinced her husband to pursue art seriously, and to tell his life story visually, using the leather-tooling skills he’d learned in prison.

Erin I. Kelly is Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University and co-author of Chasing Me to My Grave. She is also the author of The Limits of Blame: Rethinking Punishment and Responsibility (Harvard University Press, 2018). She writes and speaks about ethics and social justice, especially in connection with criminal law.  Her current work aims, among other things, to develop a philosophical understanding of restorative justice as an alternative to retributive accounts of punishment.

Presentation Supported by a grant from the Medford Community Fund.