Every year the Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures are an opportunity to bring together visionary thinkers and further consider our course as individuals and as a community. The all day event draws together Schumacher members and friends for a celebration of shared vision, common fellowship, and the shaping of practical responses to our most pressing economic, social, and environmental concerns. With more hard work ahead of us we are fortunate to step back and again engage in the enlightening and evolving discussion around building sustainable local economies. This year we are especially pleased to have three outstanding speakers, all leaders in developing just and thriving local economies.
Majora Carter founded Sustainable South Bronx in 2001 to fight for environmental justice through innovative, economically sustainable projects that are informed by community needs. Bill Clinton stated that her “example in the Bronx ought to become a title wave.” Her vision, drive, and tenacity earned her a MacArthur “Genius” Grant in 2005. Carter also co-hosts Sundance Channel’s “The Green,” television’s first regularly scheduled programming dedicated to the environment.
Charles Turner has been a Boston City Councilor since 1999, well known for challenging education inequality, discrimination, neighborhood gentrification, and the war in Iraq. He has championed and been actively involved with cooperatives and worker-owned enterprises, a leader for many years at the Industrial Cooperative Association (now the ICA Group). Turner recently sponsored a resolution asking the Mass Congressional Delegation to seek policies that lead to a withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan as well as policies that put a larger share of our federal dollars into domestic priorities that benefit the people of Boston and the United States. The resolution passed 8 to 3.
Michael Shuman is a noted economist, attorney, author, entrepreneur, and vice president for Enterprise Development for the Training and Development Corporation. Shuman is widely recognized for his research into the economic advantages of small-scale businesses in an era of globalization as well as the often over-looked benefits of building local economies in an era of big-box retail chains. He is the author of The Small Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses are Beating the Global Competition and Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in the Global Age.
The 27th Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures will be held on October 27th at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Castle Street, Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The event starts at 10 am and tickets are 20 BerkShares/dollars and 15 BerkShares/dollars for members/students/seniors and can be purchased through the Schumacher Center by calling (413) 528-1737 or through the Mahaiwe Theater Box Office.
Come early and trade your federal dollars for BerkShares local currency at one of the nearby participating banks. Then look for the “BerkShares Accepted Here” sticker in the shops and cafes of the town’s vibrant Main Street and experience history in the making.