2019-2020 Elinor Williams Hooker Expanded Tea Talk Series
The BHTNH is once again honored to host three of our signature Tea Talk programs in three new locations around the state. These intentional and participatory dialogues act as a catalyst for deeper excavating of New Hampshire’s Black history, while also facilitating intellectual and communal connections between racism’s grip on our past and its contemporary manifestations.
The mission of the BHTNH includes fostering dialogues about race, diversity, and inclusion in our state by deepening understanding of cultural and historical contexts in the state and nationally.
Sponsored in part by New Hampshire Humanities, Keene State College, Pease Public Library, Nashua Public Library, Plymouth State University, Outreach For Black Unity, & The Greater Nashua NAACP.
These events are Free and open to the public.
KEENE NH
Sunday, November 10, 2019 2pm
New Hampshire: Beyond Black & White
Panelists: David Watters, Darrell Hucks, & (TBA)
Moderator: Dottie Morris
Location: Keene State College Young Student Center in the Mountain view room
Moving Beyond rigid racial identities, this talk will explore the contemporary as well as historic intersection between Black and Indigenous communities, the presence of “passing” mixed race individuals, and the most recent immigrant experience within a New England context. These complex interactions, connections conflicts, experiences, and resistant efforts of Black, white and multi-racial citizens will be explored through scholarly research and an analysis of the film Lost Boundaries.
PLYMOUTH NH
Sunday, December 8, 2019 2pm
Land, Wealth and Policies of Marginalization
Presenters: Meghan Howey, Woullard Lett, & Suzanne Gaulocher
Moderator: Meg Peterson
Location: Pease Public Library
Despite improvements in education, social mobility and many other critical areas, large racial and ethnic disparities still exist in the U.S. Years of intentional government policies that removed lands and resources from Native Americans and restricted access for African Americans have created a significant wealth divide in the country that continues to create inequities faced today. This panel will explore how policies and environmental issues disenfranchised the very groups they should equalize.
NASHUA NH
Sunday, January 12, 2020, 2pm
In the Beginning, There was the Word
Presenters: Robert Thompson, Rev. Gail Avery, Rev. Renee Rouse, & Minister Ray Ealy
Moderator: Minister Olga Tines
Location: Nashua Public Library
The relationship between religion and race in American is complex. 20th-century scholars ranked world religions on an evolutionary scale. Not surprisingly, many of the religions deemed “primitive” were also those practiced by indigenous, non-White populations. This evolutionary ranking plays a vital role in the construction, deconstruction, and transgression of racial identities and religious boundaries in the country today. This panel of theologians will explore the relationship between church, race, and state and the role the church could play in healing the soul of the nation.
Biographies
Dr. David Watters is an Americanist with a deep focus on New England literature, history and culture. Professor Watters participate will serve as a moderator for one of the panel discussions and will attend as many as possible. Beyond this direct level of program involvement, Dr. Watters will act in in a supportive and thought-leader role alongside BHTNH’s Executive Director JerriAnne Boggis, as they tap into academic and cultural contacts across the four additional locations to recruit panelists, shape moderator questions, etc. The two have conceptualized, coordinated and deployed public humanities programs together for more than a decade under the banner of the Center for New England Culture and look forward to collaborating on this project.
Dr. Darrell Hucks is an Associate Professor of Elementary Education at Keene State College. He received his Ph.D. in Teaching & Learning from New York University. His research interests are in the reading, thinking, and writing experiences of first-year students during linked-courses their first-year in college and in the literacy beliefs and knowledge development of pre-service teachers in teacher education programs. He is also interested in the schooling experiences of Black and Latino males, collective achievement, teacher education, culturally responsive pedagogy, college student retention and development, and literacy enrichment and technology integration. He is also the author of New Visions of Collective Achievement: The Cross-Generational Schooling Experiences of African American Males.
As the Associate Vice President for Institutional Diversity and Equity, Dr. Dottie Morris is a member of the Keene State College President’s Cabinet. Her main foci are providing support and direction to the Executive, Academic, Student Affairs, Advancement and Finance and Planning divisions of the college as the institution works to fulfill its commitment to diversity and multiculturalism.
Chair & Associate Professor, UNH Department of Anthropology, Meghan Howey is an anthropological archaeologist specializing in Native North America. Her major research project has been on Native American regional organization in the Upper Great Lakes in the period preceding European Contact, exploring how tribal communities constructed and used ceremonial monument centers to facilitate economic, social, and ideological interaction in this period.
Woullard Lett is the Acting Regional Lead for the New England Region UUA. Prior to that, he was a nonprofit and community development consultant, a senior college administrator for Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) and adjunct faculty member for SNHU and Springfield College. During his career, Lett has provided technical assistance for government agencies, national community development intermediaries, and local community organizations.
Suzanne Gaulocher is Assistant Professor in Public Health and is the Associate Director the Center for Healthy Communities. Before joining PSU, she directed the Community Engaged Learning Program focused on Health at Stanford University. She holds a PhD 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 also from OSU in Cultural Anthropology. Her research and teaching centers around the intersection between human health and the environment with focus on community engagement, social justice and health equity.
Meg J. Petersen is a writer and teacher of writing at Plymouth State University. She is the founding director of the National Writing Project in New Hampshire. She has more than 25 years’ experience as a teacher educator. She has twice been awarded Fulbright Scholar Grants to work with teachers in the Dominican Republic on the teaching of writing, where she has consulted in the formation of the Proyecto de Escritura Nacional.
The Reverend Robert H. Thompson is the retired Phelps Minister at Phillips Church, Phillips Exeter Academy. He was ordained Itinerant Elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1980. Rev Thompson served as pastor of churches in Bellaire and Urbana, Ohio before coming to Phillips Exeter. Much of his life has been spent in support of building or strengthening communities, especially those that reach across racial and ethnic divisions. His work as Board President of the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire provides the latest outlet for this type of work.
From the onset, The Rev. Gail Avery has been immersed in ministries that have crossed cultural, religious and economic barriers—expanding the boundaries of parish reach and giving voice to the most vulnerable in our midst. Gail has served three parishes in New Hampshire and spent the past three years as interim rector at St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church in Dover. Since 2008 she has acted as the Diocesan-appointed clergy delegate to Province One. She also chairs the Reconciliation Commission that supports statewide social outreach and the Angola Committee spearheading parish partnering with on-the-ground global need within the diverse Anglican Community. An avid runner for the discipline it instills, a strong advocate of daily prayer for the guidance and wisdom it brings, and a lover of travel for the broader perspective on self it provides, she is committed to innovating the role church can play worldwide, starting locally.
Rev. Renée Rouse, MA in Theology, has over ten years of experience as a UCC minister. She graduated from Bethel Seminary in St.Paul Minnesota in 2007. She has experience with pastoral care counseling, conflict resolution, and rural church leadership. Rev. Renee works with all age levels, people of differing abilities and vulnerable populations such as people struggling with mental illness, homelessness, addiction and social injustice. She actively participates in the NH UCC Conference, serving on several committees.
Minister Ray Ealy is a former Chairperson of Southern New Hampshire Outreach for Black Unity (OBU). He is now an advisor to the executive board. He serves as a youth minister, church moderator, and gospel choir member at the New Fellowship Baptist Church in Nashua, New Hampshire. Ealy received a degree in Computing Technology from Control Data Institute, a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Business Administration and Psychology, a Master’s of Science Degree in Management & Computing systems and passed three engineering review boards within DEC. Minister Ealy is a former teacher and administrator of the Science Technology Engineering Program (STEP), a Basketball Coach, a recipient of Black Achievers Award for 2000 presented by the YMCA organization.
Minister Olga Tines is the Director of Education and Family Engagement at New Fellowship Baptist Church (NFBC) where she also directs the New Fellowship Gospel Choir. She is a member of the Management Faculty at UMass Lowell with expertise in Management Values & Ethics, Organizational Behavior, Negotiations, Professional Communications, and Business Ethics.
Elinor Williams Hooker
Elinor Williams Hooker (July 10, 1933 -January 27, 2012), a longtime New Hampshire resident and community activist, was born July 10, 1933 in Pittsburgh, PA, daughter of the late Dr. Ulysses Williams and Louise G. Williams. The family’s Pittsburgh home was near Wylie Avenue an active community of black businesses, jazz music and churches, a location that would shape her lifelong interest in multicultural activities.
Mrs. Hooker was a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University where she majored in French and English. She taught English in Junior and Senior High Schools in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, PA, Brockton and Quincy, MA and Concord, NH and served as a tutor in the English as a Second Language Program at Nashua’s Pennichuck Junior High.
Elinor was the wife of Thomas L. Hooker, who served from 1966 to 1974 as Director of the New Hampshire Division of Welfare.
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