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.
What’s Belief got to do with it?
2021 Elinor Williams Hooker Tea Talks
February 2 – March 8, 2020 – Portsmouth
“For some of our most important beliefs, we have no evidence at all, except that people we love and trust hold these beliefs.”
— 2002 Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman
Belief is a powerful component of human nature that forms our convictions, molds our relationships and informs our behavior. These convictions provide a moral framework that guides our lives, thoughts, and hopes, and governs our societies. Our beliefs can lead us to strive for justice, equity, and inclusion, or they can manifest into harmful stereotypes, racialized beliefs, and prejudices that divides a society.
For the 2020 Tea Talks Series, together we will explore how and why we believe what we believe. Through shared stories and dialogue this series will present ideas and offer opportunities for us to examine our personal beliefs, why we form attachments to those beliefs and how they shape our world.
The winter Tea Talk series, presented by the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire (BHTNH) and sponsored in part by a grant from New Hampshire Humanities, is a series of participatory lectures related to New Hampshire’s Black history and African American culture.
Four of these Talks will be held at the Portsmouth Public Library, Levenson Room, 175 Parrot Avenue, Portsmouth, NH. The others will be held at Temple Israel, 200 State St., Portsmouth NH
All talks are from 2 – 4 pm. In case of inclement weather, a canceled talk will be rescheduled for March 15 or March 22.
These events are free and open to the public.
Click here to download a copy of the 2020 EWHTT Flyer
Videos of each talk are now available. Please click the link below for each program.
SPONSORED BY
Tea Talks
Sunday, February 2, 2020, 2pm
We Are Our Beliefs -- Or Are We?
Presenters: Chris Matthews, Jeannine Jacques, Eric Schildge
Location: Temple Israel, 200 State St., Portsmouth NH
Beliefs are powerful structures within the human mind that help us navigate our social and personal environments. These beliefs do not need to make sense to be deeply held. Our thoughts and feelings, our actions and reactions, respond not to the world as it is but to the world as we believe it to be.
This panel will explore the nature of beliefs around race, how they are formed, how they affect us both individually and in social groups and, what happens when our lived experience challenges those beliefs.
Sunday, February 9, 2020, 2pm
No Neutral Ground: Media and Belief Formulation
Presenters: Shelley Walcott, Eric Ratinoff, Howard Altschiller
Location: Portsmouth Public Library, Levenson Room
The media – television, the press, radio and the internet – plays an important role in shaping public opinion and reinforcing a society’s beliefs. In informing the public about what happens in the world, the media can shape public debate and focus public interest on particular agendas and thus can influence individual actions and implicit associations.
For this panel, presenters will explore how media coverage operates to help form individual beliefs and attitudes around race. They will also explore the potential for media to influence positive social change.
Sunday, February 16, 2020, 2pm
Medicine, Health, and Race
Presenters: Shari Robinson, Daphne Robert, Kerri Osborne
Location: Portsmouth Public Library, Levenson Room
Racism in medicine, a problem with roots over 2,500 years old, is a historical continuum that continuously affects the health of African Americans and the way they receive healthcare. Racism is, at least in part, responsible for the fact that Blacks and People of Color, since enslavement, have had inadequate health care, poor health status, and poorer health outcomes.
This panel will discuss how myths about racial inferiority and physical racial differences have operated in the fields of medical practice, social work and mental health. Panelists will also explore new theories and methodologies for healthier outcomes.
Sunday, February 23, 2020, 2pm
Culture and Race in the Public Sphere
Presenters: Anthony Poore, Nathaniel Sheidley, Dennis Britton, J. Dennis Robinson
Location: Portsmouth Public Library, Levenson Room
Many of our beliefs are passed along to us from our families and communities, who transmit the foundational ideas that shape how we see the world. How the arts and humanities shape their contents also have a powerful influence on how we form particular beliefs.
This panel will discuss the historical role the arts, literature and interpretive spaces such as museums have played in shaping our beliefs and discuss the value of presenting more inclusive stories and diverse representations into the public sphere.
Sunday, March 1, 2020, 2pm
Racism without Racists: Educating Generations Past & Future
Presenters: Kabria Baumgartner, Mabelle Barnette, Liz Canada, Elizabeth Dubrulle
Location: Portsmouth Public Library, Levenson Room
From the moment a child is born, his or her education begins. As the child grows beliefs, cultural expectations and norms are reinforced by teachers, textbooks, and classmates. For students outside the dominant culture, this aspect of the educational system can pose significant challenges for once the brain has constructed a belief, it rationalizes it with explanations and thus becomes invested in the belief.
This panel will explore the historical challenges educational institutions have faced in dealing with diverse student groups and ways to create spaces for more parity and positive learning experiences for all.
Sunday, March 8, 2020, 2pm
New Voices: Our Beliefs, Our Reality
Presenters: Funmi Oyekunle, Carlos Cardona, Courtney Dalbec, Jordan Thompson
Location: Temple Israel, 200 State St., Portsmouth
The implicit associations and beliefs we harbor in our subconscious cause us to have feelings and attitudes about other people based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, age, and appearance.
With a lens on educational institutions, politics and the law, this closing discussion will feature a group of emerging New Hampshire voices that will explore where we are culturally as a state and where we want to be heading.
Biographies
Lowell "Chris" Matthews is an associate professor of Organizational Leadership at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) and director of the University Honors Program. During his tenure at SNHU he has developed courses on white privilege, workplace diversity, and gender equity. His area of expertise includes leadership, human resources, and strategic management. Matthews keeps active in the community by volunteering with Big Brothers Big Sisters of New Hampshire, City Year, and the Granite YMCA. He has served as chair of the board for DreamCatchers NH. Chris Matthews completed his Bachelor of Business Administration in Business Management at the University of Delaware, his Master of Business Administration at Roosevelt University and his Doctorate of Business Administration from Argosy University.
Jeannine Jacques is a retired educator, social worker, and psychotherapist who had a 30-year practice in individual and group psychotherapy in Portsmouth. She holds a Masters Degree in Counselor Education, a Masters Degree in Social Work, and has done post-graduate studies in the Integration of Psychotherapy and Spirituality. She is trained in mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and has practiced Buddhism for over 20 years. She is currently active with the Compassionate Listening Project and volunteers with the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire.
Eric Schildge is a humanities teacher and co-director of the NHTP Youth Repertory Company. He is a director, actor, teaching artist, and high school teacher. Eric graduated with honors from Dartmouth College with a degree in Gender Studies, Geography and Native American Studies. His directing credits include The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and As You Like It. Some favorite acting credits include Biloxi Blues, 12 Angry Men, and To Kill A Mockingbird. Eric has facilitated workshops for teachers, students, and professional actors, training them in dramatic and teaching techniques to increase engagement, comprehension, creativity, and critical thinking. He studies and performs at ImprovBoston in Cambridge, MA.
Shelley Walcott is an award-winning journalist and former co-anchor of both News 9 Tonight at 11 p.m. on WMUR, and News 9 at 10 p.m. on MeTV New Hampshire. Her work has seen her presented with several awards: The Foundation of American Women in Radio and Television presented Shelley with a Gracie Award, in the category of Children’s/Adolescent TV, for a three-part medical series she produced for the CNN on “The Teenage Brain.” The Milwaukee Press Club honored Shelley in the category of “Best Live Reporting.” Also, the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association recognized Shelley with a Merit Award for "Best Feature Story. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Political Science from Concordia University in Montreal. She also holds a Diplôme Études Collégial in Social Sciences from Montreal's Vanier College.
Eric Ratinoff is the founder and Chief Storyteller of Story First, a strategic storytelling firm that helps companies and organizations get clear about their story and tell it more effectively. He is also the co-founder of The Mouse and the Elephant, a diversity and inclusion consulting firm; served as Executive Editor for the Ferguson Commission report; and co-authored “A Seat at the Table,” an award-winning column on diversity and inclusion for the New Hampshire Business Review.
An organizer and speaker coach for TEDxAmoskeagMillyard, Eric also spoke at TEDxCapeMay in New Jersey, with a talk entitled, “Once Upon a Time At The Office: How Stories Shape Culture At Work.” Eric earned his Bachelor of Arts in English at Washington University in St. Louis.
Howard Altschiller is the Executive Editor and General Manager of Seacoast Media Group, publishers of Seacoastonline, Fosters.com, Portsmouth Herald, Foster's Daily Democrat, Hampton Union, Exeter News-Letter, York Weekly and York County Coast Star. During a 30 year career, he has won numerous reporting awards and is a two-time winner of Editorial Writer of the Year from the New England Newspaper and Press Association. Altschiller is president of New Hampshire Press Association, co-chair of New Hampshire Committee on the Judiciary and the Media and named one of New Hampshire’s 200 Most Influential Business Leaders by New Hampshire Business Review in December 2019.
Shari Robinson is the Director of Psychological and Counseling Services (PACS) at the University of New Hampshire. Her professional interests include counseling issues related to diversity and multiculturalism, First-Generation college students, spirituality/religion, Student Veterans and mentoring people of color. Shari considers herself a social justice change agent working toward equity, inclusion and diversity in all of her professional and personal settings. Shari Robinson earned her Ph.D. at West Virginia University.
Dr. Daphne Robert is a Podiatry Specialist in Boston, Massachusetts. She graduated with honors from New York College of Podiatric Medicine in 2011. Having more than 9 years of diverse experiences, Dr. Daphne Robert works in cooperation with many other doctors and specialists as part of her practice.
Kerri Osborne joined the National CARES Mentoring Movement in 2019 as the Chief Development Officer. In her role, she most enjoys building relationships with stakeholders and generating excitement about the transformational work National CARES is doing across the country. Prior to joining National CARES, Kerri was at Jumpstart for Young Children for fourteen years. In her time at Jumpstart, Kerri held a variety of leadership roles including Executive Director for CT, NJ, NY and PA and VP of Field Operations and Strategy. Kerri’s passion for education, service and social justice stems from her time teaching pre-kindergarten in the Bronx. Kerri earned her BA at Columbia University and her MS at Quinnipiac School of Business.
Anthony Poore joined NH Humanities as Executive Director in 2018. Previously he worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in regional and community outreach and was Assistant Dean of Southern New Hampshire University’s School of Community Economic Development. In Anthony’s 25 years of experience in the community economic development sector, he has worked as a practitioner, policy analyst, researcher and executive addressing the needs of urban and rural communities through participatory cross-sector collaborative processes. Currently, Anthony serves on the Board of Directors of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, Endowment for Health, Manchester Community College and NH Listens Advisory Boards.
Nathaniel Sheidley is former Executive Director of the Bostonian Society and now serves as the 1st President and CEO of Revolutionary Spaces. This new organization completes the merger of the Bostonian Society with the Old South Association of Boston, creating a dynamic new historical resource. He works to connect people to the history and personal practice of democracy through encounters with two of the nation’s most important Revolutionary sites - Boston's Old South Meeting House and Old State House. Nathaniel Sheidley earned his Ph.D. in History at Princeton University.
Dennis Britton is an Associate Professor of English at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of Becoming Christian: Race, Reformation, and Early Modern English Romance (2014), and co-editor with Melissa Walter of Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (2018). He is also the coeditor with Kimberly Coles of a special issue of the journal Spenser Studies on "Spenser and Race." He is currently working on two books, Shakespeare and Pity: Feeling Human Difference on the Early Modern Stage, and Reforming Ethiopia: African-Anglo Relations in Protestant England. Dennis Britton earned his Ph.D. in English at the University of Wisconsin.
J. Dennis Robinson is a popular newspaper columnist, lecturer, and public historian. He is the author of a dozen narrative history books on topics ranging from Jesse James, Lord Baltimore, and child labor exploitation to the historic Music Hall theater, Wentworth by the Sea Hotel, Strawbery Banke Museum, Privateer Lynx, archaeology at the Isles of Shoals, and the infamous 1873 Smuttynose Island ax murders. Dennis lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, just across the swirling Piscataqua River from Maine.
Kabria Baumgartner is an Associate professor of English and Women’s & Gender Studies at the University of New Hampshire. She specializes in nineteenth-century African American history and literature. Her first book, In Pursuit of Knowledge: Black Women and Educational Activism in Antebellum America (New York University Press, 2019), examines the history of school desegregation in the nineteenth-century Northeast by focusing on the experiences of African American girls and women. She is currently writing her second book, Bound To Service: Black Girls and Unfree Labor in the Shadow of Slavery, which explores the rise of indentured servitude in the Northeast and its impact on African American girls and women during the early national period. Kabria Baumgartner earned her Ph.D. in African-American/Black Studies at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst.
Mabelle Barnette, an activist and social worker. has over 30 years of experience as a Protective Service Social Worker for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She has also served as the Information Coordinator for the Harriet Wilson Project. Barnette earned a BA degree in Public and Human Services from U Mass Boston and attended Simmons School of Social Work.
Liz Canada is the Director of Policy and Practice at Reaching Higher NH. Previously serving as the Director of Community Engagement, her work in education has taken her across the country to build family and community engagement initiatives to support student learning. Liz has also taught English and literature at the high school, community college, and four-year private university levels.
Liz received her Master of Arts in English at Seton Hall University and her Master of Education in Education Policy and Management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Elizabeth Dubrulle is the director of education and public programs at the New Hampshire Historical Society. She is also the director of the Democracy Project, the Society’s $1 million initiative to revitalize history and civics in New Hampshire’s elementary schools. The Society recently launched a new online statewide curriculum called “Moose on the Loose: Social Studies for Granite State Kids,” which is available at moose.nhhistory.org. The “Moose” is intended for upper elementary students (ages 8-12 years old). Elizabeth holds a master’s degree in American history from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has published numerous articles on New England history, as well as a book, Goffstown Reborn: Transformations of a New England Town (2009). She previously worked on the editorial staff of the Writings of Henry D. Thoreau and for the Colonial Society of Massachusetts and taught in the humanities program at St. Anselm College.
Funmi M. Oyekunle is the Coordinator of the CONNECT Program at the University of New Hampshire. Her professional interest involves mentoring and advocating for underrepresented students in higher education. She has worked on various social justice projects at Whitman College, University of Massachusetts Lowell, and Middlesex Community College. Oyekunle earned her B.A. degree in English and Women Studies from the University of New Hampshire, and her M.ED in Higher Education in Student Affairs from Salem State University.
Carlos Cardona is a New Hampshire activist and NH State delegate for the City of Franklin. He became one of the youngest elected officials in New Hampshire in 2007, serving 2 terms on the SAU #18 School Board, and is a former candidate for New Hampshire State Representative. He was nominated as a Youth Ambassador to President Obama in 2008. He has been appointed the Immigration Commission of New Hampshire and currently serves as the Chairman of the Laconia Democrats.
Courtney Dalbec is a senior at Dover High School and a member of the student-funded group Project DREAM (Diversity, Respect, Education, Advocacy, Mission), representing a team of young leaders promoting diversity and respect in their schools and community. She was one of 3 Project DREAM members invited to speak at the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. event hosted by the Seacoast NAACP. Ms. Dalbec and her teammates at Project DREAM work to raise funds for speakers and facilitators to lead discussions on diversity and multicultural issues at Dover High School and advocate for positive action to better meet the needs of marginalized students.
Jordan Thompson is a writer, youth activist and community organizer from Nashua. In 2017, he ran a youth-powered campaign for moderator in Nashua’s Ward 2. He ran for the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 2018, narrowly losing the primary by 30 votes. Today, he’s focused his efforts on child welfare advocacy and empowering others through cultural awareness and civic engagement. In February 2018 he was one of 10 young men of color selected to participate in the My Brother’s Keeper Conference for young leaders, a White House initiative started by President Barack Obama.
