National Town Hall Meetings
On July 22, 2008 over 30 leaders from the fields of government, non-profit, civics, journalism, arts, humanities and education, met with the ALBC to discuss a series of National Town Halls.
Hosted by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., meeting attendants included U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL), chairman of the ALBC’s town hall initiative; current Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, then ALBC co-chair; former HUD Secretary Jack Kemp; William H. Gray III, former congressman and president of the United Negro College Fund; and Jim O’Shea, former managing editor of the Los Angeles Times. University of Chicago historians Charles Branham and Adam Green moderated the discussion.
The result: Ten cities (and later an 11th) chosen to lead discussions on Race, Freedom and Equality of Opportunity and focus on connecting Lincoln to the present day. To date, Gettysburg; Washington, DC; Detroit; Chicago; and the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) in Everett, WA have featured Town Halls. Discussion topics have included political representation, liberty and justice, immigration, voting rights, interracial roots, leadership and the military, and reconstruction.
The ALBC national Town Halls are a joint collaboration with the Fetzer Institute of Kalamazoo, Michigan and a multiplicity of co-conveners.
Visit the ALBC for more details and information on the National Town Hall Series.
Read more about this topic: Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission
Famous quotes containing the words national, town, hall and/or meetings:
“Thinking is the most unhealthy thing in the world, and people die of it just as they die of any other disease. Fortunately, in England at any rate, thought is not catching. Our splendid physique as a people is entirely due to our national stupidity.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale revelation of the barroom and the police court. The same ear is fitted to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“This is a Senate of equals, of men of individual honor and personal character, and of absolute independence. We know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators. This is a hall for mutual consultation and discussion; not an arena for the exhibition of champions.”
—Daniel Webster (1782–1852)
“I love meetings with suits. I live for meetings with suits. I love them because I know they had a really boring week and I walk in there with my orange velvet leggings and drop popcorn in my cleavage and then fish it out and eat it. I like that. I know I’m entertaining them and I know that they know. Obviously, the best meetings are with suits that are intelligent, because then things are operating on a whole other level.”
—Madonna [Madonna Louise Ciccione] (b. 1959)