View video archives of our past events
“Join or Die”: Film Screening and Discussion
Tickets: $15 in advance ($0 for teachers, students) / $20 day of event & at door.
Tuesday, November 12, 7 pm
The Lexington Venue, 1794 Massachusetts Ave., Lexington MA
Join the Lexington Lyceum Advocates and The Lexington Observer for a screening of “Join or Die”, which follows the half-century story of America’s civic unraveling through the journey of legendary social scientist Robert Putnam, whose groundbreaking Bowling Alone research into America’s decades-long decline in community connections could hold the answers to our democracy’s present crisis. Flanked by influential fans and scholars – from Hillary Clinton, Pete Buttigieg, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy to Eddie Glaude Jr., Raj Chetty, and Priya Parker – as well as inspiring groups building community in neighborhoods across the country, join Bob as he explores three urgent civic questions:
– What makes democracy work?
– Why is American democracy in crisis?
– And, most important . . . What can we do about it?
Stick around after for a short, facilitated talk back with Professor David Hummon.
Proceeds will support future civic events like this, The Lexington Observer and The Lexington Venue. If your organization is interested in joining as a co-sponsor and getting the message out about building community in Lexington, please let us know at events@lexlyceum.org!
Hosts:
The Lexington Lyceum
The Lexington Observer
Co-Sponsors:
Lexington Climate Action Network (LexCAN)
LexCAN is a volunteer-led, 501(c)(3) organization of Lexington residents who work together, and with other town organizations, to promote climate solutions, climate justice, and a sustainable future. As we work toward achieving livable, equitable, and resilient communities, LexCAN promotes a culture of inclusion. Join us as we work toward our goals.
Save Lexington Wildlife is committed to reducing and / or eliminating anti-coagulant rat poisons in Lexington, MA and beyond.
Facilitator: David Hummon
David Hummon (Emeritus Professor, Sociology, Holy Cross College) has long term interests in community, place, and American culture. He taught Community Studies, examining the changing structure of local life and social networks in American society. He has written professionally on popular beliefs about place and on the construction of identity through symbolic landscapes and attachment to place. A Winchester, Massachusetts, resident, he is now actively engaged in creative writing and painting, often returning to themes of community and place in his expressive work.
About Robert Putnam
Robert Putnam is the Malkin Research Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, having retired from active teaching in May 2018. Raised in a small town in the Midwest and educated at Swarthmore, Oxford, and Yale, he has served as Dean of the Kennedy School of Government. Professor Putnam has written fifteen books, translated into twenty languages, including the best-selling Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, and more recently, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, a groundbreaking examination of the growing opportunity gap.
He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the British Academy, and past president of the American Political Science Association. In 2006 Putnam received the Skytte Prize, the world’s highest accolade for a political scientist, in 2013 President Barack Obama awarded him the National Humanities Medal, the nation’s highest honor for contributions to the humanities, for “deepening our understanding of community in America,” and in 2018 the International Political Science Association awarded him the Karl Deutsch Award for cross-disciplinary research. He has received sixteen honorary degrees from eight countries, including in 2018, the University of Oxford.
Reconstruction and the “Moral Sense of the Nation”
Register Now
Thursday, October 17, 7 PM
Follen Church Sanctuary, 755 Mass Ave
Lexington resident Dr. Robert A. Bellinger will explore the significance of the Reconstruction era for understanding America’s past and as a window for examining issues in the present.
Robert Bellinger, PhD, Associate Professor Emeritus in History at Suffolk University. Dr. Bellinger is a public historian with a background in Black Studies and almost half a century of experience as an educator. He has served as a consultant and historian for documentary films, most notably the well-received documentary Birth of a Movement (2017). Dr. Bellinger has been engaged in public history projects at historic sites, monuments, and installations. Recently Dr. Bellinger completed a research project with the Lexington Historical Society on the history of Black people in Lexington 1690-1800, to expand the understanding and interpretation of the history of this Massachusetts community. A recent inductee into the Old Middlesex Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, Dr. Bellinger also serves on several boards, including for the Robbins House in Concord, the Shirley-Eustis House in Roxbury, and Middleton Place in Charleston, South Carolina.
This event is co-sponsored by the Association of Black Citizens of Lexington. A community reception will follow.
🎂 Come Eat Cake on Ellen Stone’s Birthday! 🎉
Monday, October 7, 8:30 AM at 250 Countdown Calendar, 1624 Mass Ave, Lexington
October 7 will be Ellen Stone’s 170th birthday, and we’ll be celebrating by taking our turn at the Lex250 Countdown Calendar, 1624 Mass Ave, Lexington—and we’ll have cake!
Everyone is welcome to join us (and Ellen!) for the turning.
Join LLA at the East Village Fair!
Saturday, October 5, 10AM-3PM, at the Ellen Stone Building, 735 Mass Ave, Lexington
Come visit the LLA Booth at the 186th East Village Fair, right next door to the Stone Building (735 Mass Ave, Lexington)! There will be food, fun, and a flea market—and a chance to catch up on a few of your favorite Lexington community organizations.
Bikeway Block Party
Sunday, September 15, 11 AM – 4PM
The Minuteman Bikeway is turning into a party! Enjoy this free event featuring a diverse array of arts, activities, and culture at parks along the Bikeway in Lexington and celebrate our shared space.
Make you visit the Lexington Lyceum Advocates table at Mill Brook Park (East Lexington near Fottler Avenue)!
See www.bikewayblockparty.orgfor more information.
A Walk Along the Bikeway Past
Sunday, September 15, 9-10 AM, Lexington Depot
Come enjoy a free walking tour along the bikeway and discover the visible clues that show us where the railway was, who used the railways, and how Lexington changed when Boston suddenly became an easy ride away. Co-sponsored by the Bikeway Block Party.
Lexington and Concord’s Battle Against Slavery
Meet the Robbins – Stone family and learn about Lexington and Concord’s cooperation in the Lyceum era. Louisa May Alcott’s family members were friends with the anti-slavery activists of the Ellen Stone Building. Learn about the cooperation between Emerson, Thoreau, the Alcotts, and their Concord circle with the Robbins family of East Lexington.
Saturday August 10, 10-11AM – See a follow-on event at 11am below led by recent Lexington High School graduate Amelia Settembre.
Meet at the Ellen Stone Building (735 Mass Ave Lexington)
Tour Guide: Kathleen Dalton, PhD. Suggested donation: $20.
This is an outdoor event
The Robbins Family, their Village, and their Cemetery
Learn about the Lyceum, its role in East Lexington’s early 19th-century history, and historic buildings and landscapes along Mass Ave. The tour will conclude at Robbins cemetery with an overview of New England tombstones and the history of the families buried there.
Saturday, July 27, 10-11:30 AM.
Meet at the Ellen Stone Building (735 Mass Ave Lexington) – Tour is outdoors
Tour Guide: Jeff Howry.
Suggested donation: $20
Free for Students, Teachers or anyone to whom a fee is a deterrent to attending
6/15: International Fun Fest
Mark your calendar!
Saturday June 15: 4-8pm
Lawn of the Ellen Stone Building
735 Mass Ave., Lexington
On the lawn of the Ellen Stone Building – Hold the date!
Let’s celebrate Lexington’s cultures and have some summer fun at the Stone Building, the eastern gateway to the Lexington Cultural district! Play family games, dance, listen to music from around the world, and relax with a beer and enjoy some of the longest days of the year.
- Play family games!
- Dance!
- Listen to music from around the world!
- Relax with a beer and enjoy one of the longest days of the year!
This festival is made possible with a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
Have a suggestion for a performer or a fun activity?
Email International-Fest@lexlyceum.org
Sponsors
Douglass Day
Wednesday, February 14, 2024
12 – 3 pm for general public
11 am – 3 pm for students
Lexington Depot
13 Depot Square, Lexington
In Lexington, this free event will bring together high school students, local public historians, and other interested community members for a day of history, transcription, and fun.
Join us as we host the Lexington contingent for this national event, organized by the Douglass Day Organization and the Library of Congress. The annual Douglass Day program honors Frederick Douglass with an online crowd-sourcing transcription project intended to make primary Black history resources more widely accessible.
In 2024, this event will feature the Frederick Douglass Papers: General Correspondence, 1841 to 1912, in the collection of the Library of Congress. Participants will try to transcribe all 8,731 pages in a single day!
Sponsored by Lexington Lyceum Advocates, the Association of Black Citizens of Lexington (ABCL), the Lexington Historical Society, the Lexington High School Social Studies Department, and the Lexington High STEAM Team
Affordable Housing
Community Conversation Series: How Much Affordable Housing Do We Need?
Tuesday, January 30, 2024, 7 pm
Follen Church Community Center
755 Massachusetts Ave, Lexington
What is “affordable housing”? Who uses it and why do we need it in Lexington? How will the actions we take as a Town impact our community and the broader housing crisis in Massachusetts?
The evening’s panelists will answer these questions from a personal, Town, and State perspective and then invite you to consider how much affordable housing Lexington needs.
Moderator:
Representative Michelle Ciccolo (15th Middlesex)
Panelists:
Jack Cooper, Board member, Housing Corporation of Arlington, retired Executive Director, Mass. Union of Public Housing Tenants
Chris Kluchman, Acting Director, Community Services Division, Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC)
Tiffany Payne, Lexington Resident and Affordable Housing Advocate
Elaine Tung, Chair, Lexington Affordable Housing Trust
Co-Sponsors
Frederick Douglass and the Reimagination of American Democracy in the Civil War Era: An Evening with Historian David Blight
Thursday, January 25, 2024, 7 pm
Tickets: $20
($15 for students, teachers, and Lexington Historical Society Members)
Purchase Tickets – Sold Out
Lexington Depot, 13 Depot Square, Lexington, MA
Historian David Blight will explore Frederick Douglass’s role as a prose poet of democracy, from his transformation as an advocate of the proslavery Constitution to the antislavery Constitution in the 1850s and how he interpreted the revolutionary transformations of emancipation and Reconstruction.
Blight is Sterling Professor of History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of several highly acclaimed books, including Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory and Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, which won the Pulitzer Prize in history. Copies of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom will be available for sale and signing at the event.
Sponsored by Lexington Lyceum Advocates, the Association of Black Citizens of Lexington, and the Lexington Historical Society
Deck the Halls:
Female Abolitionists and Christmas
December 11 – 7 pm
Ken Turino
Historic New England
Follen Church Sanctuary, 755 Massachusetts Avenue
View the recorded event
New England’s female abolitionists in the first half of the nineteenth century played a large role in the development of modern American Christmas traditions. These abolitionists, led by Maria Chapman, hosted anti-slavery society Christmas Fairs – one of the earliest traditions associated with Christmas. It was at these fairs that most Americans in the first half of the nineteenth century encountered a Christmas tree. These fairs had a wide-ranging influence on our current customs, including the use of greenery in decorating and gift giving in America. Women, including Lexington sisters Julia and Ellen Robbins, promoted abolitionism while creating goods for sale as well as organizing the fairs. This helped move women out of the designated domestic sphere of the home (not without controversy) into the economy. All of this would forever change the role of women in society and how we celebrate Christmas.
This event is co-sponsored by Lexington Lyceum Advocates and LexSeeHer
4/30: Growing up in a Climate Crisis: how are young people responding?
Tuesday, April 30, 6:30-9PM
Follen Church Community Center
755 Mass Ave, Lexington
6:30 Pre-conversation activity with Roaming Buffalo Wabanaki
7:00 Panel Conversation
How are young people driving change, staying resilient, and keeping hope alive in the face of climate crisis? Join this interactive conversation and hear high school students and young college graduates talk about how they feel, what they think, and what they’re doing about climate change.
At 6:30 pm, Roaming Buffalo Wabanaki will lead us into a space of heart-centered connectedness to all living things that depend on the planet and a healthy, stable climate to thrive and survive. They will draw on Indigenous wisdom and teachings to help us prepare for our community conversation.
Resources
Moderator / Facilitator & Panelists
Read participants’ bios
Cindy Arens: Moderator
Roaming Buffalo Wabanaki: Pre-conversation centering and circle facilitator
Panelists:
– Isaiah Johnson, LHS graduate, Mystic River Watershed Association
– Milo Briskin, Education Coordinator, Mass Audubon
– Atreyi Basu, LHS ’24, Sustainable Lexington Youth
– Caroline Ehmann, LHS ’25, Co-captain, LHS Envirothon
– Dora Liao, LHS ’24, Sustainable Lexington Youth
– Eileen Ho, LHS ’25 Co-captain, LHS Envirothon
