2023 Annual Meeting

We gathered last Thursday evening to celebrate our community, share successes, and describe ambitious plans for the coming year. Most importantly, we heard from eight amazing speakers who talked about why, and how, they have chosen to dedicate their lives to improving the systems, laws, policies, and attitudes that ensure every member of a community is included, respected, and protected. We learned about community-oriented policing, elevating students to the center of classroom learning, exploring intersections in art, education and advocacy, guiding staff toward diversity and inclusion, responding effectively to hate incidents, teaching the Holocaust with compassion, learning about oneself by painting a portrait, and how Indigenous communities will not heal and prosper without equal protections under the law.

What our speakers shared is a steadfast, unwavering conviction that in order to create safe and welcoming places the fundamental systems of inequity, racism, and income inequality must be fixed. In very different arenas, each of our guest speakers strives to fix what is broken, build on what is working, and fight for what is right.

Executive Director of the HHRC, Tam Huynh offered a land acknowledgment and warm welcome to everyone. Noel March, Justice Studies Faculty and Director of the Maine Community Policing Institute, described community-oriented policing and the collaborations he is fostering among local and national organizations. Ayesha Hall, Director of Strategic Partnerships for the MDOE Commissioner’s Office, described moving from large cities to a rural county in Maine, and how her understanding of education has shifted from teacher to student centered learning. Clark Young, Co-creator of Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski, spoke poignantly about walking past a statue of war hero Jan Karski, who tried to alert the U.S. government of Nazi atrocities, on his college campus, only to return years later after writing and producing a play, and film, about the story. Barrett Wilkinson, Executive Director of Human Resources for the Portland Public Schools, holds a deep passion for ensuring that teachers have what they need in order to reduce bias in Portland’s schools. Barrett collaborated with the HHRC to offer a robust anti-bias program for teachers and educators in his district. Kris Targett, Principal of Spruce Mountain Middle School, described what it took to respond, and help his staff prepare for future incidents, when two high school students were expelled for painting a swastika and racial slurs in the school building. Michael Carter, teacher, minister, and Holocaust scholar, inspired our 2023 Spiegel Scholarship recipient, Brooke Chase, to write her essay after participating in his interdisciplinary, in-depth seminar on the Holocaust and personal responsibility. Matt Bernstein and his colleague Leslie Appelbaum inspired our 2023 Schlossberger winner Quinn Bolster through their class on activism and creating art as a tool for peaceful empowerment.

Board Chair Megan Ladd thanked board members, especially Nancy Spiegel for her long-standing service, and then introduced this year’s Gerda Haas Award Recipient and Keynote Speaker Corey Hinton. A citizen of the Passamaquoddy Tribe (Sipayik) and Leader of Drummond Woodsum’s Tribal Nations Practice Group, Corey spoke passionately about his family and ancestors, his childhood as an Indian-Jew, experiences that shaped his life’s work. He outlined some of the the nation’s laws that keep Indigenous people trapped in never-ending poverty, illness and early death—a slow genocide. He spoke from his heart in an address that was both personal and political, heartbreaking and hopeful—an urgent call to action. Corey concluded, “I’m going to ask you a lingering question: What you have done in the past week to bring humanity around you? What will you do next week to make a difference?” Watch the keynote address here.

Our educators have developed two new programs born from a professional development seminar that clarified the immediate needs of teachers and students. Identity, Diversity and Bias and Hate Speech in School explore the origins of bias, asks students to reflect on their own beliefs and consider their responsibilities to one another. In addition, the state of Maine has mandated that every public school must offer instruction in the Holocaust and genocide. Teachers are seeking our resources and guidance in how to teach these subjects effectively. Can you help us with these growing needs? We simply cannot do all of this work without you, and thus ask that you donate to the HHRC. Thank you for your generosity, thank you for helping us to strengthen and expand human rights in Maine and beyond.