At the start of quarantine, the Brooklyn Rail asked how might we stay connected to each other in a time of self-isolation? Now we ask: How can we stay involved and engaged in upholding our civic responsibility to one another across communities? How can we deploy this community built through the New Social Environment—through hundreds of conversations and meals shared over the past six months—to mobilize daily action for grassroots movements, social justice and equity projects, and for the political good of our most marginalized communities across the nation? Tune in Thursdays at 1pm for Common Ground, a new lunchtime series featuring weekly conversations with social justice practitioners, changemakers, and activists on how we can mobilize our daily actions to radically reimagine our democracy.

Please join us for our fourth installment of Common Ground featuring James King, State Campaigner for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and Emiliano Lopez and Gregory Sale, collaborators behind Future IDs at Alcatraz, an ongoing exhibition which uses ID-inspired artworks by a team of collaborators in the carceral system to translate the demand for criminal justice reform into stark visual language, to radically reframe the narrative of reentry, and to offer the possibility of alternative futures. They will be in conversation with Pete Brook, writer and social justice curator behind Prison Photography, for a discussion on the urgent campaigns, successful strategies, and ongoing fights to which grassroots organizers in the Golden State are committed.

We will close with a reading by poet Mona Kareem.