UMass Boston

Fifth Annual Black Lives Matter (BLM) Day

Holistic Wellness and Health Promotion: self, family and community

The event will be held on Monday, November 4, 2024, 10:00 AM to 2:30 PM in the Campus Center Ballrooms at UMass Boston. 

This event will feature a panel of health researchers and practitioners, a keynote speaker over lunch with remarks from the Chancellor, and a health fair. BLM Day is open to the entire campus community. For more information, please email blacklife@umb.edu.

We recognize that social and racial justice require healthy people and communities, and that our individual and collective health require that our homes, neighborhood, work, and school environments be health-promoting. BLM Day 2024 will empower participants to take actions to improve their individual wellness and family health, and to advocate and organize for improved social, physical, and administrative systems that affect our health.

In November 2020, Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco declared that UMass Boston will observe Black Lives Matter (BLM) Day every year on the first Monday of November. This day at UMass Boston is an integral step toward enhancing our campus environment and our commitment to advocating for racial justice locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. As an institutional leader for equity and social justice, UMass Boston understands BLM as a human rights issue and declaration. Thus, the establishment of BLM Day serves as a model for all colleges and universities to follow as an example of transformational equity-minded leadership in action. BLM Day is dedicated to those who have been unjustly harmed and/or killed as a result of police brutality, acts of anti-Black racism, and systemic oppression.

Black Lives Matter 2024 Agenda  |  Details on Speakers

Black Lives Matter Day 2024 Agenda

Monday, November 4, 2024
10 a.m.-2:30 p.m., Campus Center Ballrooms 

Agenda (revised October 21, 2024)

10-11:50 a.m. / Welcome and Main Panel

• Welcome (Michael Johnson, Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Black Life)
• Community healing, Niara Carrenard
• Panel discussion: What is holistic wellness and health promotion? How can we improve our health practices and improve the systems that can enable healthy living?
  • Prof. Evan Auguste, Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts Boston
  • Ms. Tashira Halyard, Georgetown University Attorney, equity consultant and content creator
  • Mr. Mark Scott, Program Director, Trauma Response and Recovery, Boston Public Health Commission
  • Ms. Ashley Lazarre, doctoral candidate, Global Inclusion and Social Development

Noon-1:30 p.m. / Lunch and Keynote

• Buffet lunch featuring cuisines of the African diaspora provided by Sunrise Steakhouse (Brockton)
• Introduction of Chancellor (Michael Johnson)
• Remarks by Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco
• Keynote, Dr. Tariana Little, co-founder and CEO of EmVision Productions, health behavior and public health advocate and UMass Boston graduate
• Musical interludes, DJ Kenny Mascary
• Recognition of outstanding UMB health professions and pre-medicine students

1:30-2:30 p.m. / Health Fair

• Resource tables – UMass Boston and Boston area health and wellness organizations
• ‘Ask the experts’: Mental health, physical health, spiritual health, exercise and rehabilitation, holistic and spiritual wellness
• Exhibitions & demonstrations of health-promoting activities: yoga, tai chi, massage, stretching
• Give-away table: t-shirts, tote bags, stress balls and more
• Music, DJ knswrth