MONUMENT & MEMORY TASK FORCE STEERING COMMITTEE
The Monument & Memory Steering Committee, profiled below, is comprised of community leaders, city employees, artists, scholars, and art historians who approved the initiative’s goals and values, and has periodically reviewed and provided feedback on the work of the Working Groups.
Renée Ater
Professor Renée Ater, PhD, is the Visiting Associate Professor in Africana Studies and Affiliate Faculty at the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University. She is the author of several books and numerous articles on public monuments. Currently, Ater is working on the third iteration of her digital repository Contemporary Monuments to the Slave Past, and writing a digital publication entitled Memoryscapes of Slavery in collaboration with the Center for Digital Scholarship at Brown University. She is interested in how communities, working with artists, archaeologists, designers, and landscape designers, negotiate the commemoration and memorialization of the slave past.
Joe Bagley
Joe is Boston’s City Archeologist and has been in the post since 2011. He specializes in Native American, historical, public, and urban archaeology. He is a supporter of community engagement in archaeology through social media, public events, and hands-on collaboration in all aspects of field and lab activities. Joe has conducted archaeological surveys from the woods of Maine to the Florida Everglades, and in 2016 was awarded the John L. Cotter Award from the Society for Historical Archaeological for early career achievements.
Jeanne Oliver-Foster
Jeanne is a recently retired Elementary K-5 Teacher, Schoolwide Music Specialist, and BPS Arts Liaison from Boston Public Schools for 30 years. As a third grade Teacher for many of these years, Jeanne is very knowledgeable about teaching the history of Boston and Massachusetts. However, the curriculums provided have never included the history of the Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag, of which Jeanne and her family have been active members since 1980.
Jeanne has worked on several other initiatives in Boston, including copywriter of Embrace Boston’s Harm Report, outlining 7 areas of life that African Americans have been negatively impacted by. This report led to the Mass. State Legislature forming a Commission on Reparations to study these areas within the City of Boston. Jeanne participated in another Embrace Boston initiative as co-author with her daughter, Shanda Foster, in writing the 65 biographies for the Freedom Plaza Honorees, which surrounds the MLK Jr. & Coretta Scott King Embrace Monument on the Boston Common.
Jeanne is originally from New Bedford, MA., and is a graduate of Bridgewater State University, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education K-5 and Music K-12, and a Master’s Degree in Communications/Media from Fitchburg State University in 2006, with a focus on photography and video production for educational purposes.
Karin Goodfellow
After 16 years as Boston’s Director of Public Art, Karin has moved into a new role as the Director of Transformative Art and Monuments at the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture. In this new role she is overseeing Un-monument, the Mellon Foundation funded program re-imagining Boston’s public art and monument landscape. In her former role, she worked with artists and other community members on the creation of public memorials, murals, sculptures, and social practice projects that reflected the diversity of Boston.
Gwen Hadden
Gwen is the Friends DEI consultant. A management consultant with over 25 years experience consulting to national and international organizations, her primary areas of expertise are diversity, equity, inclusion, and organizational culture change with a focus in health care and cultural and arts management.
Amira Madison
Amira is the Supporting Indigenous Communities Program Manager at the City of Boston Office of New Urban Mechanics. Her work ensures that Indigenous voices are heard in every space and conversation. She is a member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah and sits as Councilwoman on the Tribal Council.
Beatrice Nessen
Beatrice is a Board member of the Friends and chair of the Common Committee. Beatrice has worked both professionally and privately as an advocate for the environment and for urban issues. In addition to board membership on numerous other organizations, she is one of the founders of the Garden of Peace, a memorial to Massachusetts homicide victims in Boston.
Elizabeth Tiblanc
Elizabeth is Vice President of Programs at Embrace Boston. Prior to her tenure at Embrace Boston, she was an artist educator, collaborating with Boston school communities to develop programming that places arts and culture representative of students’ racial diversity at the center of education. Elizabeth participates in the Friends Making History on the Common to introduce children to The Embrace and its story of civil rights activism by the Kings and many local activists.
