It’s a tribute to JP’s cultural vitality that we can learn so much about the issues of the day thanks to the efforts of local organizations like the Jamaica Plain Forum and residents involved in the NoBoston2024 movement.
The JP Forum regularly brings in high-profile speakers with well-timed relevance.
This month, it will feature Tom Hayden, a living legend of 1960s radical politics, discussing his particular insights on U.S.-Cuba relations and politics.
Next month, the JP Forum will feature economics professor Andrew Zimbalist, a prominent Olympic-bid critic whose thoughts are well worth consideration.
NoBoston2024, meanwhile, is providing Olympics information and counterargument that the City and Boston 2024 have failed the public in withholding or ducking.
It recently held a forum on displacement of lower-income residents, a well-known, massive impact of the Summer Games in such places as Atlanta, London and now Rio de Janeiro.
Next, NoBoston2024 is bringing in Dave Zirin, sports editor at The Nation and an expert on the Rio fiasco, and a Massachusetts ACLU surveillance expert to further vet the lasting downsides of the Olympics for neighborhoods and vulnerable residents.
As supporters and even some of the most critical voices in the daily papers still seem to get their primary Olympics information from Boston 2024 itself, rather than reading academic books or talking to locals in other host cities, these are crucial offerings for all of Boston.
These are just a few examples of how JP residents and organizations are constantly staging their own discussions and presentations on important topics. It’s a cultural feature that we all too often take for granted. This time of great change everywhere—international, national, local—is also a time to stop and be grateful for the effort and the brainpower.