How do we prevent historical amnesia? When is historic preservation a force for gentrification and social displacement and when is it a force for equality? How should cultural significance be determined and who should determine it? How can we preserve vernacular history? What role should preservation play in fostering a sense of community?

Join the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, the National Public Housing Museum, and a distinguished and provocative panel of visionary thinkers and activists in a roundtable discussion where we will examine these and other questions related to historic preservation and social justice.

Featured panelists include: Vince Michael (moderator), heritage conservationist and cultural sustainability activist, John H. Bryan Chair in Historic Preservation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Estevan Rael-Galvez, historian of American Indian slavery and advocate for the power of place, and Vice President of Historic Sites at the National Trust for Historic Preservation; Mary Means, leader in community revitalization and heritage development, Founder of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Main Street Program, Director of Community Initiatives at Goody Clancy; Roberta Feldman, architectural activist and researcher committed to democratic design, author of The Dignity of Resistance: Women Residents in Chicago Public Housing, Professor Emeritus of architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago; Lee Bey, urbanist, photographer, critic specializing in architecture and the role politics play in the creation of the built environment, and Executive Director of the Chicago Central Area Committee.