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Najarian Inaugural Lecture to Be Held at Boston’s Faneuil Hall
By: Weekly Staff
BOSTON, Mass.—In recognition of the ground-breaking ceremony for the Armenian Heritage Park on Boston’s Rose Fitzgerald Greenway, the K. George and Carolann S. Najarian, M.D. Inaugural Lecture on Human Rights, a program of the Armenian Heritage Foundation, will be held on Thurs., Sept. 23, at 7 p.m. at Boston’s historic Faneuil Hall.
George Najarian and Dr. Carolann Najarian of Lincoln, Mass. Leo Gozbekian photo
Free and open to the public, the endowed lecture is an annual public program of the Armenian Heritage Foundation, sponsor of the Armenian Heritage Park.
The keynote speaker is Kerry Kennedy, a human rights activist, the founder and president of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, Washington, D.C., and the author of Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World.
Opening remarks will be offered by Peter Balakian, the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of the Humanities at Colgate University and author of The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response-A History of International Human Rights and Forgotten Heroes, which was the inspiration for this series. He wrote of the New England women and me—intellectuals, politicians, diplomats, religious leaders, and ordinary citizens—who, beginning in the 1890’s at Faneuil Hall, heard the eyewitness accounts of the atrocities taking place against the Armenian minority of the Ottoman Empire during World War I and were called to action. Distinguished Bostonians, among them Julia Ward Howe, Clara Barton,
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Alice Stone Blackwell, heard these accounts and were moved to help the Armenians. As a result, the American Red Cross launched its first international mission with Clara Barton bringing aid to the Armenians. Philanthropists nationwide raised over $100 million in aid. This was America’s first internationally focused human rights movement.
The purpose of the endowed lecture series is to advance understanding of human rights issues and the societal abuses faced by millions today, and to increase awareness of the work of individuals and organizations dedicated to eliminating these injustices so that we are all more actively engaged.
The inaugural lecture is being offered in partnership with the Bostonian Society, academic institutions, and human rights organizations.
Governor Deval L. Patrick and Mayor Thomas M. Menino are Honorary Chairs. Co-chairs of the inaugural lecture representing their participating organization are Martha F. Davis, Ph.D., faculty director, Northeastern School of Law, Human Rights, and the Global Economy; A. Frank Donaghue, CEO and deputy director, Physicians for Human Rights USA; Michael A. Grodin, M.D., executive director, Global Lawyers and Physicians Working Together for Human Rights, Boston University School of Public Health; David Hollenbach, S.J., director, Boston College Center for Human Rights and International Justice; Shant Mardirossian, chairman of the Board, Near East Foundation; Margot Stern Strom, founder/executive director, Facing History and Ourselves; Adam Strom, director of research and development, Facing History and Ourselves; Deborah W. Nutter, Ph.D., senior associate dean, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Ph.D., acting director, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Human Rights and Justice; and Joshua Rubenstein, northeast regional director, Amnesty International USA.
The Najarians have endowed the lecture in honor of Dr. Carolann Najarian’s late father, Avedis Abrahamian. He survived the Armenian Genocide, leaving the Ottoman Empire in 1915 and arriving at the port of Providence, R.I., en route to New York City in 1921, at the age of 15. He received his high school diploma in New York City on his 60th birthday. The lack of a formal education, however, did not prevent him from being a vociferous reader of historical texts and educating himself on the critical issues facing his generation. As he sat in his small paint store in the Bronx, N.Y., he welcomed customers, friends, and family to join him in the back room for a glass of orange juice and, more importantly, discussion—often heated—on the critical issues facing America.
In the 1930’s, he warned against the continued failure to grant African Americans equal rights. He forewarned that by postponing this injustice, America would pay a high price.
When, on the back pages of the New York Times in the mid 1960’s, it was reported that “advisors” were going to Vietnam and villagers were being relocated, he cautioned against the escalating war, saying, “This is what was done to us, to the Armenians. They moved us out of our villages saying it was for our benefit. The U.S. is now doing the same in Vietnam. It will not go well. “
“This endowed lecture on human rights is in honor of my father as he taught so many about the need to pay attention, to spot injustice, and to speak out wherever and whenever it occurs.” said Carolann Najarian.
Highly regarded philanthropic leaders and Lincoln residents, George Najarian, a native of Cambridge, Mass., and Carolann Najarian, originally of New York City, have been actively involved in Boston’s Armenian American community for many years. In 1989, in response to the earthquake that devastated Armenia, they helped to establish the Armenian Health Alliance, Inc., a Boston based non-profit organization to provide direct medical relief to the victims of the earthquake. During the Nagorno-Karabagh war, Carolann Najarian left active medical practice to volunteer full-time as president of the Armenian Health Alliance. The Najarians also provided major support in 1999 to establish the Armenian Bone Marrow Donor Registry Trust, a non-profit organization based in Armenia. In 1989, Carolann Najarian was named “one of Boston’s most interesting women” in Boston Women magazine.
Since 1987, the Najarians have made over 50 trips to the Republic of Armenia and to Nagorno-Karabagh, traveling extensively throughout both countries. The purpose of these trips was to assess the medical needs and deliver needed assistance to hospitals in major cities and villages in rural areas. In 1994, Carolann Najarian founded the Primary Care Center of Gyumri, the city most devastated by the earthquake of 1988, to provide free care and medicine. In 1995, she founded the Arpen Center for Expectant Mothers in the capital city of Stepanakert, to provide monthly assistance of food, vitamins, clothing, and other basic necessities. She documented her experiences in A Call from Home: Armenia and Karabagh, My Journal (1999), which brings together her experience growing up as the daughter of Armenian immigrants and that of a medical relief worker in Armenia and Karabagh.
The Najarians’ more local philanthropic activities include establishing scholarships for students at the Boston University School of Medicine, Queens College, and Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, as well as support of non-profits, including the Food Project, Facing History and Ourselves, and the Salvation Army in Cambridge.
Most recently, they have fully endowed the K. George and Carolann S. Najarian, M.D. Lecture on Human Rights, a public program of the Armenian Heritage Foundation.
The Armenian Heritage Foundation, a non-profit organization with representatives from 37 Armenian American parishes and organization within Massachusetts, was founded in 2004 to design, secure designation, and raise funds to construct and maintain the Armenian Heritage Park on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, Boston. A gift to the City of Boston and Commonwealth, the Armenian Heritage Park celebrates the immigrant experience and commemorates lives lost during the 1915 Armenian Genocide and all genocides that continue to follow. Endowed funds support the park’s annual care, reconfiguration of the sculpture, and public programs including the annual lecture on human rights.
For more information, visit www.ArmenianHeritagePark.net.
