How jury duty restored my hope in democracy.

My heart sank when I saw the envelope in the day’s stack of mail.

​“Your civic duty!” it read. Inside was a summons to appear at a Boston court for possible empanelment on a jury – trial length unknown. I feverishly checked my calendar, hoping to find a conflict around my service date. Finding none, I began to scour my brain for excuses not to serve. Would children be stranded at school if I served? Would our family’s finances crumble? Let’s be honest: most of us know this dread and subsequent mental calculus well.
 
When the day finally came to report, a combination of having precisely zero conflicts or excuses and a moral inability to baldly lie to a judge led to my being selected from more than 100 Bostonians for the 14-person jury. (two would be alternates, selected just before deliberations) We were given the basic gist of the criminal case and told to clear our schedules for the next week or more. Bummer.
 
But once I’d settled into the reality that my job for the foreseeable future would be juris prudence, I not only began to find the process deeply fascinating, it actually restored my hope in the fundamentals our democracy -- which is stronger than I ever realized.
 
All American citizens enjoy two primary modes of participation in our democracy: voting and jury service. The first, voting, is voluntary. In the most exciting presidential races, somewhere around 60 percent of all eligible voters turn out at the polls, while local elections can draw asfew as 20 percent of registered voters. Equally as abysmal are the rates of those who are called to serve on a jury. The National Center for State Courts has found that just 15 percent of Americans are summoned to jury duty eachyear, and only 5 percent end up serving on a jury. A full 31 percent of Americans believe jury service “does not have much to do with being a good citizen,” according to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey. 
 
But from the nascent days of both the Commonwealth and the nation, juries were baked into our American experiment. Despite having developed in its modern form in 15th century England, the United States Declaration of Independence called out King George for “depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury.” Massachusetts’ Constitution – the world’s oldest continuously used constitution, drafted in 1780 by John Adams – guarantees each person the right to a trial by jury in both civil and criminal cases. Drawing inspiration from Massachusetts’ Constitution, the framers of the United States Constitution enshrined in Article III and Amendments 6 and 7 the fundamental right of the accused to be judged by a jury of their peers.
 
The accused always enjoy the assumption of innocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of his or her peers – regardless of one’s net worth, skin color, or the severity of their crime. Revolutionary as it is, the legal principle has not always been applied perfectly, as people of color – long under-represented (if at all) on juries and judge’s benches – too often are convicted at a higher rate and face stiffer sentences than their white peers.
 
My jury’s diversity was one of the most refreshing aspects of our two-week trial. Whittled down to 14 from more than 100, our jury was majority black or brown, with no fewer than three individuals born abroad. In a state where women couldn’t serve on juries until 1950 – decades after getting the vote – my jury was more than 50 percent female. Several jurors had been born and raised in Boston, while others (like myself) had moved here from the suburbs or out of state. We were blue and white collar, students, and unemployed. “You are Boston,” the judge told us in private after the trial had concluded, “and each of you brought your own life experience into this deliberation.”
 
Even more extraordinary is the fact that this group of strangers from every walk of life could, working from the same body of evidence, apply the law and achieve unanimity in its verdict. We took it slow, deferred to each other, addressed each other’s questions and concerns, helped each other understand more clearly what we were seeing, and ultimately achieved perfect harmony in our decision. The deliberation process was something to behold, and the excitement was palpable as we realized we’d finished the job.
 
“I know we’ve released guilty people in our courts, but I’ve never seen a jury get it wrong, based on the evidence presented in court,” the judge continued.
 
We hear a lot these days about how divided we are, but jury service revealed otherwise. Perhaps jury duty, where the freedom of one of our peers often hangs in the balance, brings out what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.”
 
But deeper than that, serving on a jury restored my hope in the promise of our American democracy at a time when that democracy appears threatened. We have, undergirding our society, a bedrock of principles and laws that supersede any current controlling party or occupant of the White House or State House. Even as rhetorical wars rage in the political media and between Americans on social media, the American justice system – imperfect and blemished as it is – serves as a time-tested safety net for our democracy. We are, after all, according to Adams “a government of laws, not of men.”
 
Juries, a foundation of that democratic safety net, remind us that our government works most equitably when it is by and for the people. Tocqueville, in reflecting in 1835 on his observations of American society, put it well: “The jury, which is the most energetic means of making the people rule, is also the most efficacious means of teaching it to rule well.”
 
Serving on a jury made me a believer in this small but significant part I can play in our civil society. So much so that the next time I see a summons in the mail with my name on it, I’ll receive it with a sense of duty – not dread.

Last night, I moderated a panel discussion at CIC Boston, and hosted by Branchfood, on the future of grocery and food retail. Our panel was stacked: Arthur Ackles, VP of Merchandising and Buying at New England grocery chain Roche Bros., David Stone, CEO & Founder at Forager;  Cheryl Cronin, CEO of Boston Public Market; and natural foods broker John Maggiore. Between these four individuals are decades and decades of experience in the food industry, entrepreneurship, and leadership, and the sold-out crowd benefitted greatly from their thoughts and predictions.

Here's Branchfood's live tweeting of the event, and below are a few highlights for me, in no particular order:

• Learning how Roche Bros. is responding to trends in healthy and local food in its stores, attempting to create a warm and inviting store experience, and stocking its new urban format Brothers Marketplaces with 100% regional products.
• Hearing Boston Public Market CEO Cheryl Cronin talk about the challenges the market has faced in its early years -- namely, turning producers into retailers -- and how the market association is helping work through those challenges. (also excited to try out the delivery service BPM is currently developing!)
• Absorbing David Stone's passion for helping Americans eat more fresh, local produce, and how he's using his Forager platform to simplify the food chain and shorten the distance between farms and retailers. 
• Some direct and friendly banter between Stone and Ackles over the successes and failures of the supermarket industry and what role it will play moving forward.
• Gleaning from John Maggiore's decade of work shepherding natural food startups to store shelves around New England and hearing his insights into how the many CPG founders in the room can get their products in front of consumers in this brave new world.
• Fantastic questions from the audience about everything from Market Basket to self-checkout robots.
• Trying some of the most exciting new food and beverage products coming out of Boston before and after the panel.

As you can tell, we had fun. Hopefully, there will be some video of the event soon and information about the next series of panel discussion. Speaking of which, what topics would you like to see Branchfood tackle in the next panel series?

Regardless of what you might hear in local coverage, the re-election of incumbent Marty Walsh was not the biggest political story in Boston Tuesday.

The biggest political story was the tsunami of women of color who cruised to victory in their respective city council races. Three of those women -- Michelle Wu, Ayanna Pressley, and Andrea Campbell -- were already on the council, and voters wisely sent them back to City Hall Tuesday. Voters in District 1 and 7 elected to send two more women, both African-American, to City Hall for the first time: Lydia Edwards, who will represent East Boston, the North End, and Charlestown; and Kim Janey, whose district covers Roxbury, Dorchester, the South End, and Fenway. (Note: at-large councillor Annisa Essaibi-George is Tunisian and Polish, but it's unclear whether she identifies as a "woman of color")

This is historic for a number of reasons:

1. Women of color now comprise just less than half of Boston's City Council. Not too long ago, the Council was mostly men -- and white men at that -- even as Boston's demographics were changing to become more brown and black. (today, Boston is a minority-majority city) Racial tensions have historically plagued Boston, and the fact that women of color now hold sway over the Council -- Michelle Wu, who is Asian-American, is President -- sends the clear message that the city's leadership now more closely resembles the changing face of its residents.

2. The consolidation of power in the Mayor's office continues to crack. Last night's results may not seem to reveal this reality on their face. After all, Walsh wiped the floor with his challenger, City Councillor Tito Jackson, by an almost two-to-one margin, winning every ward but two and even the majority of "districts of color." But take Edwards' victory in District 1 for instance. Edwards' opponent in the final was Stephen Passacantilli, a lifelong North End resident, a longtime City Hall worker, and a political aide and personal friend of Walsh. Walsh's official stance in the race was neutral -- he said he liked both Passacantilli and Edwards, who also served in the Walsh administration before pulling papers to run -- but his fingerprints were all over the Passacantilli campaign. Walsh operatives were mobilized throughout District 1 to hang signs and knock doors for Passacantilli and the candidate repeatedly spoke about his closeness to and cooperation with the Mayor. (Conversely, Edwards has been critical of Walsh's housing policies and promised throughout the campaign to go to bat for her low- and middle-income constituents over developers -- even when it means opposing Walsh) And then, in October, the Passacantilli campaign began distributing palm cards several non-English languages showing the candidate posing with Walsh, and featuring the words, "I'm with Stephen," attributed to the Mayor. The Mayor denied that this was a formal endorsement of Passacantilli but acknowledged approving the use of his likeness in the ads. Finally, on election morning, a number of District 1 residents reported receiving robocalls with Walsh urging voters to cast ballots for Passacantilli. 

That Walsh would prefer a Councillor Passacantilli over a Councillor Edwards isn't surprising. Besides their longtime friendship, Passacantilli would have been a loyal backer of Walsh on the Boston City Council -- which, per city tradition, plays second fiddle to our "strong mayor" system. But Walsh knows that the Mayor's power over the Council has shown signs of cracking of late, with Councillor Michael Flaherty running a close race against former Mayor Tom Menino in 2009 and Councillor Jackson vocally opposing a number of Walsh policies before announcing his own run earlier this year. Having Passacantilli on the Council would have kept the District 1 seat, currently occupied by longtime councillor Sal LaMattina, firmly pro-Walsh.

For critics of our "strong mayor" system, the tsunami of progressive women of color to the City Council over the last few years is a first step in weakening that consolidation at the top. Jackson's run for mayor brought many important issues to the fore -- issues like income inequality, housing stability, and government transparency. But it was not yet time, nor was Jackson necessarily the right candidate, to topple an incumbent Boston mayor for the first time since 1949.

A longer, more promising vision for change, some believe, starts with the addition of progressive, politically independent women like Edwards and Janey to a council run by Wu and featuring several more women and women of color -- stirring up what has been called an "old boys' network." Together, these councillors can create their own vision for Boston's future rather than merely rubber-stamping the Mayor's. 

"#NewGirlsNetwork #NewGirlsNetwork #NewGirlsNetwork #NewGirlsNetwork #NewGirlsNetwork," Edwards' campaign manager Gabriella Coletta posted on Facebook in the hours after her candidate's win.

3. More broadly, though, Tuesday represented a further weakening of Boston's "machine politics," traditionally controlled by white men who grew up here. The term "old boys' network" has been tossed around for decades, and not without good reason. That's because prevailing wisdom has held a few things to be true: 

- You have to be from here to win here. Boston's voters have traditionally rewarded those whom they have known since childhood, whose families are political dynasties, and who can prove their bona fides as genuine Bostonians. 
- To succeed in Boston politics, at the city or state level, one needs to "pay his or her (usually his) dues," working their way up through the system and running only when the time is right.

By these measures, Passacantilli should have been a dead-lock to win in District 1. But he lost -- by a considerable number of votes -- to a woman who didn't grow up here and only recently joined the Walsh cabinet. It would appear in Edwards' case that being a lifelong Bostonian, usually a man, and a veteran of the political machine are no longer prerequisites to gaining ground with voters. 

There's a final prevailing myth that was again shattered on Tuesday: What the machine wants, the machine gets. 

We saw this "truth" shattered in 2013, when East Boston residents defeated a proposal to build a Las Vegas-style casino in their neighborhood -- a proposal that had the backing of every local elected official at every level. Outspent almost 100-1 by pro-casino forces, a volunteer army of campaigners successfully challenged the notion that City Hall always knows what's best for the neighborhoods.

We saw this myth again challenged when Boston was short-listed as a location for the 2024 Olympic Games, a plan designed and promoted by the Walsh administration. Again, a citizen-led campaign cast doubt on the Olympic plan and put considerable pressure on City Hall, which eventually relented and withdrew Boston from consideration.

And we saw this play out again last night in Edwards' victory. On paper, Edwards had no business winning this race. Not if the Mayor preferred the other guy. But she did, and handily, propelled by a diverse collection of more than 500 volunteers who knocked 70,000 doors and made 200,000 phone calls to district residents.

"We never apologized for our diversity, we never apologized for being progressive," Edwards told supporters Tuesday. "This is what movement looks like."
​

​Sitting with my laptop open in front of the East Boston library on a pleasant Summer morning without headphones is an invitation to be bothered by strangers, I guess. Sure enough, as I struggle through a sentence in an essay I’ve just begun, someone does.
 
Muttering unintelligibly in a thick Boston accent about the earth’s tilt or some nonsense, a man’s voice breaks through my concentration like a sledge hammer into drywall. I barely look up, tossing only a courtesy smile his way. Thinking he’ll keep walking, I continue pecking away on my laptop. He stops. Ignoring the dozen or so open chairs and benches that line the library’s façade, he plops down with a whoosh into the Adirondack next to me and began to comment on everything from the humidity to Bernie Sanders to “transvestites.” (apparently, his view on the latter has become more accepting after meeting someone beginning the gender reassignment process)
 
As he talks, I type, managing only terse responses of “uh-huh” and “yep” to his scattered rants. I’m annoyed. I glance at the clock on my computer. The library opens in 20 minutes. Then I can finally get back to my important work.
 
“I just finished drug rehab.”
 
His words stop me. I finally look up from my important essay. The man is balding and gray and wearing those prescription glasses that turn into sunglasses outdoors. He says he’s 66, but he looks much older. He reeks of smoke and the things people use to mask the smell of smoke. I don’t really know how to respond.
 
“Oh, really? Wow.”
 
It’s all I know to say. His all-too-familiar story begins to spill out. Healthy, married, and working as a high-level computer programmer, 16 years ago he slipped a disc, was prescribed opiate painkillers, and got addicted. He’d lived hard during the 1970s, he tells me, but never got addicted.

“Pills, man,” he says, shaking his head.
 
He tells me that before his injury he’d been a competitive distance runner, able to complete a 10K in about 38 minutes. His secret addiction stopped him in his tracks.
 
“I couldn’t tell anyone,” he says. “I was embarrassed.”
 
After his latest relapse and overdose, he says his wife of 45 years tossed him out. He’s now living at a sober house in Eastie. He smiles when he says they’ve begun speaking again.
 
“She just has to see that I can do this.”
 
How does a guy his age stay on the wagon? Working through all the steps of the treatment program and not skipping any, he says. Brand new to the neighborhood, he has yet to attend a meeting here. I suggest one that I know of, and give him a name of a friend to ask for. He’s appreciative, though doubt remains.
 
“At my age,” he says, “I’ll either die from this or get sober.”
 
The conversation returns to running. I tell him I ran the Boston Marathon in April. He says he used to love running the Falmouth Road Race each year. He misses being able to run six-minute miles. A few years after his addiction began he started running again and was sober for eight months before a knee halted him again – and he fell back on drugs. I’ve heard replacing your addiction with a similar obsession like running can be effective, I tell him.
 
Where do you run in the neighborhood, he asks? I tell him about my go-to loops. I tell him there’s a 5K coming up next month that I’ll be running, and would he like for me to email him the details. He would. I write down his email address.
 
The librarian unlocks the front door. Waiting readers begin to pour in. My new friend groans as he stands up, pausing in front of my chair.
 
“I’m John, by the way,” he says.
 
“Steve,” I reply. “Good luck with everything. You’ve got this.”

Teared up tonight singing the old carol, "I heard the bells on Christmas Eve." Been that kind of year.

Did you know the story behind this carol? I didn't until tonight.

The carol is based on a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (who actually frequented the home where I sung his song tonight, but that's another story) Like many carols and hymns, we sing a sanitized version of this song, with at least two of the stanzas -- referring to the horrors of the Civil War -- omitted completely. By removing these verses, we remove the immense pain within Longfellow's original poem -- leaving a hollow shell of a carol stage-ready for a TV special with Johnny Mathis or Michael Bublé.

Longfellow is a broken man when he writes this in 1864. For three years, the Civil War has obliterated the nation. And in July 1861, just a few months after the first shots of the Civil War are exchanged, Longfellow's wife, Fanny, is mortally burned when her dress catches fire in their Cambridge, MA, home. Longfellow would suffer severe burns to his face as well jumping on Fanny attempting to put out the fire. This is why he'd wear a beard the rest of his life. "How inexpressibly sad are all holidays," he'd write following Fanny's death.

Two years later, a horrendous war hits the Longfellow home. Longfellow's son, Charles, is fighting with the Union army in Virginia in 1863 when he is critically wounded by a Confederate bullet that strikes his spine and nearly paralyzes him. He lives, but barely. He'll not fight again.

A year later -- on Dec. 25, 1864 -- the war still soaking the South with blood, a heartbroken Longfellow pens his now-famous poem. The carol begins with the upbeat verses many of us know:

​I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

We don't, however, sing the fourth and fifth stanzas -- which were ripped from the headlines at a time when the country's peace and goodwill are shattered by a bloody and needless war:

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

We sometimes sing the sixth stanza -- a generic reminder of the hate that too often "mocks the song" of peace and goodwill. But absent the context of the verses about the war -- not to mention Longfellow's deep personal losses -- these words somehow lack the groaning with which they were no doubt written:

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said:
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

But then, out of the ashes, we get stanza seven. And this is where I teared up tonight. We can choose to live in the sixth stanza if we want. It's quite easy, actually -- all the evidence is there that the verse rings true. Freddie Gray. Aleppo. Charleston. The election.

And yet.

Longfellow didn't stay there, despite losing his wife in their home. Nearly losing his son. Watching his nation being torn in two by hate. For Longfellow, the story of Christmas was greater than the depths of personal and political despair. What courage and faith it must have taken to write these words:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!"

​Maybe you dwell in stanza six. I'm not blaming you if you do. There are plenty of good reasons to do so. But take heart: "the wrong shall fail / the Right prevail / with peace on earth, good-will to men!"❤️

On Saturday, I was honored to moderate an all-star panel discussion about modern agriculture's impact on farmworkers and the environment at Harvard's Just Food? Conference. Amazing to look out and see a couple hundred attendees enthusiastic about just food production! #JustFood2016

My lovely camera assistant and I enjoyed a delicious evening Tuesday at the Taste of the South End, put on by the wonderful Aids Action Committee. Everything we ate and drank was ridiculous, but here are a few highlights:

• craft cocktails -- a Boston Daiquiri and a Cambridge Sour -- with spirits from the incredible Boston Harbor Distillery;
• El Centro's guacamole;
• the cupcake from Flour Bakery;
• flavored ginger ales from Bruce Cost (based in Brooklyn); 
• build-your-own mac & cheese from Stephi's on Tremont (I got bread crumbs and broccoli);
• buttermilk biscuit with maple-bacon-cider jam from The Gallows -- the single best thing I put in my mouth all night!
• capping off the night with dip-your-own churros (chocolate + bacon is an epic combo) from East Meets West Catering.

There were so many great restaurants present and even a few we didn't get to fully savor, we're already making plans to return next year. Thanks, South End!