Jazz Square Activation

Jazz Square Activation celebrates the vibrancy of jazz today and in the past, in order to imagine a better future. In September 2024, Boston Jazz Square Activation celebrated the official designation of the intersection of Massachusetts and Columbus Avenues as Jazz Square. Our place-based activation practices include free concerts as well as creating historical markers, poster exhibits on jazz venues and musicians, oral histories, maps, and walking tours exploring the history of Boston jazz. Jazz Square history is intertwined with histories of migration, segregation, gentrification, entrepreneurship, artistic innovation, and activism. We present Jazz Square history at events like the Charles River Jazz Festival and at jazz celebrations at Union Church on Columbus Ave. as well as other community gatherings. With the Boston Jazz Foundation, we call for nominations and offer the Boston Jazz Luminary Award.

Jazz Square Activation Partners

Boston Jazz Foundation
Wally’s Cafe
Bob Barney and Claremont Neighborhood Association
Union Combined Parish

Resources

Black Artists of Boston Jazz Resources

Project Leads

Uta Poiger

Professor of History

Together with Kabria Baumgartner and Dan Cohen, Uta G. Poiger leads the Reckonings Project. Her work focuses on new community-engaged frameworks for the humanities, supported by digital technologies. Poiger has held a number of administrative leadership roles at Northeastern.

Dzidzor Azaglo

Community Partnership Coordinator

Dzidzor (Jee-Jaw) is a Ghanian-American folklore, performing artist, author, and curator. Dzidzor's style of call and response has combined traditional storytelling in Afro-folklore and Poetry Slam through a sonic experience. Dzidzor is moved by the responsibility to alarm the power/abundance in the midst of bodies while creating a practice of care and freedom through creativity. Dzidzor is the founder of Black Cotton Club and partners with Grubstreet, ICA Boston, and Boston Public Schools to teach creative empowerment workshops in Boston.

Reckonings Co-Creation Team

Afra Ankita

UnderEcologies Digital Assets Manager and Research Assistant Co-op

Afra Ankita is a computer science and economics student at Northeastern University. Her interests include accessibility, behavioral economics, and the use of technology to create more equitable systems. She works with Reckonings and Black History in Action (BHAC) on projects ranging from refining a map of Roxbury’s Jazz Square to analyzing 1950s census data on Black homeownership in Cambridge and developing oral history initiatives. On campus, Afra serves as Treasurer of the Bangladeshi Student Association and is a member of Phi Sigma Rho, a STEM-based sorority supporting women in technical fields.

Kehinde Ilegbusi

Research Assistant, Ph.D. Student in World History

Kehinde Ilegbusi is a PhD student in the World History program of Northeastern University. His research explores Africa through ideas connected with the British Empire since the post-World War II era. These ideas and concepts are linked through intellectual, legal, and emerging international histories. He uses them collectively to critically analyze societies shaped by racial, colonial, and post-independence regimes in Africa intersecting with the United States. This approach builds on the intellectual traditions he has touched; he is grateful for the genuine gifts from those who have become ancestors, and to every adviser whose mentorship continues to influence his path, and to his colleagues who have provided space for collaboration. He serves as a Doctoral Research Assistant with the Reckoning Project. He also works with Professor Kris Manjapra (Northeastern History) and Professor Margaret Burnham (Northeastern Law) on the Donated Body project. Outside his research, Ilegbusi is a member of Stories of Home (SOH), a nonprofit based in Lagos. This group employs community-driven strategies such as storytelling, hope traditions, learning and library projects to inspire genuine hope, faith, healing, and beautiful dreams among Africans. As a Hope Ambassador, he aims to leverage these experiences to make a positive impact on the world. Ilegbusi comes from southwestern Nigeria and earned first-class honors from the University of Lagos with a BA in History and Strategic Studies in 2021. He completed his master's in World History at Northeastern University in 2025.

Warya Mazuze

London Humanities in Action Scholar

Warya Mazuze is a first-year Health Sciences Undergraduate Student at Northeastern and an aspiring pediatric surgeon. She is a research assistant working at Reckonings on the Black Artists of Boston project. She is interested in uncovering and sharing the history that shaped our past so that it might become a tool to carve our future. She is a lover of literature and music, with a particular interest in fusion music and African folklore.

Talia Kazerooni

London Humanities in Action Scholar

Talia Kazerooni is a first-year LLB Law student at Northeastern University London and an applicant for the Research Assistant role for the Reckonings Project. Her academic interests include law and power, race and inequality, and the relationship between technology and society. She is particularly interested in how law shapes people’s everyday lives and reflects broader social and historical contexts. Through her studies, she hopes to pursue a future career in corporate law, working on large-scale transactions for an international law firm. Having lived in Bahrain and the UK she is fluent in English and Arabic.

Leandro Wiggett

London Humanities in Action Scholar

Leandro Wiggett is a first-year BSc Business student at Northeastern University London, pursuing a pathway in Economics. His interests include macroeconomics, behavioural economics, energy policy, and the automotive industry, and he is shortly becoming a senior blog ambassador for Dr Otojanov’s ‘EconBlogger’ project. He was selected as his VI Form’s Student of the Year 2024 and is a NatWest business competition winner. Having lived across Europe, he is fluent in English, Portuguese, and Italian, and enjoys exploring different cultures and places.

Andres Garcia

Research Assistant and Digital Assets Manager Co-op

From July to December 2024, Andres Garcia, a third-year Computer Science major and Game Design minor, is working as one of the Underecologies Research Assistant and Digital Assets Manager Co-ops with Drs. Manjapra and Poiger. For Reckonings, Andres has focused on researching musicians who played in the venues of Jazz Square, and is developing a musicians’ database as well as digital tools to make community contributions to archives dedicated to Boston’s inspiring and complex jazz history possible.