AF/AM/50 Keynote: Geoffrey Canada

Watch this electric and inspiring speech by Geoffrey Canada ’74, H’07, president of the Harlem Children’s Zone.

In this speech, he talks about how he came to Bowdoin unprepared but, with the assistance of members of the AfAm community, he flourished. Years later, when coming up with the idea of the Harlem Children’s Zone, he ran into fellow Bowdoin alumni who ended up being his partners and advocates for the project. Geoffrey Canada is a leading advocate for children and innovator in the field of education. He grew up in one of the most devastated communities in the United States, the South Bronx, raised by a single mother. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin and eventually went on to earn a master’s degree at Harvard University. He vowed to help children in disadvantaged circumstances to succeed through education.

Geoff created the Harlem Children’s Zone, a birth-through-college network of programs that today serves more than 13,000 low-income students and families in a ninety-seven-block area of Central Harlem in New York City. The unprecedented success of the Harlem Children’s Zone has attracted the attention of media outlets and leaders around the world.