Tag Archives: Arkansas Humanities Council

Life of longtime CALS trustee Ira Sanders topic of today’s Legacies & Lunch

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SandersIraE_fToday at noon at the CALS Ron Robinson Theater, the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies and Clinton School for Public Service collaborate on a special Legacies & Lunch.

James Moses, professor of History at Arkansas Tech University, will discuss the life of Ira E. Sanders, who served as rabbi at Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock for 38 years and was a legendary champion of social justice in Arkansas and throughout the nation.

Rabbi Sanders was a founder of Arkansas Lighthouse for the Blind, the Arkansas Eugenics Association, and the Urban League of Greater Little Rock. He also served for 40 years on the Central Arkansas Library System’s Board of Trustees. James Moses is writing a book about Rabbi Sanders, to be titled “Life Fire Shut Up in My Bones.”

Legacies & Lunch is free, open to the public, and supported in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Programs are held from noon-1 p.m. on the first Wednesday of each month. Attendees are invited to bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided.

 

Role of Arkansas in development of MLB focus of documentary at Clinton School

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The-First-Boys-of-SpringTonight at 6pm at the Ron Robinson Theater, the Clinton School will screen the new documentary The First Boys of Spring. 

Beginning in 1886, baseball spring training was held for the first time, not in Florida or Arizona, but in the Arkansas resort town of Hot Springs, and that’s where the annual rite caught on. For parts of eight decades, many of the best who ever played the game, came to Hot Springs to shake off the rust from winters to prepare for long seasons ahead, with such teams as the Red Sox, Dodgers, and Pirates—and the Negro League’s Monarchs, Crawfords, and Grays.

The First Boys of Spring is a one-hour documentary by award-winning filmmaker Larry Foley, narrated by Academy Award-winner Billy Bob Thornton. The film tells stories of baseball Hall of Famers who worked out, gambled and partied in Hot Springs, including Cy Young, Satchel Paige, Honus Wagner and baseball’s first superstar, Mike “King” Kelly. A central figure is a young Babe Ruth, who belted a 573-foot home run into the Arkansas Alligator Farm in March of 1918, while trying to convince Boston Red Sox management to play him every day, even though he was already the game’s dominant pitcher.

The First Boys of Spring is made possible by Visit Hot Springs, Arkansas Humanities Council, University of Arkansas, Munro Foundation, Morris Foundation, The Arlington Hotel Resort Hotel and Spa and the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

 

Arkansas Sounds Gone By – a special Butler Center Legacies and Lunch today at noon

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arkansas_swingerToday at noon in the CALS Darragh Center, “Arkansas Sounds Gone By” will be a special musical Legacies & Lunch program.  It will showcase songs about Arkansas or written by people from the state, drawn from the Butler Center’s Ron Robinson Sheet Music Collection.

Musical guests – including David Austin, Bob Boyd, Susan Gele, Dent Gitchel, Richard Hunter, Herb Rule, Stephanie Smittle, George West, and others – will perform songs from the famous fiddle tune “Arkansas Traveler” to Arkansas native Floyd Cramer’s big hit “Last Date.” Vocalists will be accompanied by piano and fiddle.

Learn about the remarkable variety of songs from or about Arkansas, about the extraordinary music collection donated by Ron Robinson, and about the Tin Pan Alley songwriters who created songs about Arkansas without ever visiting the state.

Legacies & Lunch, the Butler Center’s monthly lecture series, is free, open to the public, and supported in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Programs are held from noon-1 p.m. on the first Wednesday of each month. Attendees are invited to bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided. For more information, contact 918-3033.

Artist David Bailin at today’s Legacies & Lunch

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Legacies & Lunch: David Bailin 
Wednesday, September 2, noon – 1:00 p.m. 
CALS Main Library’s Darragh Center, 100 Rock Street
David Bailin (work pictured above) is an artist who currently works primarily in drawing, but has worked previously in painting, writing, theater, and performance. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Arkansas Arts Council.

At Legacies & Lunch, Bailin will discuss the artistic community he has found in Arkansas with artists Warren Criswell and Sammy Peters over the past thirty years. Their work has evolved, changed focus, and acquired new media and techniques, but has remained a central part of their lives, both individually and collectively.

Some results of those years of companionship are featured in the exhibition, Disparate Acts Redux: Bailin, Criswell, Peters, on view through Saturday, October 31 at Butler Center Galleries, 401 President Clinton Ave.

 Legacies & Lunch is free, open to the public, and sponsored in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council.  Bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided.

BEND, examining Japanese American experience in World War II, to be presented tonight

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Bend-DrawingCloseUp72-bannerTonight at 7pm at the Ron Robinson Theater, the Arkansas Archeological Survey presents a play about the Japanese American experience during World War II.
Kimi Maeda’s solo performance, Bend, tells the true story of two men interned in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II: Maeda’s father, an Asian Art historian currently suffering from dementia, and the subject of his research, Isamu Noguchi, a half-Japanese-half-American sculptor. Weaving together live feed projections of sand drawings with archival footage from the 1940s, Maeda’s performance poses important questions about how the Japanese American internment camps will be remembered.
The Arkansas Archeological Survey is partnering with the World War II Japanese American Internment Museum, the University of Arkansas at Monticello’s Japanese Club, and the University of Arkansas in Little Rock (UALR) to help teach the public about the state’s rich history. Art, particularly the performance and active creation of art, as Maeda does, is an important way to communicate the emotion of past events. Bend will be performed in Little Rock and McGehee. Dr. Johanna Miller-Lewis, a historian at UALR, and Richard Yada, who was born at Rohwer, will participate in a talk back session following the performance.
Bend in Little Rock – Thursday, August 27, 7 PM
Ron Robinson Theater
100 River Market Avenue
Purchase your tickets now. $10.00
This project is supported by The Jim Henson Foundation, Tapp’s Arts Center, the South Carolina Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of the Coastal Community Foundation of SC, Alternate ROOTS, the Arkansas Arts Council, the New England Japanese American Citizens League (NEJACL), the Arkansas Humanities Council, the Arkansas Archeological Survey, and the Ko Festival of Performance.

Marcie Cohen Ferris will discuss THE EDIBLE SOUTH at special Legacies & Lunch at noon today

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Marcie Ferris at her home in Chapel Hill, NC. Photo by Kate Medley

Marcie Ferris at her home in Chapel Hill, NC. Photo by Kate Medley

Marcie Cohen Ferris, author of The Edible South, is a professor of American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ferris’ research and teaching interests include the history of the Jewish South and the foodways and material culture of the American South. The Edible South: The Power of Food and the Making of an American Regionexamines the visceral connection between Southern food and the politics of power from the colonial period to the present.

At this special Legacies & Lunch, co-hosted by the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies and the Clinton School of Public Service, Ferris will talk about the power of food to nourish cultures as well as people’s bodies and the way it helps people understand the South – from scholars and chefs to casual consumers and hardcore foodies. Books will be available for purchase, and Ferris will sign copies after her talk.

The Butler Center’s Legacies & Lunch program is free and open to the public and supported in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Attendees are invited to bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert will be provided.

The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies is a department of the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS). It was founded in 1997 to promote the study and appreciation of Arkansas history and culture. The Butler Center’s research collections, art galleries, and offices are located in the Arkansas Studies Institute building at 401 President Clinton Ave. on the campus of the CALS Main Library.

Legacies & Lunch Commemorates Roosevelt Thompson

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roosevelt_thompson_fRoosevelt Thompson was a gifted young man who had a bright future in public service before his death in an automobile accident in 1984. In honor of the 35th anniversary of Thompson’s graduation from Little Rock Central High School, the Butler Center, a department of the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS), will present a special Legacies & Lunch program, co-hosted by the Clinton School of Public Service, on Wednesday, June 3, from noon-1 p.m. at the CALS Ron Robinson Theater, 100 River Market Ave.

At Central High School, Thompson was student body president, an All-Star football player, and a National Merit Scholar. Thompson went on to attend Yale University, which has established a prestigious prize in his honor. While at Yale, he was selected as a Rhodes Scholar.

At this special Legacies & Lunch program, co-hosted by the Clinton School of Public Service, historic video footage featuring Thompson, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and others, will be shown. A panel, including Elaine Dumas, one of his teachers and mentors; Lee Thompson, his brother; and Beth Felton, his classmate at Central and a staff member at the CALS Roosevelt Thompson Branch Library, will discuss how his memory lives on today. Following this discussion, attendees may share memories and ask questions. After the program, all are invited to send their thoughts to RememberingRosey@cals.org.

Legacies & Lunch is free, open to the public, and sponsored in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Attendees are invited to bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided. For more information, call 501-918-3033.