Lonoke County native Aretha Dodson attended segregated public schools and worked for the same school district during and after integration. She details these experiences in her memoir, That’s the Way It “Wuz” Back Then, which she will discuss at Legacies & Lunch, the Butler Center’s monthly lecture series, on Wednesday, March 4, noon-1 p.m., in the Main Library’s Darragh Center, 100 Rock Street. Books will be available for purchase, and Dodson will sign copies after her talk.

Dodson is a school improvement educational consultant who worked nearly forty years for the Lonoke public schools. That’s the Way It “Wuz” Back Then uses Dodson’s experiences, interviews she conducted, and clippings from the Lonoke Democrat to depict “the hardship and suffering of black families during the early twentieth century, segregated schools in the South, and the unrest experienced in the South during the desegregation of schools.”

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.