Tag Archives: Mosaic Templars Cultural Center

Today at noon, Mosaic Templar’s Cultural Center celebrates Kwanzaa

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The Mosaic Templar’s Cultural Center, in partnership with the Sue Cowan Williams library, Pyramid Art Books and Custom Framing, and other community partners, will celebrate Kwanzaa from noon to 1 p.m. on Thursday, December 31.

MTCC’s Kwanzaa celebration is a citywide event that will celebrate the principle of Kuumba or creativity. This year’s event will feature saxophonist Ricky Howard and poet and educator Marquese McFerguson.

Kwanzaa is an African American holiday celebration that focuses on family, community, and culture.

The Mosaic Templar’s Cultural Center is an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

Enjoy the holidays and the “Say It Ain’t Say’s” Sweet Potato Pie contest at Mosaic Templars today

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MTCCSayJoin the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center for a festive and fun day full of holiday cheer! The fun runs from 2pm util 5pm.

This year’s event will feature the 4th annual “Say It Ain’t Say’s” sweet potato pie contest, in honor of Little Rock’s black Santa, Robert “Say” McIntosh.We’ll have live entertainment by the Gloryland Pastor’s Choir, the Lorenzo Smith Band Camp and the Horace Mann Middle School Dance Ensemble. Activities include a kids’ craft station and the opportunity to browse our current exhibits, “Freedom! Oh, Freedom!” and the 2015 Creativity Arkansas Collection.

Guests and a panel of celebrity judges will determine who has the best sweet potato pie in Central Arkansas. Celebrity judges include Power 92 FM’s Broadway Joe, food and travel writer Kat Robinson, AY magazine food columnist Pamela Smith, and Kelli Marks, owner of Sweet Love Bakery.

Enjoy refreshments provided by RSVP Catering.

This year, a trolley will be available to take guests to two other Department of Arkansas Heritage Museums located in downtown Little Rock: Old State House Museum and Historic Arkansas Museum. The trolley route will also include the Governor’s Mansion Open House.

For more information call 501-683-3620 or email Tameka@arkansasheritage.org.

Have a FREE and HOWLing good time at the Big Boo!seum Bash tonight

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BooseumLogo_EventSponsored by the Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau, the annual Big Boo!-seum Bash will take place at multiple downtown attractions Thursday, October 29, 2015 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM.

Big Boo!-seum Bash is free to the public, and it provides event goers the opportunity to visit many of Little Rock’s museums and cultural attractions for a night of safe trick-or-treating and family fun and games. Visitors are encouraged to dress in Halloween costumes.

Visitors may pick up game cards at any participating Boo!-seum location. Cards must be stamped at each attended location to be eligible for prize drawings. Stamped cards will include prize entry instructions. Prize entrants must be 18 years of age or younger. Prize structure is as follows:

  • Grand Prize – Electronic Tablet. Visitors must visit all 8 locations to be eligible.
  • Secondary Prize – $100 gift card. Visitors must visit 6 or more locations to be eligible.
  • Social Media Contest, Prize – This year, Boo!-seum goers are encouraged to post photos on Facebook with the hashtag #LRBooseum while at a participating Boo!-seum location. Via a random drawing, one lucky winner will receive a special Little Rock-themed museum prize package.

 

2015 Big Boo!-seum Participants include:

  • Arkansas Arts Center – 501 East 9th Street
  • Historic Arkansas Museum – 200 East 3rd Street
  • Little Rock Visitor Center at Curran Hall – 615 East Capitol Avenue
  • MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History – 503 East 9th Street
  • Mosaic Templars Cultural Center – 9th Street and Broadway; Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site will participate on-site
  • Museum of Discovery – 500 President Clinton Avenue
  • Old State House Museum – 300 West Markham Street; Arkansas State Capitol will participate on site
  • Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center – 602 President Clinton Avenue; Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum will participate on-site

Pop Up in the Rock today from 11am to 5pm along West 9th from Broadway

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Create Little Rock, the young professionals organization of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, and studioMAIN, a collective of design professionals, developers, and contractors, are excited to share developments in the 2015 PopUp in the Rock planning.

This year, PopUp West Ninth will take place Saturday, October 24 from 11am until 5pm. It will span from the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center (MTCC) at Ninth and Broadway to the Dreamland Ballroom at Ninth and State and across the State Street overpass to the campus of Philander Smith. The project will feature a meandering street with the intention of slowing traffic creating a more pedestrian friendly environment, a children’s corner, street musicians and performers, Dreamland Ballroom tours and a PopUp Goodfellas barber shop.

Local food trucks, vendors and entertainment have also been secured including Solfood Catering and Brown Sugar Bake Shop, local food trucks Loblolly, The Beast, Southern Gourmasian, Banana Leaf, Blackhound BBQ, Katmandu Momo as well as the Lost Forty beer garden.  There will be PopUp shopping featuring Mimi Mwafrika designs and Tribal Collections. Great local musicians such as Lucious Spiller and the Arkansas Baptist Choir among several others will perform throughout the day.

PopUp in the Rock began generating community feedback for PopUp West Ninth at the 2014 Juneteenth Celebration of Freedom hosted by Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, Arkansas’s museum of African American history and culture.  Once known as “The Line,” Ninth Street was a bustling east-west thoroughfare with a trolley line. It was a bustling community with a thriving urban fabric of mixed-use development that was largely black-owned.

Booker T. Washington spoke at Ninth and Broadway in 1913. Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and others performed at the Dreamland Ballroom and other jazz clubs along Ninth. Daisy and L.C. Bates operated their Arkansas State Press there, and, from the present location of MTCC, the Mosaic Templars operated a politically and financially influential headquarters. The campus of Philander Smith once spanned north to West Ninth before Interstate 630 divided the district. One goal of PopUp West Ninth is to encourage pedestrian and bicycle traffic between Philander Smith and West Ninth Street via the South State Street overpass, thereby bridging the gap that originally tore apart the neighborhood. Utilizing community feedback and knowledge of the deep historical roots of West Ninth, PopUp in the Rock hopes to demonstrate the district’s potential for an equally vibrant future.

 

Creative Class of 2015: Chris Hancock

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ChrisHancock_K0A1139-webSocial media at history museums may seem to be a paradox. But Chris Hancock proves that it can be a successful way to increase outreach and awareness.   As Communications Manager at Historic Arkansas Museum, he uses cutting edge technologies (and old school methods) to spread the word about Arkansas’ earliest days.

A native of Russellville and graduate of UCA, he joined HAM in September 2014.  Prior to that he was Public Information Officer at one of HAM’s sister museums – Mosaic Templars Cultural Center.

In addition to getting ready for HAM’s Candlelight Gala on November 7, he is also co-chair of Pop Up in the Rock’s Pop Up West 9th which takes place on October 24.

Hancock is a member of the City of Little Rock’s City Beautiful Commission and is on the Board of studioMAIN. He is also active in the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Create Little Rock initiative.

Documentary on LR native Florence Price screened tonight at Mosaic Templars

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Florence-PriceTonight at 6 p.m. Mosaic Templars Cultural Center will play host to the premiere of the new documentary, The Caged Bird. Produced, written and edited by Dr. James Greeson, professor emeritus of music composition at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, The Caged Bird presents an in-depth look at the life and music of Florence Price, the first African American woman to have her music performed by a major symphony.

Born in Little Rock in 1887, Price and her family were the elite of black society or as historian Willard Gatewood referred to them, “Aristocrats of Color.” Through her travels, Price came into contact with some of the most influential African Americans in our nation’s history, including abolitionist Frederick Douglass, writer W.E.B. DuBois,one of the founders of the NAACP, author Langston Hughes and dancer Katherine Dunham. Price became a favorite composer of the great soprano Marian Anderson, whose 1939 concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial was a seminal moment in the civil rights movement.

In 1933, the world-famous Chicago Symphony, consisting entirely of white men, premiered Price’s “Symphony in E minor” at the Chicago World’s Fair. Even today this would be a huge achievement for any composer; but during the era of segregation it was a unprecedented feat for a women, in particular an African American woman, to have her music presented on the world stage by a prestigious orchestra. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Dr. Greeson.

The Caged Bird is free and open to the public.

Mosaic Templars Cultural Center is a program of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

Creative Class of 2015: Sericia Cole

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sericiaSericia Cole has quietly and quickly transformed the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center.  She was named interim director in July 2012 and permanently took the post in November of that year.  Since then, she has expanded programming and outreach efforts of the museum.

Under her leadership, Mosaic Templars has started lunchtime lecture series and has expanded its exhibition schedule.  She has also worked to ensure that special events take place year-round at the museum.  In addition to exhibits on a variety of aspects of African American history in Arkansas, the museum is the permanent home of the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.

A Little Rock native and UALR graduate, she has previously worked for Governor Mike Beebe, Philander Smith College, Wildwood Park for the Arts, and KATV.