Please mark your calendars for the 2020 - 2021 Film and Lecture Series, presented under the Patrons of the Arts and in conjunction with the Civic Engagement Committee. Events are generally held in online, unless otherwise specified. Please stay tuned for more details about speakers, panelists, and locations. All event summaries provided by Instructor Kolb.
- Leigh Kolb, English and Journalism Instructor, Student Media Adviser, English, Journalism and Mass Media Faculty Mentor
Sunday, Jan. 24 at 3 p.m.
2021 MLK Celebration – We’ve Come This Far
Hosted by Neighbors United – Undoing Racism
This year's speaker is Ms. Mettazee Morris. Ms. Morris is an international storyteller, musician, and social worker. Ms. Morris will be telling the family history of Father Augustus Tolton, from the perspective of Fr. Tolton's mother, Martha Jane Chisley Tolton. Mettazee will sing Negro spirituals throughout her presentation. During the presentation, we will have opportunities to break into small groups to discuss, as well as question and answer sessions with Ms. Morris. Other music will be provided by Karen Stafford.
Called to Courage by
Thursday, Feb. 11 at 7 p.m.
"Portraits of Black Women in Missouri," by Carole Elaine Shelton
Online Event (Zoom)
This program offers first and third person portrayals of Black women in Missouri; creating biographical sketches which illustrates the impact of enslavement and pending freedom upon their lives.
Carole Shelton is a retired educator from the St. Louis City Schools. Carole is also a storyteller who tells a wide variety of stories from around the world with a hint of music to inspire. She also researches and creates historical stories about Black women all over the country.
Women in Missouri History by Month of February
Online Black Film Festival
(ECC Students/Faculty/Staff with Library Log-in Credentials)
Hosted by ECC’s Film and Lecture Series, ECC English and Humanities Department, ECC Library
Thursday, March 4 at 7 p.m. - "Soothing the 'Savage Hearts of Man': Women's Suffrage and Rural Missouri," by Elyssa Ford
Online Event (Zoom)
Though often ignored by the national and eastern organizations, women’s suffrage groups in the Midwest learned by the late 19th century that rural areas also must be targeted to win the hearts and minds of the electorate. Historian Elyssa Ford will focus on how rural women in Missouri played an important role in the suffrage movement. Through their actions at the parade and at home in the Midwest, it is possible to see how a small group of young, rural women engaged with the suffrage movement and how they were shaped not just by the national suffrage discussion but by the local and often heated suffrage debates within their community.
Elyssa Ford is an associate professor of history at Northwest Missouri State University, and her research centers on memory and identity, women's history, and public history education. She has written on women’s suffrage for the Missouri Historical Review and National Park Service.
Month of March
Online Women's History Month Film Festival
(ECC Students/Faculty/Staff with Library Log-in Credentials)
ECC Campus Life and Leadership, ECC Film and Lecture Series, ECC Library, and the ECC English and Humanities Department
Thursday, April 8 at 7 p.m.
Poetry Reading
Hosted with the ECC English Department
Stay tuned for more information!
April 29, at 7 p.m.
Documentary: Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band
The Glen – Outdoor Film
Hosted in conjunction with the ECC Jazz Clinic
She was ahead of her time, a genius. During an era when Jazz was the nation's popular music, Mary Lou Williams was one of its greatest innovators. As both a pianist and composer, she was a font of daring and creativity who helped shape the sound of 20th century America. And like the dynamic, turbulent nation in which she lived, Williams seemed to redefine herself with every passing decade.
From child prodigy to "Boogie-Woogie Queen" to groundbreaking composer to mentoring some of the greatest musicians of all time, Mary Lou Williams never ceased to astound those who heard her play. But away from the piano, Williams was a woman in a "man's world," a black person in a "whites only" society, an ambitious artist who dared to be different, and who struggled against the imperatives of being a "star." Above all, she did not fit the (still) prevailing notions of where genius comes from or what it looks like. Time and again, she pushed back against a world that said, "You can't" and said, "I can." It nearly cost her everything.
Smithsonian Folkways American roots collection [sound recording].
Jazz [videorecording] / a Florentine Films production ; produced by Ken Burns by Saturday, May 1 – Afternoon/Evening
The Glen – Outdoor Film
Stay tuned for more information!
Thursday, May 13, at 7 p.m.,
New Haven Preservation Society President David Menke will give a presentation (via Zoom) about the historic A.M.E. Anna Bell Chapel in New Haven, Mo., and its incredible history and current renovation efforts.
Register for the event here (and a Zoom invitation will be sent to you before the event). Please share widely!
From a recent Missourian article:
"Although it’s been almost 15 years since the church’s last member died, and nearly 116 years since its namesake, a former slave who helped found the church, died, the Anna Bell Chapel remains almost as it was left in the late 1980s to early ’90s. A dusty wooden piano still hums a strong, albeit out-of-tune, C major. A box of hymnals show the wear not only of time, but also of use. And a striking painting of Jesus done by area artist Dee Dann remains a colorful centerpiece of the chapel, which in 1992 became the only building in New Haven to be included on the National Register of Historic Places.
"Today, preserving that history is a main goal of the New Haven Preservation Society. Its members hope to move the church to a more prominent location in town, restore it to its former glory and use it to highlight Black history in their own community. ...
"The congregation dates back to 1865, when a group of former slaves worshiped in a small log cabin chapel in Etlah, an unincorporated area west of New Haven."
