BROWN BAG HISTORY SERIES
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Irene Latham will continue her very popular series of presentations of exhibits featured at the Daughters of the American Revolution’s National Museum in Washington D.C., on Wednesday, September 16, from noon until 1 p.m. as part of the museum’s Brown Bag History Series. September’s program is Masterpiece Quilts, an overview of extraordinary quilts and the women who made them from the 18th and 19th centuries.
Pictured is the Baltimore Album Quilt Top from the mid-19th century, a brilliant example of the quilts featured at the DAR National Museum that embodies “patriotism, liberty, and prosperity.”
Irene is a member of the Warrior Rivers Chapter of the DAR, which has partnered this year with the museum to bring interesting and informative virtual DAR exhibits to the community to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Irene is also an award-winning poet, author, and playwright who lives here in Blount County.
Bring your lunch, or not, and join in on what is sure to be a fascinating discussion of the quilters and quilts from America’s past.
Attendance is free and open to everyone. RSVP is encouraged but not required. To RSVP or for more information, contact the museum at 205-973-0465.
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FYI – Dr. Robert White, a professor in the Humanities Department at Alabama State University, was to speak on Wednesday, June 3, but the presentation has to be rescheduled. Please keep an eye out here or on the museum’s Facebook page for the new date.
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OTHER EVENTS
The Blount County Memorial Museum will host the public showing of the documentary film Bending the Arc: The Vote on Saturday, Sept. 26, beginning at 2 p.m. The viewing is open to the public and is free to attend.
Producer/director Pam Powell will screen the second film in her Bending the Arc Project documentary series. The first, Origins, was shown at the museum in June and met with high praise. The series explores the stories of “both African Americans and a small group of little-known white allies who fought for racial justice during the Civil Rights Movement.” The Vote documents the history and struggle to obtain equal voting rights for all and features writers, historians, journalists, ministers, foot soldiers of the movement, and civil rights icons. Powell warns that the documentary film is not suitable for children and that viewer discretion is advised due to disturbing content.
The Vote runs about one and a half hours. A discussion will follow. The late J. Mason Davis, an African American Birmingham attorney discusses his own experience in registering to vote, as do others. Later, after he started practicing law in Alabama, Davis was instrumental in having over a hundred African American men restored to the voter rolls after they had been improperly purged. As Davis said in a later interview for a forthcoming book by T.K. Thorne, the teaching of history must include the truth about the lasting effects of slavery, the Reconstruction Era, and the Jim Crow oppression that followed. “Only by understanding these chapters can we appreciate the significance of laws that protect against tyranny.”
Powell, a graduate of Birmingham-Southern College, spent 32 years on the staff at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in a career that encompassed work as a feature writer, university magazine editor, and director of publications and periodicals. She has produced biographical films and short films. She founded the Bending the Arc Project in 2015 to document the struggle against racism in Alabama through storytelling. She has completed two films in this series, Origins and The Vote. A third, Growing Up Separate, is in production.
RSVP is encouraged but not required. To RSVP or for more information, contact the museum at 205-973-0465.
The Museum is happy to announce we will resume opening one Saturday each month (except July) from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The first Saturday will be June 27. Please note there are other events at the museum that day that you may want to attend. (See above)
Other Saturdays openings are August 29 and September 26.
BLOUNT COUNTY MEMORIAL MUSEUM & HISTORICAL SOCIETY 