Historian Emilye Crosby of the State University of New York at Geneseo discusses the significance of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the crucial role that women – ordinary citizens at the grassroots level – played in its passage. Her presentation comes on the eve of Women’s Equality Day on August 26.

In a discussion of her book Reclaiming Your Community: You Don’t Have to Move Out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One, New York urban revitalization strategist and entrepreneur Majora Carter urges struggling, low-status communities to keep homegrown talent from moving away. Like the corporate world, she says, such areas need a retention plan. Her presentation continues the Library’s Making a Great City series.

Award-winning essayist and poet Taylor Brorby discusses his new memoir Boys and Oil, recounting the uneasiness of being gay in a rugged land of coal mining and fracking in rural North Dakota. An environmentalist, he uses the destruction of large swaths of the West as a metaphor for the distress of his youth.

Learn about the past, present, and future of vision loss during the premiere of the podcast and video series Foresight, produced by Kansas City’s Alphapointe. After a partial screening of Foresight, KSHB-TV reporter Rae Daniel moderates a panel discussion featuring Paterson (joining online), KCATA CEO and president Robbie Makinen, and crisis communications consultant David Westbrook about the challenges and successes of living with vision loss.