Signature Event Archive

Search the Signature Event Archive to discover past Library events. Watch videos, hear speaker interviews, and listen to audio recordings of previous presentations. Search by keyword (event title, subject, or presenter name), location or by date range.
Signature Event Video Video Signature Event Audio Audio Signature Event Interview Interviews
E.g., 2019/03/25
E.g., 2019/03/25

Charting America's Economic Course

One of the architects of America’s current monetary policy started small. Esther George, then a teenager, stuffed canceled checks into customers’ monthly statements in her first summer job at a local bank. She worked her way up to teller.

Learn More >
The president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City sits down with Library Director Crosby Kemper III for a public conversation ranging from her small-town roots (in Faucett, Missouri, some 20 minutes south of St. Joseph) to her take on the country’s and Kansas City’s economies.
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Reception: 
6 pm
Program: 
6:30 pm
Plaza Branch
Event Audio

Becoming American: Promise and Prejudice

The Library continues its examination of immigration, exploring the tension between America’s historical acceptance of newcomers and periodic backlash arising from concerns about their economic and cultural impact.

Learn More >
The Library continues its examination of immigration in America, exploring the tension between our country’s historical acceptance of newcomers and the backlash arising from concerns about their economic and cultural impact. The event features a screening of the documentary Welcome to Shelbyville (2009; PG) and subsequent discussion led by University of Missouri-Kansas City historian Sandra Enriquez.
Monday, February 11, 2019
Program: 
6:30 pm
Central Library

Through the Photographer's Lens: Kansas City's African American Community

Missouri Valley Sundays

Powerful imagery of protests and violence helped bring attention to America's civil rights movement. Black photographers of the era broadened the nation’s view, also capturing a wide range of social activities in the African American community.

Learn More >
Delia Cook Gillis of the University of Central Missouri looks at the work of William Fambrough, Matthew Washington, and other black photographers who documented the African American experience in Kansas City during the civil rights era – from church, school, and social activities to the realities of segregation and struggle for equality.
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Program: 
2:00 pm
Central Library
Event Audio

Songs of the Black Pioneers

Friday Night Family Fun

Join Kansas City’s “Brother John” Anderson in an interactive presentation celebrating the lives and accomplishments of many of our country’s African American trailblazing heroes.
 

Learn More >
Join Kansas City’s “Brother John” Anderson in an interactive presentation celebrating the lives and accomplishments of many of our country’s African American trailblazing heroes. For all ages.
Friday, February 8, 2019
Program: 
6:30 pm
Plaza Branch

An Evening With Tyehimba Jess

Pulitzer Prize recipient Tyehimba Jess “is inventive, prophetic, wondrous,” says fellow award-winning poet Nikky Finney. Jess highlights an array of Library events commemorating Black History Month, discussing and reading from his works.
 
Learn More >
Pulitzer Prize recipient Tyehimba Jess “is inventive, prophetic, wondrous,” says fellow award-winning poet Nikky Finney. Jess highlights an array of Library events commemorating Black History Month, discussing and reading from his works.
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Reception: 
6 pm
Program: 
6:30 pm
Central Library
Event Audio

Jazz at Lincoln Center: Blood on The Fields

**EVENT CANCELED due to technical issues with the program video streaming.***
 

Wynton Marsalis made history with his dramatic, thought-provoking Blood on the Fields, first jazz composition to win a Pulitzer Prize, is featured in the latest installment of the Jazz at Lincoln Center digital concert series. Baritone Gregory Porter, scat-singing legend Kenny Washington, and contralto Paula West join the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in the streamed presentation, which is preceded by a brief look at the instrumentation, music, and composer.

Learn More >
The Library streams a performance of Wynton Marsalis’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Blood on the Fields in the latest installment of the Jazz at Lincoln Center digital series. It chronicles American slavery through the story of an African man and woman who are stolen and enslaved, fall in love, and see their relationship truly flourish when they reach freedom.
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Program: 
6:30 pm
Plaza Branch
Event Canceled

Marshall Mobilizes the Nation

**EVENT CANCELED due to inclement weather forecast for this evening and its impact on the speaker's travel schedule.***

Military historian David W. Mills of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College examines the man deemed by Winston Churchill as “the true organizer of victory” in World War II. Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall built and directed the largest fighting force in history, and then won a Nobel Peace Prize for his post-war work as a diplomat and secretary of state.
 
Learn More >
Military historian David W. Mills of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College examines the man deemed by Winston Churchill as “the true organizer of victory” in World War II. Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall built and directed the largest fighting force in history, and then won a Nobel Peace Prize for his post-war work as a diplomat and secretary of state.
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Reception: 
6 pm
Program: 
6:30 pm
Central Library
Event Canceled

The Piano Lesson

The Piano Lesson endures as one of August Wilson’s most eloquent and powerful plays, an account of a Depression-era black family at odds over an heirloom piano. Should family members improve their economic future by selling it? Or keep it, honoring a slavery-stained past?

Learn More >
The Equity Actors' Readers' Theatre (EARTh) and Black Repertory Theatre of Kansas City deliver a script-in-hand performance of one of August Wilson’s most eloquent and powerful plays, the Pulitzer Prize-winning account of a Depression-era black family at odds over an heirloom piano.
Monday, February 4, 2019
Program: 
6:30 pm
Plaza Branch

Women Behind the Lens: An Education

Searching the Psyche Through Cinema
This annual screening-and-discussion series continues in February with more psychological studies of films helmed by female directors.

Learn More >
The annual Searching the Psyche Through Cinema continues its psychological studies of films helmed by female directors. This week: a screening and discussion of Lone Scherfig’s smart and critically acclaimed coming-of-age story about a teenage girl (Carey Mulligan) in 1960s London and how her life changes with the arrival of a playboy nearly twice her age. (Rated PG-13)
Sunday, February 3, 2019
Reception: 
Following
Program: 
1:30 pm
Plaza Branch

Making Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration

Kansas City artist Ben Wills details his outreach to prisoners and how it has affected his approach to his work. The presentation coincides with the Library exhibit Airplanes, which features a collection of expressive and revealing paper airplanes that inmates have sent to Wills over the years.
 
Learn More >
Kansas City artist Ben Wills details his outreach to prisoners and how it has affected his approach to his work. The presentation coincides with the Library exhibit Airplanes, which features a collection of expressive and revealing paper airplanes that inmates have sent to Wills over the years.
Thursday, January 31, 2019
Program: 
6:30 pm
Central Library
Event Audio

Pages