DCA Arts and Cultural Calendar
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February 2021
Shades of L. A. – Photo Collection
The Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection contains images from the 1850s to the present, documenting all aspects of life in Southern California The collection is an archive of over 7,000 photographs They include daily life, social organizations, work, personal and holiday celebrations, and migration and immigration activities.
Waves of Calamity: Race, Water, and Power in the Evolution of Slavery’s Memory
Dr. Sowande’ Mustakeem, Associate Professor of History and of African and African-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, explores the roles of bonds people, sailors, and slave ship surgeons during the centuries of racial calamity at sea. By centering maritime history and culture in the realities of transoceanic slaving, we gain greater insight into the entangled nature of the human manufacturing system and make greater meaning of the lives of the dead, thereby ensuring the future of collective historical…
Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Woman’s Life In Nineteenth-Century Japan
Amy Stanley, professor of history at Northwestern University, introduces the vibrant social and cultural life of early nineteenth-century Japan through the story of an irrepressible woman named Tsuneno, who defied convention to make a life for herself in the big city of Edo (now Tokyo) in the decades before the arrival of Commodore Perry and the fall of the shogunate.
Growing Up in Downtown Los Angeles During the 1880s
In 1964 an audio recording was made by a member of one of the early pioneer families of Los Angeles. In the recording, Belle Buford Thom Collins recalled growing up in 1880s Los Angeles. The interviewee’s father, Cameron Erskine Thom (1825-1915), was Los Angeles County district attorney, Mayor of Los Angeles (elected 1882), and later a California state senator.
The Past in the Present: America’s Founding and Us
Professor Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and one of the nation’s premier authorities on the Founding era, discusses how Americans today deal with problematic historical figures such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, in the inaugural lecture for the Shapiro Center for American History and Culture at The Huntington.
The History of Masa with Maite Gómez-Rejón, ArtBites
Join LA Plaza on YouTube to learn about the history of maize and the significant role the grain has played throughout the centuries in Latin America. Join us as food historian and cook Maite Gomez-Rejon prepare memelas with black beans and queso fresco along with champurrado, a chocolate-based warm beverage prepared with masa. New cocina sessions are produced every Monday.
Preserving Our City’s History Through Our Streets
An En Casa con LA Plaza session focusing on the work of Gov. Jose Figueroa, a General and the Mexican territorial Governor of Alta California from 1833 to 1835, who devised a plan to secularize the missions in the 1830 and was later immortalized with a Los Angeles street named in his honor. The panel will discuss its opposition to a plan to rename a portion of Figueroa Street. Check back frequently, new programs are added regularly.
The Yale Puppeteers & The Turnabout Theatre
The Los Angeles Public Library presents the life’s work of Harry Burnett, Forman Brown, and Richard “Roddy “Brandon. Together, they forged a professional and deeply personal bond that lasted a lifetime and invited Los Angles to turnabout! The marionettes were a “must see” part of Los Angeles from 1941 through 1956. This online exhibit is part of a display in the Getty Gallery.
The African American Experience: The American Mosaic
The African American Experience: The American Mosaic online encompasses the myriad contributions of African Americans who have achieved cultural and historical prominence. This electronic resource includes nearly 1,000 biographies of such famous political and social figures as W.E.B. DuBois, Barack Obama, Frederick Douglass, and Mary McLeod Bethune as well as such fascinating contemporary figures as Amiri Baraka, Muhammad Ali, and Oprah Winfrey. The collection also contains roughly 8,000 primary and secondary sources, including the complete WPA (Works Progress Administration) Slave…
Mistresses of the Market: White Women and the Nineteenth-Century Domestic Slave Trade
Stephanie Jones-Rogers, associate professor of history at University of California, Berkeley, draws upon the testimony of formerly enslaved individuals, the correspondence and account books of slave traders, and a wide range of other material (including travel writing, newspapers, and business directories) to show the myriad ways in which white, primarily married, women actively participated in the South’s slave market economy, which involved the buying, selling, and hiring of enslaved people.
Diving with a Purpose: Recovering and Reexamining Our Roots
This event will feature a panel discussion with divers who seek to preserve the heritage of Black people through discovering and investigating wreckages of slave ships and salvaging artifacts. Panelists include: Justin Dunnavant, Leader, Society of Black Archaeologists; Alexandra Jones, Founder, and CEO, Archaeology in the Community; Kamau Sadiki, Leader, National Black Scuba Divers (NABS); Ric Powell, Co-Founder & Member, Board of Directors, NABS, and; Mary Elliott, Curator, National Museum of African American History and Culture.
April 2021
Under a Mushroom Cloud: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Atomic Bomb
To commemorate the upcoming 75th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese American National Museum presents Under a Mushroom Cloud: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Atomic Bomb, organized in partnership with the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.The exhibition will include a special display of artifacts belonging to atomic bomb victims. The reopening date of this exhibit is dependent on L.A. County guidelines.