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Artist to Watch: Elroy Hawkins
It’s sad when Kansas City loses a talented performer to a larger market. It’s gratifying when we get one back. Elroy Hawkins (stage name L Roi Hawkins) has returned to the area after 20 years away, appearing in The Black Repertory Theatre Company’s 2017 productions of “Stickfly” and “A Soldier’s Story,” and in the Unicorn’s March 2018 “Informed Consent.”
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Kansas City Public Library’s Dementia-Friendly Programming
The con in quaint River City was beginning to work. Robert Preston, as roguish professor Harold Hill, had sung a few early numbers and won over the school board and mayor’s wife when, suddenly . . . The screen in the lower-floor auditorium at the Kansas City Public Library’s Plaza Branch went dark, and the strains of Dixieland jazz filtered in.
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Kansas City Artist Michael Toombs Spearheads New Brown v. Board of Education Mural in Topeka
Housed in the former Monroe Elementary School in Topeka, the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site commemorates the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in the nation’s public-school system. Now, a dynamic new mural across the street from the school brings a new generation’s perspective on the decision, which found that school segregation violated the 14th Amendment guaranteeing equal protection of the laws.