Local Maryland first time novelist Christine Trent will be speaking about her historical fiction novel The Queen’s Dollmaker.

Christine Laurent, a young woman of Anglo-French heritage, establishes herself as a dollmaker in London and is commissioned to make dolls for Queen Marie-Antoinette and her friends.

Read more about Christine Trent and her novel.

The program will be in the Popular Library Division reading room in the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library at 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 13.  

Look forward to seeing you there!

What is the connection between gentrification and homelessness? How have shifts in the development of business districts and residential neighborhoods in D.C. affected the homeless population?

How have local government and local organizations been addressing the issue of affordable housing for D.C.’s most economically disadvantaged residents? Learn more at this panel discussion with advocates from Empower DC and National Coalition for the Homeless. Tuesday, March 2, 6:30 p.m. Room A-2.

Black History Month continues at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library (MLK).

On Tuesday, February 16, Patrick Lundy and the Ministers of Music, an internationally renowned choir, set the tone with a rendition of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," a.k.a. the Black National Anthem, composed by James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson.

The choir took the audience on a musical journey through hymns, traditional gospel, spirituals and folksong. The setting was the magnificent Great Hall, the home of the Martin Luther King Jr. Mural. The selections were spirit-filled, with many of the audience singing along to familiar songs like "Oh Happy Day" and "Ooo Child."

It was a love fest as Minister Lundy suggested that audience members, "Hug three neighbors." Some hugged a few more than three. The choir at one point left the stage and entered the audience to shake the hands of their brothers and sisters. A high point in the concert was when the choir, holding hands, sang the anthem of the civil rights movement, "We Shall Overcome."

Black History Month at the MLK Library always includes music. Don't miss out on this extraordinary month of programs. Check our calendar of events, and bring the family. Check out our displays in the Great Hall with books for children
and adults that explore the dynamic history of black people in America.
Come check us out.

Paul T. Mills, Manager, Social Sciences, and Dennis Golden, Librarian--Black Studies Center, are the co-chairs of the 2010 Black History Month Committee.

An exhibit by artists Terry Dixon and Robert Morris, inspired by Douglas Blackmon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Slavery by Another Name, opened last night in the Great Hall of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. Almost 100 people attended the Black History Month kick-off and Art Exhibit opening Monday night, February 1.

Blackmon joined Dixon and Morris in a short program, which turned out to be a sneak peek of their upcoming slide presentation and lecture scheduled for Tuesday, February 23. As Dixon and Morris are native Washingtonians, many family and friends attended. The atmosphere was celebratory.

This exhibit has personal meaning my family and me. My grandfather worked in the Birmingham, Alabama, mines that Blackmon writes about and that the artists captured in their work. The artist’s depiction of that time and place commemorates all of the African-Americans who worked in those mines.

Using artifacts to capture the era, Morris has created amazing mixed-media images. One poignant moment during Dixon’s statement to the guests was a challenge to find him (his initials and date of birth) in one of his works. This is one way Dixon personalized the events of this tragic era. Dixon paints slices of this long-forgotten history, employing vibrant color and rich texture.

After the Emancipation Proclamation, African-Americans were re-enslaved by the penal system and the illegal incarceration of black males. Judges and sheriffs profited from the "leasing" of so-called convicts. Re-enslaved labor also profited northern industry. Check out Blackmon's Slavery by Another Name.

The exhibit will be in the Great Hall throughout the month of February. These are works that demand a second visit; one is not enough. The texture and depth of the art begs the onlooker to return again and again to discern the information layered in the art.

Social sciences manager, Paul T. Mills, and Dennis Golden, librarian, Black Studies Center, are responsible for the Black History Month programming. Michele Casto, librarian, Washingtoniana, served as curator. Many library staff contributed to the success of last evening’s event.