book signing « Museums of Lancaster County

Say the Wrong Thing: Stories and Strategies for Racial Justice and Authentic Community

On Thursday, June 8, LancasterHistory.org will host Dr. Amanda Kemp for a reading and discussion of her book Say the Wrong Thing: Stories and Strategies for Racial Justice and Authentic Community. Part memoir and part social commentary, Dr. Kemp’s book provides insight and strategies for creating racial justice and a strong sense of shared community. Through a short collection of essays, Kemp reflects on her own interracial relationship, parenting her Black teenage son, and making art in the age of Black Lives Matter.

“Say the Wrong Thing is not a pat guide to multicultural appreciation,” writes educator Lisa Graustein, “it is a vibrant, commanding invitation to be the change that we need, right now.”

Dr. Kemp has been a lifelong poet-performer and advocate of racial justice and equality since 1983. She earned her B.A. from Stanford University where she was awarded The Gardner Fellowship for Public Service. A poet and playwright, Kemp earned her doctoral degree in Performance Studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. Dr. Kemp has taught at Cornell University, Dickinson College, Millersville University, and Franklin & Marshall College where she served as the chair of Africana Studies. She has keynoted Martin Luther King programs at colleges, high schools, and in elementary school settings. Kemp is currently a Visiting Scholar in Africana Studies at Franklin & Marshall College and continues to publish on race, performance, and freedom.

This event will take place on Thursday, June 8, 2017 in Ryder Hall at LancasterHistory.org, 230 N. President Avenue Lancaster. An author’s reception and book signing will begin at 4pm, followed by the reading and discussion from 4:30-5:30. This event is free and open to the public.

Buffalo Bill in Lancaster: A Cowboy Celebrity Helps Rewrite a Local Story

Buffalo Bill Parading through Lancaster Lancastrians loved William F. Cody, famously known as “Buffalo Bill Cody.” They flocked to outdoor arenas when his “Wild West Shows” came to town, and packed the Fulton Opera House for his premiere in 1873. But when Cody took the Fulton stage in a show about killing Indians on the western frontier, he was standing in the same spot where the Paxton gang murdered the last of the Conestoga Indians 110 years ago. Leslie Stainton, author of Staging Ground, and Jack Brubaker, LNP’s The Scribbler, explore this uncanny connection in this colloquium. Buffalo Bill Cody’s popularity in Lancaster and across the United States said much about the way Americans grappled with the turbulent history of native and non-native American relations in the 19th century.

Leslie Stainton is the author of Staging Ground: An American Theater and Its Ghosts (Penn State Press, 2014) and Lorca: A Dream of Life (Bloomsbury, 1998; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999). A two-time Fulbright award recipient, Stainton holds a B.A. in drama from Franklin & Marshall College and an MFA in dramaturgy from the University of Massachusetts. Jack Brubaker has written The Scribbler, a LNP column exploring the history, culture and humor of Lancaster County, for more than three decades. He has also authored a dozen historical books and magazine articles including Massacre of the Conestogas and Remembering Lancaster County (History Press, 2010).

The colloquium Buffalo Bill in Lancaster will take place on Thursday, May 12, 2016 in Ryder Hall at LancasterHistory.org, 230 N President Avenue, Lancaster. A social gathering will begin at 4pm, followed by the lecture from 4:30-5:30pm. Stainton and Brubaker will be available to sign copies of their various books at 4pm during the social. This event is free and open to the public.