Fall 2019 Music, Movies, and the American Spirit

From the venue:

This influential period in American culture and thought, much of it inspired by creative and religious figures from the American South, helped to lay the groundwork for the civil rights movement and the changes in thinking about the role of women in American society.

Through the abundant use of filmed documentary material and archived performances we’ll look at the work and influence of such diverse creative figures as playwright Tennessee Williams, director Elia Kazan, producer Samuel Goldwyn, pop singers Elvis Presley and Sam Cooke, and religious leaders such as Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rabbi Jacob Rothschild. We’ll also examine relevant work from the period in the collection of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.