Thursday, August 5 Daytime Programs

Watch live via Zoom

9:30-10:30 a.m.
Get to Know Our Northern Colorado Immigrant Community
Immigrant & Refugee Center of Northern Colorado
 
This presentation is an overview of immigration and refugee resettlement in Colorado that addresses broad themes and includes compelling stories. You'll have a chance to hear perspectives from some of our community members about how they came to live in Northern Colorado and how you can be an ally to our immigrant neighbors. 
 
 
10:45-11:45 a.m.
African-American Culture Through Story and Song
Becky Stone
 
African-Americans, like all Americans, kept their culture alive through story and music. We’ll share some Br’er Rabbit and other traditional tales, along with some work songs, spirituals, rhythmic songs and games. These are things that are African and distinctly American.
 
 
1:00-2:00 p.m.
On the 200th Anniversary of the Santa Fe Trail: Marriages Made in Heaven?
Michael Hughes
 
The Santa Fe Trail was the first of America's great non-Indian overland trails.  The birth of the Santa Fe Trail trade is often described as simply a group of Missouri merchants leaping blindly into trading with citizens of a territory of Mexico.  In reality, the trail came about through a set of unbelievable coincidences that involved vast animal and human migrations, American failures in breeding work animals, ethnic intermarriages, national foreign policies and selective amnesia, international financial crises, and the growth of American industry. This workshop will also look into these coincidences,  into how multiple nationalities benefited from the Santa Re trade, and into the sudden and tragic end of most of that trade.
 
2:15-3:15
Irony Is The Driving Force of the Universe
Judith Black
 
Mary Harris Jones spent her adult life organizing miners and factory workers, demanding work conditions and wages that honored workers and enabled them to make a life worth living rather than a shortened one dedicated solely to the profits of industry owners. With hindsight we now understand that the tons of coal these men risked their lives to bring from beneath the earth are a part of the fossil fuel extravaganza that our industrializing nation wanted and needed. It also contributed mightily to the greenhouse gasses now threatening to warm and suffocate our planet. During our time together we will explore the unintended consequences of our relentless march towards a “modern” society. This session will be a discussion rather than a lecture or performance. The objective is to enable participants to use their knowledge of past and present to try and understand how discoveries that appeared like nirvana can unravel and bring us to the edge of our extinction.
 
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