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Food for thought: Live performance of Voices of a People’s History of the United States at Seattle City Hall on Inauguration Day

Inauguration day, Friday, January 20, 2017 12-1 p.m. (Bring your lunch)
Seattle City Hall: Berth Knight Landes Room 600 4th Ave, Seattle, WA 98104
RSVP here

Join us for a special live performance of Voices of a People’s History of the United States featuring readings by Brett Hamil, Marcus Harrison Green, Jerrell Davis, Claudia Castro Luna, Valerie Curtis Newton, Carlynn Newhouse, Shontina Vernon and more.

Voices of a People’s History of the United States brings to life the extraordinary history of ordinary people who built the movements that made the United States what it is today, ending slavery and Jim Crow, protesting war and the genocide of Native Americans, creating unions and the eight-hour work day, advancing women’s rights and gay liberation, and struggling to right wrongs of the day. By giving public expression to rebels, dissenters, and visionaries from our past—and present—Voices seeks to educate and inspire a new generation working for social justice. This event is curated by Shontina Vernon and hosted by SALT (Seattle Arts Leadership team), a program of the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture.

About Voices: VOICES is a non-profit arts, education and social justice organization active throughout the United States. It was founded in 2007 by a group of activists, artists and educators, led by historian Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove, who together edited the book Voices of a People’s History of the United States. VOICES came together as a result of enthusiastic audience response to occasional readings from the book Voices, held across the country starting in 2003, and to ongoing requests from readers and audiences for educational material and more performances. This evident hunger for a history in which ordinary people can participate and recognize themselves, their forbearers, their neighbors and their fellow workers, motivated the founding of VOICES.

Today VOICES employs live performances, as well as educational programs based on primary source materials, to illustrate the struggles that ended slavery and Jim Crow segregation, advanced women’s rights and gay liberation, created unions and the eight-hour work day, protested war and the genocide of Native Americans, and worked to right the wrongs of the day. Voices of a People’s History of the United States is an anthology edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove. First released in 2004 by Seven Stories Press, Voices is the primary source companion to Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.

About SALT:

The Seattle Arts Leadership Team (SALT) is a flexible and creative professional development program for artists and arts administrators. SALT combines the need for on-going professional development with the creativity of the sector by bringing interesting, challenging and thought provoking workshops, networking and training to the Seattle’s arts ecology.