Plaza Branch and Central Library will open late at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 17 due to the Kansas City Marathon.
Author Elaine Weiss and journalist Yvette Walker explore American history’s untold stories in powerful, character-driven books of narrative history. She focuses her lens on the role of ordinary citizens — especially women — in bringing about social and political change in our democracy.
During this Women's Equality Day event they discuss the fight for women's rights and broader equal rights — efforts to live up to the promises of equality and self-government articulated in the Declaration of Independence — with details drawn from Weiss' award-winning books.
Weiss chronicled the suffragists' long campaign for voting rights in The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote; explored the extraordinary stories of southern Black citizens standing up to defend democracy and regain their Constitutional rights in her most recent book, Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools that Built the Civil Rights Movement; and wrote of the women who redefined women's work and patriotism during WW I in Fruits of Victory: The Woman’s Land Army in the Great War.
Weiss is also a public speaker and media commentator and served as historical consultant to the Tony-award winning Broadway musical, SUFFS. She lives in Baltimore.
Walker is the opinions editor for The Kansas City Star and leads its editorial board.
Co-sponsored by Women's Equality Coalition.