WEDNESDAY, AUG. 28 2013 >>>
1. Blessed with a voice that made even his most obtuse musings to the press sound like gospel, Martin Luther King Jr. might have been taken for the Messiah. It's hard to know how Washington's or Lincoln's speeches might have carried to their contemporaries, but thanks to the magic of film, the good pastor will remain forever a man as well as a monument. King helped broadcast the conditions of the Jim Crow South by attracting film crews to the lawns where crosses were being burned or the lunch counters where protesters were being attacked. The Baptist preacher provided iconic imagery in front of the camera, delivering his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and marching arm-in-arm across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Beginning with Harry Belafonte's somber introduction, the 1970 documentary King: A Filmed Record...Montgomery to Memphis captures all the key moments of King's career - the Montgomery boycott, the Birmingham movement (including the church bombing that took the lives of four little girls), the March on Washington, King's Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, the Selma march, the Northern campaign in Chicago, King's increasingly outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War, and on to Memphis. The Grand Cinema screens the film at 8 p.m. on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.
2. A thought-provoking discussion about food justice issues and how these relate to race, class and sustainability will fill King's Book's at 7 p.m. when the Food Justice Book Club picks apart the book, Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability by Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman.
3. Singer-songwriter Alyse Black brings her sultry voice and indie pop melodies to Metronome Coffee at 8 p.m.
4. Rick Gonzalez and Ike Sutton will perform an unplugged two hour show with guitar and percussion playing a bunch of classic rock from the late '50s through the '80s at The Spar in Old Town Tacoma.
5. Dannica Lowery is a soul-singing, songwriting, story-telling songbird from the South. Americana runs hot in her veins. Her father came from a long line of bluegrass musicians, and her mother was a poet, so the universe had already dealt her the singer/songwriter cards. Lowery joins locals Jeanlizabeth and Travis Barker for the 8 p.m. "Acoustic Sound Session Volume 1" show at Jazzbones. DJ Headline follows.
LINK: Wednesday, Aug. 28 arts and entertainment events in the greater Tacoma and Olympia area
