Community Curator

Fourth Tuesday of Every Month | 6 p.m. | Free | Union Station

The Community Curator program of Kansas City Museum invites historians and history educators to share their perspectives on artifacts they choose from the Museum collection. This provides fresh insight about artifacts and collections of Kansas City Museum and Union Station, and welcomes diverse input from the Kansas City history community. Community Curator lectures are presented the fourth Tuesday of each month at Union Station Kansas City, allowing the actual artifact to be presented with the observations of our Community Curator. A reception will precede the lecture at 5:30 p.m.

See videos of past Community Curator lectures

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February 28: Doretha K. Williams, Executive Director Black Archives of Mid-America
Wheatley-Provident Hospital

The Wheatley-Provident Hospital, as it stands today, is the only remaining hospital building in Kansas City that was established and run by and for the African-American community from 1902-1972. Originally a Catholic school, the hospital, located at 1826 Forest Ave, was established by Dr. J. Edward Perry and was run as a hospital and training school for nurses until 1972. Learn about this iconic building, its founder Dr. Perry and the many people who worked and were treated here from Dr. Doretha K. Williams, the Executive Director of the Black Archives of Mid-America.

Information courtesy of the Missouri Alliance for Historic Preservation

About the presenter:

Dr. Doretha K. Williams received her doctorate in American Studies from the University of Kansas. Her dissertation, “Kansas Grows the Best Wheat and the Best Race Women: Black Women’s Club Movement in Kansas 1900-1930,” was funded in part by a Woodrow Wilson Dissertation grant, the Social Science Research Council fellowship and the Dean Rosen Dissertation Completion grant.

Williams most recently served as project manager for the Project on the History of Black Writing (HBW), where she coordinated federally funded grants, implemented public programs and organized HBW’s literary collections. As project manager, Williams coordinated the Langston Hughes National Poetry Project (LHNPP), an educational grant funded in part by National Endowment for the Humanities.

Williams also assisted in implementing other NEH-funded grants, including the “Making the Wright Connection: Reading Native Son, Black Boy and Uncle Tom’s Children,” and “Language Matters II: Reading Toni Morrison.” Both programs sought to educate high school teachers and college professors on how to present the works of Wright and Morrison to their students.

As a graduate student Williams taught courses in the Humanities and Western Civilization program the University of Kansas. In addition she served as a speaker’s bureau member for the Kansas Humanities Council and the State Library of Kansas Center for the Book program. Through a partnership between the Black Archives and the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Central Missouri, Williams will also serves as an adjunct instructor in Africana and Women’s Studies.

A native of Topeka, Williams is the daughter of Lee and Ozella Williams. Williams is a graduate of Fisk University and a member of the Kansas City, Kansas chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

Upcoming Curator Events:

Tuesday, March 27: Smithsonian Visiting Scholar Gregorio Luke: Frida Kahlo

Tuesday, April 24: The Pembroke Hill School students: Dorothy Levens Collection

Community Curator Program

Discover artifacts from the Kansas City Museum through our Community Curator Program. The Community Curator program of Kansas City Museum invites historians and history educators to share their perspectives on artifacts they choose from the Museum collection. This provides fresh insight about artifacts and collections of Kansas City Museum and Union Station, and welcomes diverse input from the Kansas City history community.