The Lawrence Kansas Monthly Blog

  Thanksgiving is just around the corner. And today on my blog, we're gonna discuss some future plans for Thanksgiving when I return. But first, I'm gonna talk about the brief history of this traditional holiday. Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday in the United States, and Thanksgiving 2023 occurs on Thursday, November 23. In 1621, the Plymouth colonists from England and the Native American Wampanoag people shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn’t until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November. But the holiday is not without controversy. Many Americans—including people of Native American ancestry—believe Thanksgiving celebrations mask the true history of oppression and bloodshed that underlies the relat

  Welcome back! As you may know or haven’t known just yet, I’ve been blogging and talking about the reasons I wanna move back to Lawrence Kansas. And I know some of you may know that it’s gonna happen eventually and it’ll take a while before my decision is made. So that’ll mean that I either can wait two or three years before I can move back there. My dad and I were talking about that ever since. We’ll discuss more of this later on. But right now, I wanna take the time to give you some more information on the next few years on my Lawrence life in the future. Here are a new things that you need to know, so listen carefully. 1. Family dinners Whenever I wanna visit my folks for a family dinner, I can call them and plan on them for a weekend. Ever since I’ve been living in Bluffton, I really love seeing my parents by riding my bike to their house for a family dinner any other weekend. In the future when I’m living in Lawrence again, my folks will move back to Kansas City and when things a

  Hello, welcome back to my blog. You've read my blog entry about my visit to Van Go for some new mural ideas including "Camelopard Joey Mania". So today we’re gonna talk about an artist who also lives in Lawrence Kansas, and is famous for his work in murals and public art. His name is Dave Loewenstein. And if you haven't heard of his art months ago, don't worry. I've put together a special blog entry about it so that I can finally get to know him. For those of you who didn't know just yet, Dave Loewenstein is a muralist, printmaker and community organizer based in Lawrence, Kansas. In addition to his more than twenty public works in Kansas, examples of his dynamic and richly colored community-based murals can be found across the United States, and in Northern Ireland, South Korea and Brazil. Loewenstein’s prints, which focus on social justice issues, are exhibited internationally and are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York

  Today I wanna take the time to celebrate the most important month in the history of Lawrence. Let’s start off the story with Native American Heritage month. On August 3rd, 1990, President George H. W. Bush  declared the month of November as  National American Indian Heritage Month , also referred to as  Native American Heritage Month . The bill read in part that "The President has authorized and requested to call upon Federal, State and local Governments, groups and organizations and the people of the United States to observe such month with appropriate programs, ceremonies and activities".  This landmark bill honoring America's tribal people represented a major step in the establishment of this celebration which began in 1976 when a Cherokee/Osage Indian named Jerry C. Elliott- High Eagle authored Native American Awareness Week legislation the first historical week of recognition in the nation for native peoples. This led to 1986 with then President Ronald Reagan  proc