Scenic Roots

Rosario Moore - on “Raise Your Hand: World of Wholks.” (WTCI PBS) If you - and kids around you - watch the program “Raise Your Hand” from our public media partner WTCI PBS, a new series of episodes on language learning enters the “World of Wholks.” The host is Rosario Moore - an educator, an author and illustrator of bilingual children’s books, and a family podcast host. In her lessons on “World o...

A close-up of a map of Chattanooga, including the Bushtown-Glenwood area. (USGS) A few miles east of downtown Chattanooga, residents are giving their time as part of a citywide effort to catalyze change where they live. They are members of the Bushtown-Glenwood Community Advisory Committee, serving a historically Black area of Chattanooga - and one of ten committees for communities across the city...

Eyes and ears for community change in Chattanooga. “Raise Your Hand” - and learn from “World of Wholks.” These voices - and more - on this edition of “Scenic Roots.”

(Creative Arts Guild) For six decades, Creative Arts Guild has opened its doors as a community hub for the arts in Dalton and Northwest Georgia. Celebration will be in the air at the Guild for this year’s Festival of Fine Arts and Crafts - from Friday, September 15th through Sunday, September 17th. Amanda Brown is the Guild’s executive director. David George is Festival and Gallery director at the...

Sgt. Leroy Petry - receiving the Medal of Honor in 2011. He's the keynote speaker for this year's Celebration of Valor in Chattanooga. (U.S. Senate Photographic Studio) The Medal of Honor is the highest and most prestigious award for service members in the United States Armed Forces, recognizing their acts of valor. Chattanooga is the medal’s birthplace - and home of the Charles H. Coolidge Nation...

From “The Weight of My Faith.” (Benford Stellmacher, Jr) Benford Stellmacher, Jr. is an artist who views his canvas as a pulpit. He’s a graduate of Hampton University in Virginia, home to the oldest museum of the African diaspora in this country - and today, he is based nearby in Newport News. Stellmacher’s upcoming exhibition here in Chattanooga - “The Weight of My Faith” - features abstract pain...

Artist Benford Stellmacher, Jr. on “The Weight of My Faith.” This year’s Celebration of Valor in downtown Chattanooga. Festival for a diamond milestone at Dalton’s Creative Arts Guild. These voices - and more - on this edition of “Scenic Roots.”

(River City Company) NoonTunes is on the move - in more ways than one - in downtown Chattanooga. This year, the weekly concert series will be held at Noon on Fridays - starting Friday, September 8th through Friday, October 27th - in a new location: Broad Street in the Riverfront District, with a new mini-street festival for each concert. And if you’re wondering about those downtown banners - or ne...

Aerial view of Point Park, in foreground - Moccasin Bend and the City of Chattanooga. (National Park Partners) Point Park commemorates the soldiers who fought in the Civil War battles for Chattanooga in the fall of 1863. It overlooks the Lookout Mountain Battlefield and the City of Chattanooga, as part of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. On Thursday, September 7th, the nonprofit...

This year’s Party at Point Park and Moccasin Bend Lecture Series. NoonTunes with a street festival flair on Chattanooga’s Broad St. These voices - and more - on this edition of “Scenic Roots.”

A Shades of Poetry Showcase. (Chattanooga Festival of Black Arts and Ideas) This week, we’ve been looking ahead to the James Baldwin Festival of Words here in Chattanooga. The festival - which celebrates the African-American author and activist - begins Friday and ends Sunday, produced by the Chattanooga Festival of Black Arts and Ideas - with Marsha Mills of Rhyme N’ Chatt Interactive Poetry Orga...

James Baldwin - in London, 1971. (Mark Gerson / National Portrait Gallery - London) James Baldwin would have turned one hundred years old in August of next year. The African-American author and activist - who died in 1987 - stirred public consciousness through his words, written and spoken, across the latter half of the last century. If he were today, what would he say? Search for his words online...

(Rhyme N’ Chatt) When James Baldwin wrote his first novels in the 1950’s and 1960’s, if you wanted to hear him read his words at any time in those days before digital audiobooks, you found him on vinyl. "People can’t - unhappily - invent their mooring post, their lovers or their friend - anymore than they can invent their parents," read Baldwin on one record. "Life gives these - and also takes the...

Chatt Town Cool Down will include a foam slide beside the fountains in Coolidge Park. (Outdoor Chattanooga) The river is calling, the river is calling, the river is calling. This Friday and Saturday, Outdoor Chattanooga - with Chattanooga Parks & Outdoors - hosts Chatt Town Cool Down along the Tennessee River. The end-of-summer celebration, free and family friendly, showcases outdoor adventure...

(James Baldwin Festival of Words) If words paint pictures, listen to the landscapes that James Baldwin could paint with only a few brushstrokes of his words: “It seems to me that the artist’s struggle for his integrity must be considered as a kind of metaphor for the struggle, which is universal and daily, of all human beings on the face of this globe to get to become human beings.” Those words ar...

“Sip Paint & Spit” at the James Baldwin Festival of Words. Chatt Town Cool Down for the home stretch of summer. These voices - and more - on this edition of “Scenic Roots.”

Inside the Tomorrow Building at Somer Station. (Jaims Smialek / Our Ampersand Photo) A few months ago, the Tomorrow Building at Somer Station opened in Chattanooga’s North Shore neighborhood - on Somerville Avenue off Cherokee Boulevard, in the former Chattanooga Printing and Engraving Building. The co-working and co-living space - flexible and open - is for high-tech startups, entrepreneurs and s...

(ArtsBuild) ArtsBuild is the nonprofit hub that supports local artists here in Chattanooga and Hamilton County. As we approach the home stretch for this summer, there’s a lot going on - including a new round of grants for artists. James McKissic is president of ArtsBuild - and Melissa Astin is its manager of grants and community engagement. (ArtsBuild)

Wayne White, with the puppethead he sculpted of Chattanooga broadcaster Luther Masingill - outside Winder Binder in North Chattanooga in 2016. A few years ago, artist Wayne White created his own indoor funhouse history of his native Chattanooga, filled with puppets and sculptures. Known as Wayne-o-Rama, the art installation was displayed in 2016 and 2017. At the time, visitors were told, quote: “I...

(Tony Hall / Creative Commons) If you gathered a dozen elders here in Chattanooga from a variety of backgrounds and experiences, what stories might they tell? That is the premise of “Unmasking: Chattanooga Elders Speak,” a play of dramatic monologues based on oral history interviews of twelve people in this city - developed by Peggy Douglas, who wrote the play, and David Cook. “Unmasking” comes to...

Hear stories of Chattanooga elders in the play “Unmasking.” Slices of Wayne White’s funhouse of Chattanooga history. New opportunities and honors for artists from ArtsBuild. These voices - and more - on this edition of “Scenic Roots.”

(Barking Legs Theater) TEDxChattanooga is known for its annual series of talks by community speakers, independently organized under the TED program’s global initiative of “ideas worth spreading.” At the end of this month, TEDxChattanooga will present its first-ever “Sessions,” a showcase of local musicians and their ideas worth sharing. “Sessions” will be held on Thursday, August 31st - starting a...

(United Way of Greater Chattanooga) Here in the Chattanooga area, there are households where people are employed and working hard - but they still can’t afford food or pay an electric bill, and they have no safety net to weather a crisis. These households are known as Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained and Employed - or ALICE. The United Way of Greater Chattanooga is sharing the latest ALICE data o...

Hannah Lancaster of United Way of Greater Chattanooga. “Sessions” - music and storytelling from TEDxChattanooga. These voices - and more - on this edition of “Scenic Roots.”

(SoundCorps) Each month, SoundCorps - the music nonprofit here in Chattanooga - showcases five locally-produced songs in “SoundBites,” which supports our own musicians. Stratton Tingle - executive director of SoundCorps - shares the latest SoundBites with us.