Fences programs focus on 
religious and racial diversity

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PRINCETON — Princeton Public Library announces the final events for the Between Fences exhibition, a cooperation between Princeton Public Library, the Smithsonian Institution and the Illinois Humanities Council. The exhibit is on display at Princeton Public Library through April 18.

At 7 p.m. Wednesday, professor Jason Beyer will lead an interfaith panel discussion titled “Beyond Borders: A Conversation About Religious Diversity.” Beyer, who teaches comparative religion at Illinois Valley Community College, will be joined by panelists Ali Imtairah, a practicing Muslim, native of Palestine and Tiskilwa businessman since 1982, and by the Rev. Jim Galbreath, who has been involved in Christian-Muslim dialogues in ministries in the Chicago area and has been the pastor of the First United Methodist Church
in Princeton since 1999.

At 7 p.m. Thursday, Rich Foss, CEO of Evergreen Leaders and pastoral elder of the Plow
Creek Fellowship, will lead a panel discussion titled, “Barriers and Byways: A Conversation About Racial Diversity.” The program will focus on the experience of being a racial minority in a white rural Midwestern culture. Panelists will be Roderick Kuykendall, district conservationist, USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service since 1997, an African-American and native of Arkansas who, with his wife Donna, is raising his family in Princeton; Danira Parra, of Spanish, Mexican, French and Native American descent, who has worked as an English-Spanish translator for the Bureau and LaSalle County court systems for 15 years and has been pastor of the United Methodist Church in Tonica since 2005; and Phyllis Singing Bird, of German and Native American descent, granddaughter of a Mohawk Medicine Teacher, certified lay speaker for the Native American Fellowship,
Day Spring United Methodist Church, Peoria, and a frequent speaker throughout Illinois on honoring racial diversity and different cultural traditions.

The Between Fences film series will present the documentary Paper-Clips at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Whitwell is a small, rural community in the mountains of Tennessee whose citizens are almost exclusively white and Christian. In 1998, the children of Whitwell Middle School took on a project launched out of their principal’s desire to help her students open their eyes to the diversity of the world beyond their insulated valley. The school is the setting for this documentary about an extraordinary experiment in Holocaust education that profoundly changed the students, their teachers, their families and the entire town.

The final film in the Between Fences film series will be The Truman Show at 7 p.m. April 21.
Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) is the star of The Truman Show, a 24-hour-a-day TV phenomenon that broadcasts every aspect of his life — live and in color — without his knowledge. When Truman discovers by happenstance that his life is a sham for public consumption, he makes a desperate escape bid.

Sponsors of Between Fences programs include the Bureau County Farm Bureau, Friends of the Princeton Public Library, Galena Trail Society, Gateway Services Inc., and the Owen Lovejoy Homestead.

Between Fences is part of Museum on Main Street, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), state humanities councils across the nation, and local host institutions. Financial support for local programs and publicity has been provided by Princeton Public Library, the Illinois Humanities Council and the Friends of the Princeton Public Library.

All of the films and programs are free and are open to the public. For more information, call the Princeton Public Library at (815) 875-1331 or visit the Between Fences dedicated Web site at www.princetonpl.org/fences2009/index.html.