"A Heritage District for Black History and More" Dan Clark's guest is Kent Sissel, restorer and resident of the 1878 Alexander G. Clark House. This week Muscatine City Council will consider Kent's proposal for naming a two-square-block area on both sides of West Third Street as the "Alexander Clark Heritage District." The center of the district would be the intersection of West Third and Chestnut which is the original site of Clark's house. They discuss the process the Historic Preservation Commission went through before recommending approval. Alexander G. Clark Week, Feb. 21-27, honors the legacy of Muscatine's equal-rights pioneer http://alexanderclark.org. Other recent conversations with Kent: "White Folks Talking Black History" (Feb. 3, 2009) http://muscatinetours.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=429539 and "More on Heritage Tourism and Black History" (Feb. 17, 2009) http://muscatinetours.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=434366.

"Muscatine's Black History" Did you know Muscatine was Iowa's center of African American life in the 1850s? Dan Clark says there's a lot happening in Muscatine during Black History Month, a time for us all to learn about race relations and equal rights. Then historian David Brodnax calls from Chicago and tells about Muscatine's black population before the Civil War and the far reaching influence of the local A.M.E. Church (African Methodist Episcopal) and members such as the first pastor who was later a congressman, Richard H. Cain, and equal-rights pioneer Alexander G. Clark. David wrote a not-yet-published dissertation, “'Breathing the Freedom's Air': The African American Struggle for Equal Citizenship in Iowa, 1830-1900." Learn more about Clark at http://alexanderclark.org/.