Earlene McMichael

A new exhibit at the Grand Rapids Public Museum allows visitors to revisit two major freedom movements in U.S. history. It's called "Changing America: The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863, and the March on Washington, 1963," and will be on view through Oct. 13. 

Two major people's movements in American history, with 100 years between them, are examined in a new exhibit at the Grand Rapids Public Museum. The "Changing America: The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863, and the March on Washington, 1963" traveling Smithsonian exhibition touches on such topics as slavery and the civil rights movement. It'll be on display until Oct. 13.

"Up with hope, down with dope! Hugs, not drugs!'"

These chants will echo down a few Kalamazoo streets on July 27. It's part of the Walk for Recovery that Mothers of Hope is trying in its fight to help people with drug addiction as the grassroots nonprofit marks its 20th anniversary, says Co-Founder Gwen Lanier. She hopes like-minded allies will come out.

Long before opoid abuse rose to national attention, Gwen Lanier of Kalamazoo had been helping people get clean through her Mothers of Hope, a grassroots nonprofit that this year turns 20 years old. Now, her group is taking its fight against drugs to the streets with its first Walk for Recovery on July 27th and invites all allies to attend. "We're going to do chants like, 'Up with hope, down with dope! Hugs, not drugs!'" she says.

Today, the Ladies' Library Association building, a two-story, red brickfaced structure, seems a natural part of the landscape at 333 S. Park St., at the corner of Park and Lovell streets, behind the Kalamazoo Civic Theatre and near Bronson Park in downtown Kalamazoo. But, it took an act of legislation from the Michigan State Legislature in order for the group to construct it. Why? Women didn't have the rights they have now when it was built in the late 1870s.