"Trolleys, Tales & Talk" Feb. 2, 2010

"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/.