FASCINATIN’ RHYTHM’ GOES SILENT

ARTS FASCINATIN’ RHYTHM

Michael Lasser, the longtime host of the nationally-syndicated radio program “Fascinatin’ Rhythm,” will end the show on June 26.

PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

WHO COULD ASK FOR ANYTHING MORE?

Signing off, Michael Lasser still hears that “Fascinatin’ Rhythm”

BY JEFF SPEVAK @JEFFSPEVAK1 JSPEVAK@WXXI.ORG

Summing up 85 years of a man’s life — especially if he’s a bit of a Renaissance man — into a pithy phrase to be printed on the front of a T-shirt isn’t easy.

But the one on the shirt Michael Lasser got from Ruth Phinney, his co-worker at Rochester’s WXXI classical radio station, nicely hits on a career milestone: “Ask me about my Peabody.”

“What I’ve always loved about it,” Lasser says, “is it sounds vaguely dirty.”

Read into it what you want. Just as you may read what you want into so much of the music of the Great American Songbook, celebrated by Lasser for four decades on his nationally-syndicated weekly radio show, “Fascinatin’ Rhythm,” for which he won a coveted George Foster Peabody Award in 1994 and which he’s bringing to an end with a final broadcast on June 26.

The award, which honors storytelling in broadcasting that reflects the social issues and emerging voices of our times, was a nod to something much deeper than the bouncy melody of “Surrey With the Fringe on Top.” In presenting Lasser with the recognition, jurors said his program was a vivid example of what a listener described as “radio essays with songs used as illustrations.”

“That’s how I’ve always thought of it,” Lasser says of that description of his show. The award “was about the way in which the commentary brought the songs alive. There’s an element of social history in those programs.”

Broadcaster, teacher, theater critic, lecturer. Lasser is a writer as well. He has freelanced for CITY, written three books, has a fourth at the publisher, and is working on the fifth, “Lovely Day Tomorrow: The Lasting Appeal of the Great American Songbook.” All words about music that seems frozen in time.

Yet change is a constant. Grief is a part of it. Lasser lost his wife, Elaine, 21 months ago. There is a sense of urgency now. Time must be used wisely.

“One of the reasons I stopped doing the show was I didn’t want to work with a deadline anymore,” he says. “At 85, I think I’m entitled. But I also love these big projects, a book. I just have to learn to write faster. At my age.”

The show — originally called “Anything Goes” — was first broadcast on WXXI in November 1980. At its peak, it was being carried by 35 to 40 stations nationwide.

“At first it was much more focused on the Broadway musical,” Lasser says. “But over time, I broadened it to include the full range of the Great American Songbook, meaning commercial mainstream popular music, 1920 to 1950. Between the wars, essentially. And then I cheat, I go back to the first years when ragtime and jazz and the blues were shaping the music, and after 1950, when someone like Stephen Sondheim, who is certainly part of the songbook, is still working.”

The songs are a soundtrack to the times.

“Not only in the feel of the song, but in the content of the song,” Lasser says. “I distrust parceling out understanding of history, decade by decade. But it works here. The ’20s was the party after the war that will end all wars, and the party was going to last forever.”

America partied on to “Ain’t She Sweet” and “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue.” But then came the ’30s, marked by the Great Depression and a march toward a second World War, and the songs got “smokier and darker,” Lasser says. By the ’40s, Lasser says, “the sense of loneliness and the longing in them is palpable.”

At the risk of sounding like an old man yelling at those kids to get off his lawn, they don’t write songs like they used to, Lasser says. He despairs over the lyric writing of today.

“I like The Beatles a lot, I think highly of them,” he says. “But I don’t own a record.”

Perhaps “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “A Hard Day’s Night” aren’t a part of the Great American Songbook because they were written by English songwriters. Lasser, though, says something was lost in the British Invasion and the music that followed.

“They don’t know how to rhyme,” he says. “They don’t know how to set words to melodies, syllables to notes. Springsteen is an icon, and deservedly so. But he doesn’t know how to make the words fit within the line. A lot of the time, there’s not the craft, and it’s that craft that creates the feeling, in the best songs, of inevitability. And I don’t find that very much.”

Lasser concedes that the songs of Sondheim and Irving Berlin are “obviously not the center of musical attention anymore.” But that does not mean they cease to exist.

“Take your grandkid, who is up on whatever is ‘in,’ knows hip-hop, knows whatever the rage is at the moment — and he should! It’s where his focus should be,” Lasser says. “Take him to a revival of a Broadway musical, take him to see ‘Annie Get Your Gun,’ take him to see ‘Cabaret’ or whatever it is. Doesn’t matter what it is, assuming it’s age appropriate, and watch the delight spread over the kid’s face.

“I understand when he and his friend go to a dance, they’re not going to listen to ‘Surrey With the Fringe on Top,’” he goes on. “But the pleasure is there, the richness of the music and the lyrics is such that, if you listen, how do you resist it?”

For the songwriters of today, Lasser says, “authenticity has defeated craft.” The lyrics, he says, must merge with the music to create that third entity: the song.

While popular music since the 1960s increasingly focused on social issues, the Great American Songbook has few entries such as Berlin’s “Supper Time,” a song about a lynching.

“That was not what they did,” Lasser says. “These songwriters were not only craftsmen, but businessmen. They formed their own publishing companies, because that’s where the money was. A lot of them were Jewish, they were immigrants, they were mostly the children of immigrants, they were connected to that world. But it’s rarely in their songs. Because they wanted to sell a recording to every American who had enough money in his pocket to buy a record.”

A major theme of their work became the universal language of love. “I think it’s the subject of every song and every short poem going back to Sappho,” Lasser says. “Love and sex and romance are things we’re interested in because… they’re interesting.”

Such songs are what he calls “a frozen moment — one-act plays or paintings” that had implied narratives and could be “gloriously inauthentic.”

Berlin and George Gershwin weren’t writing about themselves. Nor was Cole Porter, who was gay. Weaving his experience into his lyrics would be acceptable today, but not in his time.

“Simplicity is a virtue. Accessibility is a virtue,” Lasser says, speaking particularly of the work of Berlin. “It’s easy to write simply. It’s hard to write simply in a way that calls forth emotions, and he was the master of that.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 50

“It’s time,” Michael Lasser says of ending his show. “I’m content, in the best sense.”

PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

What Lasser brought to his show was, in some part, simplicity as a deception.

These days, though, with the pandemic loosening its grip on the nation, Lasser goes out to eat at restaurants with friends and even visits his daughter in Connecticut on occasion. When he can’t see her in person, he Zooms with her. He is a voracious reader, often reading in bed for two hours.

“There are days when I’m sad,” Lasser says. “Because I lost my wife 21 months ago. Plus COVID, there are days when I’m still very sad. I miss her. Sixty-two years. So that’s something I got right.”

He recalls someone who had been a widow for a long time offering him some advice shortly after his wife died that has stuck with him.

“You know how people say you’ll heal in time?” he recalls her saying. “She said, ‘They’re wrong. This is the one you don’t get over. But you learn to live with it.’”

Lasser has spent the better part of two years learning to live with it.

“I’m still learning,” he says. “I’ll go along two weeks and be fine, and then for 10 days I’m a wreck. It has a life of its own.”

Yet life offers Lasser no choice other than to move on with his own life, and set aside “Fascinatin’ Rhythm” — a show that sometimes suggested it’s easy to write simply, yet hard to write simply in a way that calls forth emotions.

Berlin mastered it. After 85 years, Lasser has lived it.

“It’s time,” Lasser says. “I’m content, in the best sense.”

MUSIC //

With evolving NYS guidelines for live music, events are highly subject to change or cancellation. It’s wise to check with individual venues to confirm performances and protocols.

ACOUSTIC/FOLK

Friday Acoustic Sessions. Iron Smoke Distillery, 111 Parce Ave Suite 5b. Fairport. 388-7584. Fri., June 4, 7:30 & 10:30 p.m. and Fri., June 11, 7:30 & 10:30 p.m. Jun 4: Mr. Mustard; Jun 11: Eric Carlin. Jackson Cavalier. Lovin’ Cup, 300 Park Point Dr. lovincup.com. Fri., June 18, 6 p.m. Music on the Porch: BCW Trio. Tennie Burton Museum, 1850 Rochester St. Lima. limahistorical.org. Sun., June 27, 2 p.m. Sally Louise. Livestream, online. bopshop.com. Thu., June 3, 8 p.m. Sam Nitsch. Lovin’ Cup, 300 Park Point Dr. lovincup.com. Fri., June 4, 6 p.m. Virtual Sing Around. Golden Link Folk Singing Society, online. goldenlink.org. Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m.

You’ve Got a Friend: The Music of

Carole King & James Taylor. JCC Canalside Stage, 1200 Edgewood Ave. jccrochester.org/canalside. Sat., June 5, 7 p.m. and Sun., June 6, 2 p.m. $20-$35.

AMERICANA

Dirty Blanket. Lincoln Hill Farms, 3792 Rte 247. Canandaigua. Fri., June 18, 6 p.m. Advance tickets required. $20.

RECORD STORE DAY

RSD 2021. Sat., June 12. Various, Rochester Hi Fi Lounge, House of Guitars, NeedleDrop, Record Archive recordstoreday.com.

BLUES

Carolyn Wonderland. Abilene, 153 Liberty Pole Way. 232-3230. Sun., June 27, 4 p.m. $40/$45. Johnny Nicholas Trio. Abilene, 153 Liberty Pole Way. 232-3230. Sat., June 26, 8 p.m. $25/$30. Miller & the Other Sinners. 75 Stutson, 75 Stutson St. 75stutsonstreet.com. Sat., June 12, 3 & 7:30 p.m. $20-$50. Rad. Lovin’ Cup, 300 Park Point Dr. lovincup.com. Sat., June 5, 6 p.m.

CLASSICAL

Beethoven 1. Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, online. rpo.org. Through July 16. $25. Eastman Opera: Mozart Mayhem. Eastman School of Music, esm.rochester. edu/live. Through June 28. ECMS Springfest 2021. Eastman School of Music, esm.rochester.edu/live. Through June 6. The Grand Finale. Smith Opera House, 82 Seneca St. Geneva. thesmith.org. Sat., June 12, 7:30 p.m. Geneva Music Festival. $25. Mahler 4. Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, online. rpo.org. Through June 20. $25. Poets, Peace & Power. Smith Opera House, 82 Seneca St. Geneva. thesmith. org. Fri., June 4, 7:30 p.m. Geneva Music Festival. Dashon Burton, baritone; Michelle Cann, piano. $25. RPO Outdoors. Perinton Center Stage Amphitheater, 1350 Turk Hill Rd. Perinton. rpo.org. Thursdays, Fridays, 7:30 p.m. Pods of 2 & 4: $48-$160. Jun 3, 4: Summer Serenade; Jun 10, 11: Summer Suites; Jun 17, 18: Celebración Sinfónica; Jun 24, 25: Cinematic Strings. Stravinsky, Janáček + Bruch. Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, online. rpo.org. Through July 11. $25.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL

fivebyfive: Composer Chats. Livestream, online. fivebyfivemusic.com. Sun., June 6, 1:30 p.m. Pauline Oliveros “Tuning Meditation.”

COUNTRY

Drive-In Live: Zac Brown Tribute Band. Roseland Waterpark, 250 Eastern Blvd. Canandaigua. rochesterevents.com. Fri., June 11, 7:30 p.m. $35 & up.

Jeff Riales & the Silvertone Express, Our

Own Worst Enemy. Photo City Music Hall, 543 Atlantic Ave. 451-0047. Fri., June 11, 8 p.m. $12.

DJ/ELECTRONIC

Jeanie. Photo City Music Hall, 543 Atlantic Ave. 451-0047. Fri., June 4, 8 p.m. $18.

JAZZ

Herb Smith & Freedom Trio. Abilene, 153 Liberty Pole Way. 232-3230. Sat., June 5, 7 p.m. $15/$20. Illegal Crowns. Livestream, online. bopshop.com. Thu., June 24, 8 p.m. La Voz de Tres. Smith Opera House, 82 Seneca St. Geneva. thesmith.org. Sun., June 6, 2 p.m. Geneva Music Festival. $25. Laura Dubin & Antonio Guerrero. Livestream, online. Ongoing, 8:30 p.m. Live on FB. Michael Sarian. Livestream, online. bopshop.com. Thu., June 17, 8 p.m.

Zach Brock & Bob Lanzetti (of Snarky

Puppy). Lovin’ Cup, 300 Park Point Dr. lovincup.com. Sun., June 13, 7 p.m.

JAM BAND

Delilah Jones. Photo City Music Hall, 543 Atlantic Ave. 451-0047. Fri., June 18, 8 p.m. $10. Midnight North. Lincoln Hill Farms, 3792 Rte 247. Canandaigua. Fri., June 11, 6 p.m. Advance tickets required. $25. Mud Creek, The Old Souls Band. Lincoln Hill Farms, 3792 Rte 247. Canandaigua. Fri., June 25, 6 p.m. Advance tickets required. $5/$15.

METAL

Anthropic, Waldhexen, Sulaco. Photo City Music Hall, 543 Atlantic Ave. 4510047. Sat., June 19, 7 p.m. $8.

POP/ROCK

1916, Rockhouse Riot. Photo City Music Hall, 543 Atlantic Ave. 451-0047. Sat., June 5, 7 p.m. $10. Amanda Ashley: Afternoon Cocktail. Livestream, online. Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, 1 p.m. Live on FB.

Amor Alive, Diluted, Early Retirement,

20 Something. Photo City Music Hall, 543 Atlantic Ave. 451-0047. Sat., June 12, 6 p.m. $8. Amy Montrois. Lovin’ Cup, 300 Park Point Dr. lovincup.com. Fri., June 11, 6 p.m. Cold Sweat. 75 Stutson, 75 Stutson St. 75stutsonstreet.com. Sat., June 19, 6:30 p.m. $20. Drive-In Live: Get the Led Out. Roseland Waterpark, 250 Eastern Blvd. Canandaigua. rochesterevents.com. June 25-26, 7:45 p.m. Maddy Walsh & The Blind Spots. Smith Opera House, 82 Seneca St. Geneva. thesmith.org. Sat., June 26, 8 p.m. Advanced tickets only. $20.

Noah Fense, Smigonaut, Negus IRap,

Mike Vadala, BooZ. Photo City Music Hall, 543 Atlantic Ave. 451-0047. Fri., June 25, 9 p.m. $18. Pete Griffith Group, Judah. Lincoln Hill Farms, 3792 Rte 247. Canandaigua. Sat., June 26, 6 p.m. Advance tickets required. $5/$15.

POPS/STANDARDS

Latin Heat. Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, online. rpo.org. Through June 13. $25.

VARIOUS

A Little Night Music. Wednesdays, Sundays, 6:30 p.m Little Theatre, 240 East Ave. The Jack Garner Theatre (Theater 5). Jun 2: Big Blue House; Jun 6: Classical Guitar Night; Jun 9: Kinloch Nelson; Jun 13: The Rita Collective; Jun 16: The Spring Chickens $5. thelittle.org/ music. Live Happy Hour. Wednesdays, 6 p.m Record Archive, 33 1/3 Rockwood St. Reservations required. Jun 2: Bradley Bros.; Jun 9: Chris Cady; Jun 16: Katy & Brian; Jun 23: Brian Ayers; Jun 30: The Misfit Toys 244-1210. Music To Your Ears. Thu., June 24, 7 p.m. Livestream, online. Benefits Rochester Hearing & Speech Center $10 & up. rhsc.org/music-to-your-ears.

VOCALS

Rochester Rhapsody Chorus. Temple Beth El, 139 S Winton Rd. 721-8369. Mon., June 14, 7 p.m.

WORLD

Barbara B Smith World Music Series. Eastman School of Music, esm. rochester.edu/live. Sun., June 27, 3 p.m. Mudavanhu Magaya, Mbira.

GET IN OUR CORNER

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ARTS HIDDEN FIGURES

Genesee Country Village & Museum is a “living museum” that depicts the lives of

western New York's early settlers. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

RECKONING WITH REPRESENTATION

Historical interpreters Noah and Naomi with Not Your Momma's History at GCV&M in 2019.

PHOTO BY JOANN LONG

Genesee Country Village & Museum’s inaugural commemoration of Juneteenth is part of its ongoing effort to more accurately portray the people of 19th-century New York.

BY REBECCA RAFFERTY @RSRAFFERTY BECCA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

It is a breezy, sunny spring day in the hamlet of Mumford on the western edge of Monroe County, and two women in well-worn dresses, dirty aprons, and white bonnets are at work in a farmhouse kitchen. An open door helps cool air circulate around a wood fire oven that’s belching heat into the tiny room. One woman periodically checks the temperature of a massive vat of milk that’s slowly heating, while the other looks on, learning the skill of making cheese.

Nearby, shelves hold older partial wheels of cheese, herb-infused vinegar, and various jars of fruit jams. Outside, seedlings have begun to sprout from the sun-warmed soil in the garden. Down the lane, a farming couple pick flowers on their way to tend to their cows and pigs. They pass a general store, a dressmaker’s shop, a brewery, churches, and a schoolhouse.

If their world sounds like something out of the past, that’s because it is. They’re in a recreation of an historic village at the Genesee Country Village & Museum, with its 68 authentic buildings on more than 600 acres of land, where visitors learn what everyday life was like for average people living in 19th-century rural New York.

What life was like for average white people, that is.

Black or Indigenous historic interpreters, as the denizens of this village are known, are scarce at the museum, which like many other institutions of its kind is grappling with how to better represent the experiences

David Shakes interprets many famous and lesser-known historical African-American figures. Here he portrays William Wells Brown, who was born into slavery and became a prolific writer.

PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

A replica printing of an Anti-Slavery Fair poster from 1849 from the town of Victor.

PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

of native peoples and people of color who once lived here.

After decades of limited representation of people of color, and amid a nationwide reckoning on racial injustice, the museum has been engaging in some institutional soulsearching. Change, its officials pledge, is in the works.

“We recognize as a museum, particularly one that’s focused on 19thcentury history, that it’s important for us to expand some of the stories that we’re telling,” Kara Calder, the senior director of programs at the museum, said.

To that end, the museum is staging its inaugural celebration of Juneteenth on June 19 with programming that focuses on what Calder described as “what the lives of Black individuals and families were like at that time,” with Black historic interpreters telling those stories.

Juneteenth marks the anniversary of the summer day in 1865 when federal troops enforced the emancipation of a quarter of a million enslaved people in Galveston, Texas — more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery. Word of emancipation hadn’t reached — or was ignored by — slaveholders in more geographically isolated areas of the country, until Union Major General Gordon Granger and his army stepped in.

Plans for a Juneteenth event at the museum were actually in motion for 2020, Calder said, but were placed on hold because of the pandemic.

The museum has tapped Black historic interpreters in the past as consultants and collaborators for specific projects. Some of the interpreters pose as prominent historical figures for special events.

Last year, for instance, the museum incorporated into its Yuletide Celebration event a scene about Watch Night, a late-night Christian service held on New Year’s Eve that commemorates when African Americans gathered in churches on New Year’s Eve in 1862, to await the hour when the Emancipation Proclamation would take effect on January 1, 1863.

But museum officials acknowledge that these instances aren’t consistent enough to accurately represent what life was like for average people of color in this region.

A ‘LIVING MUSEUM’

Since its founding in 1966, Genesee Country Village & Museum has functioned as a “living history” museum, dedicated to preserving tangible history through the buildings and artifacts transported to the grounds from all over western New York, and to showcasing what life was like through the work of historic interpreters who interact with the visiting public.

The site feels like an authentic village, and there are many bits of the collections that stand out. There is George Eastman’s childhood home, a stately little structure built in 1840 in the rural Oneida County village of Waterville. There are the wedding outfits of Frederick Douglass and his second wife, Helen Pitts, which are currently on display in the museum’s gallery with information on the variety of ways that enslaved and newly-free Black people’s marriages were or were not recognized.

“The most important thing I always tell people when I’m doing presentations is it’s the nameless and faceless that we have to pay homage to,” said David Shakes, the director of the Rochester theater troupe The North Star Players, who is one of a few Black historic interpreters who has a longstanding relationship with the museum.

He has consulted with regional and national historic organizations for decades, and portrayed Frederick Douglass and abolitionist and playwright William Wells Brown at Genesee Country Village many times over the years.

“We know Frederick Douglass, we know Harriet Tubman,” Shakes said. “We know some of the icons, but I like to take a moment to say, ‘Hey, there are people who did things to help other people and help causes that we will never know and we need to recognize and take a moment for that.’”

Representation of Black and Indigenous people isn’t a small issue at Genesee Country Village, particularly considering the breadth of the museum’s educational responsibilities. The museum annually hosts educational programs for between 18,000 and 20,000 schoolchildren; 4,000 to 5,000 of whom attend Rochester public schools, where 53 percent of students are Black and 33 percent are Hispanic.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 56

A historical interpreter works on a quilt. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

Becky Wehle is the CEO of the Genesee Country Village & Museum. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE Brian Nagel, the museum’s senior director of interpretation. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

“Certainly in our school programs we have diversity,” said the museum’s chief executive officer, Becky Wehle, who is the granddaughter of the village’s founder, John L. Wehle. “But then as we do better and engage more community partners, we will hopefully continue to attract a broader audience as well. ‘This was what western New York in the 19th-century was like, there were all different kinds of people here’ — our mission is to tell that story. And so that’s where this ties back to giving a fuller picture of what the community looked like and what the activities that were going on were.”

There are some obstacles to inclusion, however. Funding is one of them, Wehle explained. A lot of government grants don’t cover seasonal or part-time employees that make up most of the historic interpreter staff.

“Our interpretation staff, aside from a handful of supervisors, are not year round, because we’re only open full time from Mother’s Day until October,” she said. “So that that’s a big part of the challenge as well. We have been trying to identify some of these barriers, and figure out: is there a way we could create a position that is potentially funded from the outside, that would allow someone to work year- round?”

Another challenge is what the museum can afford to pay its interpreters. Senior Director of Interpretation Brian Nagel said it is tough to attract people to drive to the edge of the county line to do seasonal work for minimum wage.

“Before I arrived, the museum got an (Institute of Museum and Library Services) grant for doing an interpretive master plan,” said Nagel, who has been with the museum since 2005. “So we brought in experts from various areas to try to develop a plan for how we

wanted to move forward over time. And so we’ve been working at that a little bit. But certainly getting into a more diverse interpretation has been a challenge. Fighting for STEM, other kinds of activities, has been easier than trying to break that diversity barrier.”

A NOD TO REALITY

Genesee Country Village’s buildings and interpreters represent a wide period of time in western New York. The museum has one foot in the era when slavery was active in New York state, and the other in the time after 1827, when it was abolished.

On either side of that year, though, there were thousands of formerly enslaved fugitives living free-but-furtive in New York. Even after abolishment, slave catchers would descend on northern cities and villages in pursuit of fugitives, often in cahoots with police and judges.

Mention of this reality is vague at Genesee Country Village. A visitor might learn about the Underground Railroad, or hear mention of the Abolition movement and the support it had in area towns. But on a typical day visitors will find no substantial focus on Black people’s reality during these times.

The museum’s Juneteenth celebration is a nod to that reality.

Such commemorations have been gaining support locally and nationally the past few years. In 2020, Juneteenth became a state holiday in New York, New Jersey, and Virginia, and there’s an ongoing push for Congress to recognize it as a federal holiday.

The Juneteenth event will include storytelling, poetry, activities, and education — from the mouths of Black historic interpreters — about what life was like for Black people in western New York when emancipation was complete.

Visitors will hear stories of prominent African American figures, including Shakes’s portrayal of William Wells Brown, but also see representation of average Black people living in western New York during the time when news of emancipation went national.

“A number of former enslaved individuals seeking family members would have posted notices, either broadsides on boards or notices in papers,” Calder said, adding that this aspect will be represented both in printed broadsides posted at the museum’s print shop, and through live interpretation of families seeking newly freed family members.

That’s where Cheyney McKnight comes in.

McKnight is another historic interpreter tapped by Genesee Country Village to present at Juneteenth. She’ll work with a small group of other interpreters to tell a story of what it may have been like for a newly emancipated southern Black family to encounter a northern Black family, in a time period when folks were seeking sold-off family members long separated from them.

“We have a tendency to really focus on extraordinary circumstances,” McKnight said of the typical focus on famous historic African Americans.

“The reality of the 19th-century in America is that the average Black person was enslaved,” McKnight said. “But we have other realities. Upstate New York had Black people who were free since the American Revolution. And so I wonder, when those Black people met Black people who were running away to the north . . . what were those interactions like, what were the cultural differences they encountered?”

Based in New York City, McKnight is a living historian who operates under the company name Not Your Momma’s History, and, like Shakes, has been involved in historic interpretation for many institutions and groups both locally and on a national level.

In her travels and collaborations, McKnight says she’s taken note of some institutions that are doing inclusion and representation well.

“The Whitney Plantation in Louisiana is just doing it so well,” she said. “The way in which they approach interpreters who should be interpreting. I had never before been to a plantation where they were really straight-up. And I think it’s very important to have descendants of the enslaved community present in the conversation.”

Representation is important not only to paint a more complete portrait of life in 19th-century western New York, but also as an opportunity for discovery, Shakes said.

He said he’s witnessed audience members connect with material he presents on the Underground Railroad, sometimes sharing their small towns’ involvement in the clandestine network of safe houses and routes.

“We’re still learning things,” Shakes said.

ABOUT TOWN

Festivals

16th Annual Cherry Festival. June 2627, 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Varick Winery, 5102 State Rte 89, Romulus varickwinery.com. Celtic Faire. June 12-13, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Genesee Country Village & Museum, 1410 Flint Hill Rd Mumford $17-$23. gcv.org. Fairport Canal Days. June 5-6, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Village of Fairport, Main St Masks required fairportcanaldays.com.

Juneteenth

BLACK AF Juneteenth Liberation Rally. Sun., June 20, 4 p.m. School #9, 485 N Clinton Ave. Black-Owned Business Pop-Up. Sat., June 19, 2-4 p.m. Irondequoit Town Hall, 1280 Titus Ave Hosted by ERASE (Eliminating Racism & Seeking Equity) 509-7666. Honoring Juneteenth. Sat., June 19, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Genesee Country Village & Museum, 1410 Flint Hill Rd Mumford $17-$23. gcv.org. Juneteenth Celebration. Sat., June 19, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Strong National Museum of Play, 1 Manhattan Sq. (museumofplay. org) $18/$23.

Juneteenth Celebration & Teen Poetry

Slam. Sat., June 19, 6 p.m. Highland Bowl, 1137 South Ave. Contestant registration (ages 12-18) due Jun 16 667-0660. Juneteenth Celebration of Freedom. Sun., June 20, 4 p.m. Legacy Drama House, 112 Webster Ave 471-5335.

Strike for Freedom: Frederick Douglass

in Scotland (2019). Sat., June 19, 1 p.m. Virtual Central Library, online. Screening & discussion with director Parisa Urquhart 428-8370.

Lectures

16th Annual Virtual Reshaping

Rochester Lecture Series. Wed., June 23, noon. June Grant: Justice, Equality, & A New Community. cdcrochester.org.

Ghosts & Hauntings in Western NY: Accounts from 19th-Century

Newspapers. Mon., June 21, 6 p.m. Virtual Central Library, online. 428-8370. Home to the Prosperous & Penniless. Sat., June 19, 11 a.m. Mount Hope Cemetery, 1133 Mt Hope Ave. Advance tickets required $12. fomh.org.

In This Moment: Revolution Reckoning

Reparation. Thu., June 3, 7 p.m., Tue., June 15, 7 p.m. and Thu., June 24, 7:15 p.m. Livestream, online. Jun 3: Race & Placemaking in Rochester; Jun 15: Black Women’s Health; Jun 24: Born in Babylon calendar.libraryweb.org. Jewish Roots in Rochester. Sun., June 13, 11 a.m. Mount Hope Cemetery, 1133 Mt Hope Ave. Advance tickets required $12. fomh.org. Pop Up Historians. Sat., June 19, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Mount Hope Cemetery, 791 Mt Hope Ave. fomh.org. Sunday Tours. Sundays, 2 p.m Mount Hope Cemetery, 791 Mt Hope Ave. North Gatehouse $12/$15. fomh.org. Temples on the Lawn. Sat., June 5, 11 a.m. & 2 p.m. Mount Hope Cemetery, 1133 Mt Hope Ave. Advance tickets required $12. fomh.org. Twilight Tours. Thursdays, 7 p.m Mount Hope Cemetery, 791 Mt Hope Ave. North Gatehouse $12?$15. fomh.org. Underground Railroad Tracks. Sat., June 26, 11 a.m. Mount Hope Cemetery, 1133 Mt Hope Ave. Advance tickets required $12. fomh.org. Women First Tour. Sat., June 12, 11 a.m. Mount Hope Cemetery, 791 Mt Hope Ave. Advance tickets required $12. fomh.org.

Kids Events

David Kunz: Grandfather Stories. Sun., June 27, 2 p.m. Greece Historical Society & Museum, 595 Long Pond Rd. 2257221. Storybook Walk. Fri., June 18, 5:30 p.m. Helmer Nature Center, 154 Pinegrove Ave Kids grades K-2. Registration required $5. 336-3035. Wonderland Adventures. June 12-13, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Strong National Museum of Play, 1 Manhattan Sq. (museumofplay. org) $18/$23.

Recreation

Family Springtime Walk. Saturdays, 1 p.m. and Sat., June 19, 1 p.m Letchworth State Park, 1 Letchworth State Park . Castile Registration required 493-3682. Lunch in Old Growth Woods. Tue., June 8, 11 a.m., Thu., June 17, 11 a.m., Thu., June 24, 11 a.m. and Tue., June 29, 11 a.m. Letchworth State Park, 1 Letchworth State Park . Castile Registration required 493-3682. Spring Family Field Trip Days. Thursdays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m Genesee Country Village & Museum, 1410 Flint Hill Rd Mumford $7/$11. gcv.org. Yoga in the Pines. Sun., June 13, 3 p.m. Cumming Nature Center, 6472 Gulick Rd. $18. rmsc.org.

Special Events

Community Garage Sales. Sun., June 13, 7 a.m.-1 p.m., Sun., June 20, 7 a.m.-1 p.m. and Sun., June 27, 7 a.m.-1 p.m. Rochester Public Market, 280 N. Union St. 428-6907. Father’s Day. Sun., June 20, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Genesee Country Village & Museum, 1410 Flint Hill Rd Mumford Free admission for dads $12-$18. gcv.org. Flower City Days. Sun., June 6, 8 a.m.2 p.m Rochester Public Market, 280 N. Union St. 428-6907. The Lucky Flea Market. Sundays, 10 a.m.-3 p.m Good Luck, 50 Anderson Ave. theluckyflea.com. Peony & Rose Weekend. June 1213, 12-3 p.m. Ellwanger Garden, 625 Mt. Hope Ave. $5 suggested. landmarksociety.org. Sunrise Solar Eclipse. Thu., June 10, 5:15 a.m. Hamlin Beach State Park, 1 W Hamlin Beach Blvd. Viewing with RMSC staff, parking Area 4 friendsofhamlinbeach.org Thu., June 10, 5:15 a.m. Martin Road Park, 1344 Martin Rd West Henrietta Viewing with RMSC staff. Virtual House & Garden Tour. June 18-27. Livestream, online. Waterfront properties $20/$25. landmarksociety.org/ housetour.