A fascinating virtual program in the Bettendorf Public Library's popular “Community Connections” series, Endless Possibilities: Iowa's African American History will boast a presentation by members of Cedar Rapids' African American Museum of Iowa, the April 8 event continuing the venue's stated mission “to preserve, publicize, and educate the public on the African American heritage and culture of Iowa.”

Presented on April 1 in conjunction with the Figge Art Museum's current exhibition For America: 200 Years of Painting from the National Academy of Design, the virtual Scholar Talk with Margie Cain finds the co-director of Rock Island's Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum sharing information on the venue, its collections, and its exhibits in connection with artist and inventor Samuel F.B. Morse, whose painting Self-Portrait is showcased in the popular Figge attraction.

On March 26, Figge Art Museum members are invited to hop on a computer and travel to Washington D.C. in the virtual tour Across America: The Smithsonian – an online visit to the Experience America exhibition focusing on artists in the 1930s and the exciting opportunities available to them during that period.

Described by The New Yorker as “legendary,” and hailed as “gospel titans” by Rolling Stone, the internationally touring musicians known as The Blind Boys of Alabama will deliver a special, virtual Easter-weekend concert on April 2, the Englert Theatre presentation giving viewers an at-home audience with a group that, according to the New York Times, performs “a livelier breed of gospel music” they made “zestier still by adding jazz and blues idioms and turning up the volume, creating a sound like the rock 'n' roll that grew out of it.”