This week, we invite friend and filmmaker Terry Strauss to share her personal connection to the documentary …As If They Were Angels; we revisit historic Detroit neighborhoods with a review of Alice Randall’s Black Bottom Saints: A Novel; and we consider the growing chorus of calls for “civility” in American public life.

This week, hear the melodic sounds from a concert pianist who has been playing the piano to rescue elephants in Thailand since 2011; former First Lady Michelle Obama and poet Amanda Gorman discuss the black experience, art, and societal expectations in a recent TIME magazine interview; and a 2019 CNN report analyzes the successful way Finland has combated disinformation in the media.

Photo: Thomas Hatzenbuhler, Architect of the Capitol.

This week, we share the incredible work of 38 artists featured in Grosse Pointe Artists Association’s latest exhibition, The Challenge; hear from head cartoon editor Bob Mankoff in a TED Talk on the anatomy of a New Yorker cartoon; and a recent editorial in The Washington Post endorses the work of the National Task Force on Election Crises.

February has arrived! In this month’s first edition, we celebrate the incredible work being done by the City of Detroit’s Office of Arts, Culture, and Entrepreneurship; we share our favorite online tools for tapping into your creative genius; and we revisit our riveting conversation with Dr. Otis Brawley of John Hopkins University.

In this week’s edition of Inspired Thoughts, we spark some serious joy with a musical extravaganza featuring best-loved songs from Disney’s highly lauded Broadway productions. We also hear from Utah’s Senator Orrin G. Hatch, who makes a case for returning civics education to school curriculums.

In honor of his life and legacy, the fourteenth edition of Inspired Thoughts is dedicated to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Welcome to 2021! Celebrate the diversity, spirit, and energy of Detroit artists through Pepsi’s new campaign, Full of Detroit Soul; share your favorite memory of The War Memorial’s longest-running program, the Ski Hi Club; and Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters From An American” are discussed in a recent New York Times article.

As we approach the holiday season, enjoy our exclusive virtual performance with good friend Dave Bennett; celebrate the musical talent of many of our healthcare heroes with a special performance from Live with Carnegie Hall; and hear from the Senate floor an important conversation regarding the 2020 election.

In celebration of Hanukkah, we hear Leonard Bernstein’s thrilling Chichester Psalms, sung in Hebrew; our exclusive virtual engagement with One for the Foxes continues; and we explore what a rewrite of The Constitution might look like, if viewed through the lens of 2020 culture.

This week, experience the magic of Irish-American folk music with an exclusive and free virtual concert from One for The Foxes; pause to remember and honor the lives lost during the attacks on Pearl Harbor seventy-nine years ago; celebrate War Memorial partner organizations on both the local and national stage.

Settle into winter with a deep dive into American architecture through the lenses of a local landmark; unleash your inner film buff with a new podcast focused on movies and the people who make them; and we kick off the second installment of Our American Values, sharing some of the greatest Farewell and Inaugural addresses from US presidents in the past years.

George Winston evokes a holiday spirit through solo piano music; prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday by practicing gratitude and finding happiness in your everyday life, and as our democracy moves forward, recall the legacy left behind by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Travel the globe through song with a full performance of the multi-cultural Calling All Dawns; enjoy The War Memorial’s new short film honoring veterans; and explore the history of concession speeches.

As we approach Veterans Day 2020, we celebrate our nation’s heroes with Portraits of Courage; Revisionist History invites us to examine the overlooked and misunderstood, and we analyze the political strife from the Election of 1800.

With the 2020 election upon us, we find musical solace from the Grammy®-winning Conspirare; the Walt Disney Family Museum invites us to envision the World of Tomorrow; and we learn exactly when absentee ballots will be counted.

This week, we celebrate Halloween through art song repertoire; we learn about a new Detroit-based initiative, theR.A.C.E.: Reestablishing Art as Civic Experience; and the Gettysburg Address inspires Our American Values.

In our latest edition of Inspired Thoughts, we highlight our dear friends from Grosse Pointe Artists Association; share a stirring article from The Atlantic; and a riveting conversation from Columbia University‘s Eric Foner.

In the inaugural edition of Inspired Thoughts, we feature Irish-American folk music from One for the Foxes; a stirring performance from our community partner, Michigan Opera Theatre; and a reading of the Declaration of Independence from Yale University’s Joanne Freeman.

Welcome to Inspired Thoughts — a new and exciting programming initiative of The War Memorial. Hear from the institution’s president and CEO, Charles Burke, as he introduces the project — “a community-wide experiment” — and invites you to become involved.