Global Horizons: Music & Diplomacy

Ahead of International Jazz Day, get to know the UNESCO Creative Cities Network and KC's unique contributions. From Eleanor Roosevelt, our first speaker in January 1955, to Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, and Condoleezza Rice – from revered journalist Jim Lehrer to Peace Corps Director Carol Bellamy – hundreds of journalists, professors, diplomats, and other experts have joined us in Kansas City through the years to provide keen international insight, valuable analysis, and a range of perspectives to the IRC's diverse audience. Our robust global-affairs programming provides opportunities for IRC individual and organizational members and members of our community to dive in to international issues, engage experts, and understand more fully the connections between what's going on around the world and in our region. IRC lectures and panel discussions are often free or low-cost and occur throughout the year.


About the Speakers

Jacob A. Wagner has worked in Urban Planning and Design for the past 24 years in Oregon, New Orleans, Minnesota and the greater Kansas City area. His work has focused on the development of news ways to understand local history and heritage as a means to build more equitable and just communities. He is on the advisory board of the international Journal of Urban Design. His most recent publication appeared in December 2020 in the international Boletín de la Asociación de Geógrafos Españoles. Wagner is the faculty founder of the UMKC Center for Neighborhoods, a research and outreach unit in the Department of Architecture, Urban Planning and Design (A+UPD), which has worked with more than 200 neighborhood leaders in western Missouri.

Dr. Wagner began working with his students at UMKC on music heritage research in Kansas City as a strategy for neighborhood development in 2007. In 2016-17, he was honored to contribute to the development of the Kansas City MO application to UNESCO to become a member City of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN), led by Anita Dixon. With Ms. Dixon, he serves as the local focal point and coordinator for Kansas City as a member city of the UCCN Music Cities. He has represented the UCCN Creative City KC in Krakow, Poland, Mannheim and Hannover, Germany, Burgos, Spain and Frutillar, Chile. He looks forward to the day when Creative City KC can once again support our great Kansas City musicians to travel and share their music with the world.


Anita J. Dixon began her career in tourism in 1992 after starting Passage Unlimited, the Kansas City area's first full time Heritage Tour Company, servicing the African American's thirst for their history by providing tours for Black Family Reunions, meetings and conventions coming to Kansas City. She has consulted globally on culture, preservation and economic strategies for international urban/ethnic communities with an emphasis of music as an economic driver.

She authored the UNESCO (2017) designation making it the ONLY designated City of Music in the United States and just recently, (2018) completed the process of making musicians an apprentice program under the U.S. Department of Labor for the first time in American history and started the American Music Apprenticeship Program.

Implemented Midwest first multicultural conference on economic development for urban communities working with city and state agencies. Company was chosen by the National Park Service (Washington DC) to serve as lobbyist to pass House Bill HR 1635, The National Network to Freedom Act which preserves the sites of the Underground Railroad throughout Canada and the United States. Recorded in Senate and House of the United States in support of preservation of cultural sites to enhance economic development through cultural tourism.

Dixon is the recipient of many awards including Businesswoman of the Year, (Black Chamber of Commerce, KC 2005), The National Association of Black Journalists and The Apex Award from the Travel Professionals of Color (2012), Alumni Hall of Fame, Donnelly College- Kansas City, KS. (2014), Historic Kansas City Preservation Award (2018) and most recently, the recipient of the Public Service Award for a Leading Cities Professional by International organization, Music Cities Events (2020).