(ASBURY PARK, NJ) -- In honor of Black History Month, The Stephen Crane House will present a free screening of The Butler on Saturday, February 8 along with a special gathering of The Diversity Dialogue Group. The film features a star-studded cast including Forrest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, Robin Williams, Liev Schreiber, John Cusack, Alan Rickman, Jane Fonda, and more. Doors open at 2:30pm. Admission is free and complimentary light refreshments will be available.

Established nearly a decade ago by a group of city residents that included former zoning board member Pam Lamberton and veteran civil rights activist Rev. Gil Caldwell, the floating community forum known as The Diversity Dialogue Group has conducted its informal and all-welcome monthly meetings at locations all around town. These days, the multi-generational circle of neighbors meets at the Crane House on the first Tuesday evening of each month, to discuss the issues that affect all of us on the local, national, and global level — a set of seriously civilized sessions that occur refreshingly "off-line," in face-to-face real time.

Here in this presidential election year of 2020, The Dialogue Group will forego its usual Tuesday meeting, in order to host a special Saturday matinee event in the house's Lecture Room theatre — a free screening of a recent film that examines long-standing social divisions through the prism of the familiar building known as The People's House. Written and directed by Lee Daniels (Precious), the 2013 drama The Butler stars NAACP Image Award winner Forrest Whitaker as a plantation-born Southerner whose journey takes him to a position as a domestic servant at the White House — a situation that spans seven presidential administrations, and some of the most transformative and tumultuous eras in the history of our nation.

Oprah Winfrey co-stars, in a fascinating cast that also features performers ranging from Robin Williams (Dwight Eisenhower), Liev Schreiber (LBJ), John Cusack (Richard Nixon), Alan Rickman (Ronald Reagan) and Jane Fonda (Nancy Reagan), to Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr., and pop stars Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz. Members of The Dialogue Group will introduce the 132 minute feature in the event that begins at 3:00 pm, in a presentation that will explain the organization's goals and accomplishments, as well as invite all interested members of the public to become new participants. Attendees will also be invited to make a free-will donation to the Women's Hospitality Network (WHN), a non-denominational alliance of local houses of worship and individuals (coordinated by parishioners of Trinity Episcopal Church) that offers shelter and support services to homeless women in the city. The conversation continues at the next scheduled Dialogue Group meeting on Tuesday, March 3.  

The Stephen Crane House is located at 508 Fourth Avenue in Asbury Park, New Jersey.