The Role of the Spiritual in the Civil Rights Movement

Friday, February 27; 4:15 PM
Burling Library IIF Computer Lab

During the height of the American Civil Rights Movement, leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., recognized the need for a means to unify the diverse communities who were participating in the protests. They turned to the Negro spirituals that had helped their ancestors survive the lash and the deprivation of slavery now to help supporters withstand the attacks and jailings as they marched for equal rights.

Researcher and soprano Randye Jones will discuss and demonstrate how this American folk music was used to bring together Northerner and Southerner, rich and poor, black and white, together in a common cause.

The program is free and open to the public. Guests are invited to bring their singing voices to lift up in song. Light refreshments will be served.

Jones, who serves on the Burling Library staff, regularly lectures and performs works discovered in her research of the spiritual. Most recently, she launched an Internet radio station, Afrocentric Voices in Classical Music, that focuses on recordings by African American singers and composers of classical vocal music.

For more information, call 3365 or email Randye Jones at jonesran@grinnell.edu.