Music of the Movement Press Release

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Lisa Keir
410-685-4183
lkeir@mdhc.org

Congressman John Lewis and Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon join scholars Dr. Portia Maultsby and Dr. Tricia Rose for Music of the Movement: A Sustaining Voice November 17, 2009 at Montgomery College.

The Maryland Humanities Council will present Music of the Movement: A Sustaining Voice, Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. at the new Performing Arts Center of the Takoma Park/Silver Spring Campus of Montgomery College, 7995 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20910. This free humanities program will feature legendary Civil Rights leader and Georgia Congressman John H. Lewis, renowned singer/composer and cultural historian Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, nationally-recognized ethnomusicologist Dr. Portia Maultsby, and Dr. Tricia Rose, author of the provocative book, The Hip Hop Wars in a roundtable discussion about the music of the Civil Rights Movement. The Bowie State University Gospel Choir will perform.

Music of the Movement: A Sustaining Voice is the culminating event of the Maryland Humanities Council's two-year special initiative, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Remembrance and Reconciliation. The special initiative used the 40th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination as an opportunity to examine his legacy and discuss "Where are we 40 years later?" as individuals, as communities, and as a nation on issues of race relations.

"The event will celebrate the success of the past two years of thoughtful discussion about race relations, guided by the perspective of the humanities. And what better way to celebrate than with music!" says Maryland Humanities Council Executive Director Phoebe Stein Davis.

Music of the Movement: A Sustaining Voice will provide an overview of the music of the Civil Rights era, examining the way field hollers and spirituals were transformed into protest songs and looking at how contemporary music continues to shape efforts for social justice. "The music of the Civil Rights Movement is inextricably linked with the movement itself, and, in turn, the movement shaped American music- folk, country, jazz, hip-hop, soul, the blues," explains Suzan Jenkins, CEO of the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, a partner organization for the event.

Congressman Lewis will speak about how music helped to sustain the resolve of his fellow activists during the Civil Rights Movement. "Music weaved our spirits together and gave us the courage to stay in the struggle until change did come," he recalls. "When we would sing, the message of the music lifted us and connected us to a higher call for justice that we believed we were responding to. The songs reminded us of that the power of love had the ability to overcome all inhumanity and indignity. Music was our inspiration, and it fed our spirits in the most difficult hours."

Dr. Reagon, a cultural scholar whose scholarship and teaching has focused on the music of the Movement and sacred African American music; a member of the SNCC Freedom Singers, and founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock, the famed female a cappella singing group, will discuss how the Black American traditional song repertoire formed the base of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. "From this storehouse, activist song-leaders made a new music for a changed time," she explains, adding, "Wherever and however they were sung, the songs of the Civil Rights Movement reflected their roots in Black American cultural traditions."

Dr. Maultsby, professor of Ethnomusicology in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology and director of the Archives of African American Music and Culture at Indiana University Bloomington, has studied the history of African American music and co-edited African American Music, published in 2006. "Black music historically has been a powerful tool in the struggle for racial equality and social change. In the 1960s and 1970s, soul singers and funk musicians joined forces with the Civil Rights movement in galvanizing African Americans into political and social action. Inspired by songs such as "Keep on Pushing," "This Is My Country, " "Give More Power to the People," "I Don't Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing (Open Up The Door I'll Get It Myself)," "Get Up, Get Into It And Get Involved," "Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud," and "Chocolate City" African Americans embraced the call for Black political and economic empowerment that emerged from the nationalist ideology of Black Power."

Dr. Rose, Brown University professor of Africana Studies, in 2008 authored The Hip Hop Wars, which considers the evolution of hip-hop since its beginnings in the 1970s to the present and the implications of that change. "It [hip-hop] was mostly for fun and for play...It had community origins...It also had a lot of political content. Yes, there was a lot of anger, but not by any means was it the dominant frame of the genre," she explains in a Time magazine interview. Talking about today's hip-hop music at the State of the Black Union 2009 she says, "Hip-hop becomes a product. It now begins to reflect the prime stereotypes about African American that were used to justify racial discrimination..."

The experience, scholarship, and ideas voiced by the participants will be embodied by the music of the Bowie State University Gospel Choir, led by Professor LaTonya Wrenn, an expert in classical piano performance and gospel music. The award-winning choir performs gospel music from traditional to contemporary idioms on campus and in the community.

Program moderator Maureen Bunyan, one of the nation's most respected and admired broadcast journalists, has spent over a quarter of a century as a news anchor, reporter, and public speaker. Currently the news anchor for WJLA-TV, she is the recipient of several Emmy Awards and has earned a reputation as an expert on news and journalism.

Music of the Movement: A Sustaining Voice will be presented free to the public, thanks to the generosity of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Maryland Historic Trust, The Montgomery College Arts Institute, The Paul Peck Humanities Institute at Montgomery College, and the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County, a local arts agency that helps fund cultural activities throughout the County.

Registration is required. Go to www.mdhc.org to register. Registration will open on October 15, 2009. Information about parking for the Performing Arts Center may be found at www.montgomerycollege.edu/maps/tpvic.html.

The Maryland Humanities Council is a statewide, educational, nonprofit organization that is affiliated with the National Endowment for the Humanities. The purpose of the Council is to stimulate and promote informed dialogue and civic engagement on issues critical to Marylanders.