Sweet Honey in the Rock offers civil-rights message

When I was a child my mother took me to the old Carolina Theater in downtown Durham. One of many childhood trips, this visit was unique because she took me up to the highest balcony, up the back steps. These back steps led down to a boarded up back entrance, and up to a drafty, steep balcony, where black people sat when they came to the theater from the 1920s to the 1960s.

Back in the '80s, a false ceiling greeted those who looked down from this cold balcony toward the stage, installed to hide the memory of segregation from moviegoers and save on heating costs. From the other side the ceiling was a stark reminder of the old order.

On Valentine's Day, 1995, I was once again in the Carolina Theater, listening to Sweet Honey in the Rock sing songs of love and freedom. The love songs were sublime, the spirituals moving, but the song that drew the most animation from the group was "Sojourner's Battle Hymn."

To the tune of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," the group sang the words of poet Sojourner Truth depicting the attitude of black soldiers describing their commitment to joining the Yankee cause during the civil war. The sextet of African-American women rose from their seats to sing of freedom, and as their impassioned voices rang through the auditorium I thought back to that cold, drafty day in my childhood and how far we have come.

Black faces filled the packed theater, primarily women, although listeners of all races and ages were present. Given the male bias of the publicized civil-rights movement, this expression of women's influence was equally moving. Malcolm X is a household name, Martin Luther King has a national holiday in his honor. But how many Americans know of Ella Baker, of Fannie Lou Hamer? They, too, formed the backbone of the civil-rights movement, yet their stories are far less prominent.

King and Malcolm X were very sexist men, for all the good they accomplished. It was an incredibly moving experience to see these too often silent supporters of a people that were too often silenced, singing their souls out to each other in celebration of the victories won and support for the battles still ongoing.

Each song was made more relevant by the long introductions provided by Bernice Johnson Reagon, curator of the Smithsonian Museum of History and a historian in her own right when not on tour with the group. Reagon has been the foremost pillar in Sweet Honey's 20-year existence, taking her experience with the Freedom Singers into the melange that would become Sweet Honey in the Rock. Before each song, she spoke of the civil-rights movement, of AIDS, parenting, domestic violence--moving narratives that brought home the different points of each of the songs.

After singing "Sojourner's Battle Hymn", Johnson asked if any in the audience were uncomfortable with a song so filled with references to violence and death. She said she was, but that it was important not to let that aversion to war overshadow the accomplishments of those who gave their lives for freedom. "Being uncomfortable with history and then avoiding it is a dangerous thing," she said.

Too true, Dr. Reagon. Sweet Honey's political rhetoric was special in that it was a positive recounting of the sacrifices made. Nowhere in the concert was their any criticism, any negative lashing out at those in the wrong. There were no remarks bashing men, no remarks aimed at whites or Jews or Uncle Toms. Instead there was an uplifting affirmation of unity and the importance of continuing to resist oppression of all kinds.

One of the great aspects of the African-American performance tradition is its interactive aspect. The audience is invited, and expected, to participate in the concert, whether by clapping, singing along or adding an encouraging "all right," or "go on." Even just tapping a foot or nodding helps transfer the performance from a presentation to a community experience that transcends barriers of race, age and economic status.

I was at the concert with two friends, one of whom is from the British Isles. I found myself wondering how he reacted to this side of America which is not publicized, not part of government nor shown on CNN. The concert was a direct confrontation, both with the messy reality of slavery and Jim Crow and the roll of the ages towards overcoming this past. How would a foreigner react, someone from a country so much more homogenous, without the institutionalized, government-sanctioned discrimination that continues to haunt this country in so many ways? After the concert, he was overwhelmed by the force of this culture and the power of the music.

Thank you to Sweet Honey in the Rock, whose music has comforted me on many a hopeless night, whose achievement and fortitude never cease to amaze me.

Rebecca Christie is a Trinity senior and Medical Center editor of The Chronicle.

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