Under African Skies

I'm always thrilled with the cosmos when real life dovetails with what I'm reading.

For the past week or so, it's been Ralph Abernathy's autobiography, "And the Walls Came Tumbling Down," an absorbing memoir of the Civil Rights struggle told by one of the major players. Even his godliness (he was, after all, a man of the cloth), such a stark contrast to my raving heathenism, comes across as just part of who he had to be to accomplish what they did.

So imagine how thrilled I was when I saw that the Southern Film Festival's final offering of the weekend was the documentary, "We Shall Overcome" about the song that was the de facto anthem of the movement.

What I didn't know until I got to the Grace Street theater was that a Civil Rights activist would speak beforehand. Man, I get lucky sometimes.

Although I'd never heard of Joan Trumpauer Mullholland, I only had to hear that she'd been a frequent participant in sit-ins and a Freedom Rider to be completely intrigued by everything she had to say. In a testament to the time, because she had been white and southern, her sanity had been called into question for her activism.

Today she showed off her t-shirt commemorating the 50th anniversary of SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and spoke about her years working for the movement. Despite that I'd been reading about people just like her, I'd never expected to hear from one.

Narrated by Harry Belafonte, the 1989 documentary told the story of the iconic song and its place in the movement through interviews with everyone who mattered: Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary, to name a few, plus singer Guy Carawan, apparently a major figure whom I'd never even heard of.

While I'd known the song had originally been a black spiritual, I'd had no clue it had been adopted by the labor movement in the '40s, long before the Civil Rights movement picked it up and carried it forward. Since then, it's been used for movements all over the world, including the woman's movement, and in Ireland, Korea and South Africa. Desmond Tutu spoke in the film of its power in the anti-apartheid movement.

Someone said it was the glue that held movements together, a way for disparate groups to recognize their connectedness.

Best of all were the myriad versions we got to hear: Peter, Paul and Mary's, Pete Seeger's, the Freedom Singers performing it in the '80s, the finale of the 1963 Newport Folk Festival with an all-star cast, Taj Mahal, who said he'd learned the song from his mother as "I'll Be Alright Someday" and, as is only fitting, Joan Baez - the woman who'd sung it at the March on Washington.

Needless to say, this was all pretty wonderful and hugely compelling to me because of the book I'm reading. But, wait, it gets better.

After the film, we were treated to a performance by the VCU Black Awakening Choir, a group that probably numbered 60 or 70 black-clad college students plus a three-piece band.

They sang "O, Happy Day" and I'm not exaggerating to say that when they all lifted their voices to the rafters, I felt goosebumps. The sound produced by that many talented voices was soul-stirring even for a non-believer.

I don't think the Southern Film Festival could have ended on a higher note.

So where do I go from there? Straight to Hardywood, of course, for the sixth installment of the Cover to Cover series. In what I choose to see as yet another tenuously connected thread, they were covering Paul Simon's "Graceland," the album that exposed American pop culture to African music.

Such an ambitious album had not only been the original inspiration for the C2C series but necessarily required a bigger band than usual. Tonight's group of musicians included horns, accordion and an extra guitar player. They even had a gospel choir, albeit of 7 rather than the 70 I'd just heard.

"Who's a Paul Simon fan?" organizer and lead singer Matt asked the beer-drinking crowd and a roar went up in affirmation. "We are, too. Wish us luck!" Then they were off, and by they, I mean that crack band and choir with Matt and Maggie on vocals.

"These are the days..." Matt began singing and the room exploded with the energy of "The Boy in the Bubble." Around me, people sang along and those who didn't were dancing.

"Graceland" got the choir onstage for the first time, causing Matt to note, "The stage just got a lot more good-looking." They left when Maggie got singing (rapping?) rights for "Gumboots," saying afterwards, "I love Paul Simon. He just had to tell that story."

Behind the music, Cover to Cover version.

The choir was back for "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" and Maggie used the opportunity to sit down in front of the choir and give her soles a rest while they belted it out.

Directly in front of me, a girl sang every word, usually directly in her boyfriend's face and danced non-stop. During a pause between songs, she looked at him and sighed, "I'm gonna cry! This is so great!"

Cover to Cover tends to inspire fanaticism, I'm telling you.

During "You Can Call Me Al," I saw lots of people singing the familiar chorus to each other but everyone was amazed when choir member Anthony Smith pulled out a penny whistle for the distinctive solo. The audience went nuts for it; ditto the brief but muscular bass solo.

When the song finished, Matt gave three big snaps up and down. "Y'all weren't expecting a whistle were you? You thought, there won't be a whistle, but there was!"

He was right, it was pretty spectacular.

They pulled out the tambourine and accordion for, as Matt put it, a trip to New Orleans and "That Was Your Mother," taking me back to the Big Easy of this morning's "King Creole," except not in black and white.

By then, it was so hot in the brewery that if your arm or leg touched someone else's while dancing, you were likely to stick together. Matt and Maggie looked just this side of soaked in sweat by the time they finished the album.

After a ten-minute break, the band returned for some Paul Simon favorites such as "Cecelia" and "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard," with Matt noting, "I'm really more of a Garfunckle based on my look," no doubt referring to the blond curly locks falling in his eyes as he danced and sang all night.

Saying they were going to slow things down and do Matt's favorite Paul Simon song, we got "The Only Living Boy in New York," which was enough to get the millennials motivated to pull out their cell phones in place of Bic lighters to hold up and sway. So post-modern.

Then because it's become an unwritten rule that they always repeat one song from the evening's album during the encore, we heard "You Can Call Me Al" again and the night was complete. And completely wonderful.

"For those of you who've never been to a Cover to Cover before, that's what it is," Matt said to close out the night. Say goodnight, Maggie.

I've been to all six and they continue to be as fabulously impressive as (geek alert) having the pages of the book you're reading cross over to real life. Oh, happy day...and night.

We Shall Overcome

I went to see history reenacted and instead became a participant in something greater and all on the steps of Richmond's City Hall.

Arriving about 12:20, there were barely thirty people gathered, but it quickly grew to many, many more to hear actor Tony Cosby do Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.

At the original March on Washington, Mahalia Jackson had sung "How I Got Over" and today local singer Roz Christian did the honors. She started to sing and the mic immediately went out, which didn't matter given the strength and beauty of her voice.It wasn't long before people were clapping and testifying as she sang.

Then Cosby as MLK was introduced and he, too, discovered the lack of amplification. Shrugging it off, he launched into what is considered one of the top speeches of the 20th century.

It was mesmerizing to be standing in front of City Hall in the cold hearing such powerful words first delivered on a hot August day. If I'd had my camera with me, it would have been the faces of the children, black and white, staring enraptured at Cosby as he spoke, that I would have documented.

The crowd was respectfully silent (and 10th Street closed off to help the sound carry) except when urged by Cosby to clap, as in after the line, "America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds'."

Being one of the few white people in the audience, I appreciated MLK's line, "The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny..."

Most satisfyingly, this got a lot of applause and smiles in our direction. "We cannot walk alone," MLK said.

I was also struck by the line, "We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways or the hotels of the cities," not remembering how late such segregation was still the norm.

At the end of the speech, Cosby instructed the crowd to join him in singing "We Shall Overcome" as we walked away from the steps. All around me, I heard beautiful voices soaring in unison singing that gospel-based classic.

Feeling very caught up in the moment as I walked up 10th Street, an older black man fell into step with me. I smiled and commented about how emotional the whole experience had made me because I'd never heard the speech performed live before.

"I was at the March on Washington," he said simply. "I was eleven years old and I'll never forget a minute of it."

I felt like I was in the presence of greatness walking the streets of Richmond with this witness to history. We talked about the changes in race relations the two of us have seen in our lifetime.

I mentioned how I'd been struck by as basic a change since the 1963 speech as the hotel/motel restrictions. "So at least we've made some progress," I said.

"It's progress," he acknowledged. "But it's slow progress."

"We're a slow-moving people in some respects," I said.

"Not all of you," he said, about to cross the street. "It was my pleasure talking to you."

No, sir. It was my distinct honor to have spoken with you. It gave an even deeper meaning to what had already been a moving experience in the bitter cold on the steps of Richmond City Hall.

Overcoming, one small step at a time.