Campus News

'Mahalia' Revived for MLK Day

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 10, 2012) — Lexington’s 40th observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day honors the past as well as the future. On Jan. 16, the University of Kentucky and the city will welcome representatives of both as the featured guests of the Lexington’s celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Everyone is welcome to line up at 9 a.m. for the Freedom March in the corridor of Lexington Center Heritage Hall in downtown Lexington. The march departs promptly at 10 a.m. and return to Heritage Hall at 11 a.m. for the commemorative program in Heritage Halls East and Center. At 2 p.m. there will be a special free screening at the Kentucky Theatre on Main Street of the film “Freedom Riders” with the film’s producer Laurens Grant as special guest.

The King commemorative program will honor Mahalia Jackson as the “Voice of the Civil Rights Movement.”  Jackson was born 100 years ago, Oct. 26, 1911, in New Orleans and eventually became in many people’s hearts and minds the greatest gospel singer of all time. She became a staunch supporter of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and was numbered among King’s personal friends. At his request, Jackson sang at many of King’s appearances, including the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights and King’s historic “I Have a Dream” march on Washington in 1963. She sang in his honor again five years later at her friend’s funeral. Jackson died in January 1972, but will always be remembered for her strong, soulful singing voice, her rock-solid faith, her staunch support of the Civil Rights Movement and her compassion for those less fortunate.

Twenty-five of Lexington’s best gospel singers and musicians will perform selections from “Mahalia,” a play written by University of Kentucky graduate student Trent Tucker and produced in Lexington only once in 1983. Many of the original cast members of that production will perform at the commemorative celebration, led by Charles F. Little Jr., who led them at the original performance in 1983. He was musical director in 1983 and is artistic director at this year’s performance.

The musicians include Little on the piano, Derrick Canada, organ; James D. Parks, percussion; and Nicholas Lewis, percussion.

Three of the four women who will perform as “The Mahalias” had the same role in 1983, Shanna Langford, Sandra “Cissy” Williams and Gloria Edwards Tompkins. Barbara Pinkston has the fourth role.

The Mahalia Vocal Ensemble is made of sopranos: Melody Clark, Wanda Edwards Jones, Jessie Lee, Laura Davis Taylor, Pastor Charlette (Cox) Thompson and Frances Toller; altos: Emma (Gay) Bruton, Jessica Bush, Jacqueline Cox, Tracy Holmes, Jennifer Jones, Leatha Lightsey and Lorenzo Mosby; and tenors: Lonnie Cowan, Andrea Cunningham, Janice (Middleton) Fields, Alberta Hill, David Lee King, Elder Darnell Nutter and Landen A. Wilson.

This year’s program will begin with a musical prelude and the Black National Anthem by the Mahalia Vocal Ensemble, then a welcome by University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto and Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, and followed by “Mahalia.”

The keynote address will be delivered by contemporary social activist and political commentator Marc Lamont Hill.

Described as one of the leading hip-hop generation intellectuals in the country, Hill is an associate professor of education at Columbia University’s Teachers College and an affiliated faculty member of the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University, an accomplished author, a compelling speaker and a regular commentator with national media, including National Public Radio, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Essence magazine, CNN, and other television networks. He is also a regular columnist and editor-at-large of the Philadelphia Daily News. Ebony magazine has twice honored Hill -- in 2005 and 2011 -- as one of America’s most influential black leaders. He is currently the host of the nationally syndicated television show Our World with Black Enterprise.