Sunday, February 24, 2019, 3 p.m.

_{Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral}, 23 S. 38th Street, Philadelphia, PA

 

With

Singing City

The SC Children' Choir

T-VOCE (Teen Voices of the City Ensemble)

Keystone State Boychoir's Anonymous 8

Germantown Friends School Middle School Choir

and Charlotte Blake Alston, narrator.

 

On May 2, 1963, the children of Birmingham, Alabama, flooded the city’s streets—and the city’s jail—to challenge segregation. With dogs and fire hoses, police tried to stop them. Yet, in ways their parents could not, the children prevailed, defying the police intimidation that long had plagued Birmingham’s black community. Singing was a large part of the protest and resulting arrests of thousands of children.

A DJ used code and song to spread the word, transmitting news of the march over the radio. The Children’s March was part of the larger Birmingham Campaign and was the catalyst for bringing about the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964,which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.

 

This work, by composer Andrew Bleckner, with a libretto by Charlotte Blake Alston, tells the story of a moment that changed the course of civil rights in America.

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