“I remember the first time I arrived in New York City. It was in my sophomore year of college as part of The Tougaloo Concert Choir to perform with the great Duke Ellington at Carnegie Hall. We had traveled all around the East Coast of the United States singing at various historical sites while raising funds for our school. However, New York City was a completely different experience especially for a Southern girl, seeing such cultural diversity during the Civil Rights Movement. It was so strange seeing people bustling about so rapidly with the energy and possibility of hope that filled each of their steps. It was the most phenomenal thing I had experienced up until that point. Excited and just about the hour when the choir was about to go on stage and perform a round of spirituals with Ellington’s band, we were informed that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot in Memphis, Tennessee. It was a moment I shall never forget. April 4th, 1968.”
Courtesy of the Carnegie Hall Archives.
– Mom
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