The UNC community will commemorate influential civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a compilation of song, dance and poetry at the Sonja Haynes Stone Center’s annual program entitled “He was a Poem, He was a Song.”
Dr. King’s life and legacy will be celebrated through these media as a public event held Tuesday, Jan. 16 from 7p.m. to 9 p.m. with performances by the Just Dance Academy dance troupe, the UNC Gospel Choir, UNC’s Ebony’s Readers Onyx Theater and local high school student groups.
UNC Gospel Choir President Lael Clark and members Shelby Miles and Jordan Thomas have expressed their excitement about being able to use their vocal abilities to honor Dr. King. The group has spent hours in preparation for the event in the hopes that their performance will use music to share Dr. King’s story.
Clark shared that the approximately 60-member choir’s mission is to worship the Lord through song and spread the gospel in a genuine way. She noted that religion was a large part of Dr. King’s life and should be incorporated in the celebration of his legacy.
“When thinking about the history of the Civil Rights Movement, a lot of the meetings took place in churches and were led by preachers and other community figure heads,” Clark said. "The belief that God was going to deliver his people from this issue of inequality was a common and unifying one. It is imperative to reference and give thanks to God when commemorating Dr. King – and we, the UNC Gospel Choir, intend to do just that.”
Thomas also connected Dr. King’s message to religion, and she explained that the choir’s medium of music is a powerful outlet of expression that she finds moving.
“Given Martin Luther King’s religious background and the obvious power of music as a uniting force, I think that singing is one of the best ways to commemorate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and I think the choir would agree,” Thomas said. “We all believe in the great things that music can do and it obviously resonates with us deeply.”
Miles expressed that UNC’s annual MLK Birthday celebration serves to remember the man who was a fundamental asset to the black community, Christian body and the world.
“Ultimately, this event is important to me because it serves as a reminder of how far we have come, but it definitely puts into perspective how far we as humanity have to go, especially as it relates to keeping his dream alive,” Miles said. “For the group, it reminds the gospel choir that we have a responsibility to spread love, hope and unity both individually and collectively through song, but most importantly through action.”
