Remembering Harry Moore

More than 500 people filed Sunday into Duke Chapel to hear words honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. They marched out talking about a little-known Florida NAACP organizer killed 53 years ago.

Musician and scholar Bernice Johnson Reagon, the keynote speaker for Duke's 16th annual celebration of King's life and legacy, recounted in song the 1951 bombing death of Harry T. Moore and his wife.

"Florida means land of flowers," began Reagon, unaccompanied by music, in a voice that filled the chapel. "It was on Christmas night, in the state named for the flower, men came bearing dynamite."

The lyrics were written five decades ago by poet Langston Hughes as "Ballad of Harry Moore." Reagon, founder in 1973 of the African-American a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock, put the words to music for a PBS documentary.

"And this he says, our Harry Moore, as from the grave he cries," sang Reagon, who taught at American University and Spelman College and is curator emeritus of at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. "No bomb can kill the dreams I hold. For freedom never dies! Freedom never dies, I say! Freedom never dies!"

"Now that's art, folks, and activism," Reagon said with a smile as she finished her song, referring to the theme for this year's King commemoration at Duke: "Arts, Education and Activism: A Call to Action."

The chapel audience responded with a standing ovation.

Reagon's 40-minute presentation, which was part of a 90-minute service that included words by university President Richard H. Brodhead, Chancellor for Health Affairs Victor J. Dzau, Provost Peter Lange and Pasha Majdi, president of Duke Student Government, punctuated the Jan. 13-23 King events scheduled across the academic and medical campuses.

Music played a powerful role in the civil rights movement and in King's oratory Brodhead said before Reagon spoke and sang. "You're not going to find a King speech that doesn't include the repetition of lyrics that everyone knew," he said.

Those speeches and songs, from African-American spirituals to protest songs, "kept hope alive" and helped "to call a vision into reality," Brodhead said.

Monday's campus holiday and day-long schedule of student events was capped by Angela Davis, a longtime social activist who is professor of the history of consciousness at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Her speech in Page Auditorium attracted a standing-room-only audience of more than 1,100.

Davis opened her remarks by noting the passing this month of two figures in the struggle for equal rights: Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress, and James Forman, one of the leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

She expressed her conviction that if Dr. King were alive today, he would be delivering his "rousing and eloquent orations" to help address domestic and global human rights violations. Among the issues she identified were the War in Iraq, the death penalty in the U.S., the Bush administration's war on terror and the racism that she says condemns too many young people of color to a life in America's "prison-industrial complex."

Audio of Davis' complete speech, as well as excerpts, is available below:

Full speech, (56 min.)

"If he were alive today, King would still be addressing human rights issues," (47 sec.)

"Compares the U.S. contribution to tsunami relief to Iraq war costs," (52 sec.)

"attacks the 'racism' and 'barbarism' of the death penalty," (1min., 23 sec).

 

Earlier Monday, undergraduate students sponsored the "Duke Freedom School." Inspired by the freedom schools organized in the South during the 1960s, the well-attended discussions in the Bryan Center's Von Canon halls featured students, faculty (including William Raspberry, Jim Joseph, Charles Payne and Ariel Dorfman), alumni and invited speakers. Topics included environmental justice, the art of oratory, the Latin American perspective, racial divisions within the Christian church and the role of the Jewish community in civil rights.

Ten middle- and high-school students from Mississippi arrived by van to talk about the Sunflower County Freedom Project.

The non-profit organization, which was created six years ago by 1994 Duke grad Chris Myers, provides after-school and weekend academic sessions, mentoring, martial arts training, hiking trips, summer programs at the University of Mississippi, internships in Washington, D.C., aimed at motivating "young people to become capable, compassionate leaders in their communities" by helping them to graduate from high school and attend college.

Each of the 50 African-American students in the Freedom Project face severely limited academic and work opportunities, said Chris Perkins, a high school junior now in his fifth year with the Freedom Project. To succeed, they must overcome too-low expectations and criticism about "acting white."

"It's not just a white thing to want to succeed. It's not just a white thing to want to accomplish things. Just because I'm black doesn't mean I can achieve things that, quote, unquote, white people can do," Perkins told the audience, eliciting loud applause.

"We know we need to keep our eyes on the prize. That's what we're trying to do."

Other highlights from the university's King commemoration included: the Jan. 14 showing of "February One," a documentary of the 1960 Greensboro Woolworth sit-in; the original musical production of "Keeping Shattered Dreams Alive" by university and Duke Health System employees at Carolina Theatre, also on Jan. 14; and the Thursday, Jan. 20, conversation with John Hope Franklin at the East Duke Building, marking the 90th birthday of the celebrated historian and Duke professor emeritus.

Events continue Friday, Jan. 21, with a 7:30 p.m. performance of "Up Above My Head, I Hear Music in the Air" at Durham Regional Hospital and an 8 p.m. poetry performance by Glenis Redmond and Patricia Starek, titled "Step Sisters: A Poetic Dialogue on Race and Womanhood," at Reynolds Theater.

Redmond and Starek will conduct a poetry workshop at 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 22, in the Mary Lou Williams Center in the West Union building.

The university's King commemoration will conclude on Sunday, Jan. 23, with a 2 p.m. concert in Duke Chapel by the Fisk University Jubilee Singers in honor of Franklin's birthday and King's memory.