Seventh Grade Students Meet an Original Member of the Freedom Singers
Rutha Harris and the Seventh Grade at the Hippodrome Theatre
On February 26th the seventh grade took a field trip to the Hippodrome Theatre to hear Rutha Harris discuss her personal experience in the 1960’s civil rights movement. PNC Bank had invited Ms. Harris to Baltimore as part of their promotion of Black History month and the leaders who inspired it. The Hippodrome foundation invited our students to join several employees and customers PNC as well as other students from both public and private schools in Baltimore to listen to Ms. Harris. Ms. Harris is one of the original members of the Freedom Singers, an a cappella ensemble that traveled 50,000 miles in nine months to 48 states, singing and telling the stories of the 1960s civil rights movement. Formed in 1962 to raise funds for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Freedom Singers won critical acclaim at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival and performed during the historic March on Washington. Born in Albany, Georgia, in 1940, Ms. Harris began her journey as a singer in her father's church, Mt. Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, at the age of eight as a member of the Junior Choir. She became involved in the Albany civil rights movement in 1961, and was among those dragged and incarcerated in the mass arrests that filled the Albany and surrounding counties' jails in December 1961. She was jailed three times for a total of 14 days. Ms. Harris continues to perform reunion concerts with the Freedom Singers as a way to keep the stories of the civil rights movement alive. She has earned numerous awards over the course of her career, including the 2001 Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Dream Award and the 2000 Georgia Outstanding Citizen Award. Our students were given a delicious breakfast of juice, pastries and donuts and enjoyed becoming reacquainted with several of our alumni who were also there as guests from Cristo Rey. Her lecture was informative and challenged each member of the audience to study and learn about the civil rights movement. After Ms. Harris spoke she took questions from the audience and our seventh graders were very inquisitive and asked many, many questions. Ms. Harris took us all by surprise by answering many of our questions in song. She often chose verses from the spirituals she sang as a civil rights activist to give just the right answer. Her voice was powerful and beautiful. Her answers were so enjoyable, at perfect pitch and delivered so harmoniously that it might explain our guys’ inquisitive minds! It was a wonderful program and we were privileged to meet, in person, such an important part of our country's civil rights history. back | 
