"Black 'n da Blues" Featured in Lecture-Concert Series
JONESBORO – The second installment of Arkansas State University's Lecture-Concert Series for 2019-20 will be " Black ‘n da Blues: Stories and Songs from the Arkansas Delta: 1919-2019," on Friday, Sept. 27.
The program, a remembrance of the victims and tragedy of the 1919 Elaine, Arkansas, massacre, will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Grand Hall of Fowler Center, 201 Olympic Dr. Admission is free.
The Delta Cultural Center, the Remember2019 Collective, the Elaine Legacy Center, and the Boys, Girls, Adults, Community and Development Center in Marvell are presenting their third tour of “Black ‘n da Blues."
The concert will feature blues singer and high-stepper James “Gone for Good” Morgan, guitarist Marcus Mookie Cartwright, and gospel singer and Elaine native Vera White. These blues artists will present blues, spirituals, and rhythm and blues compositions that tell the story of the last 100 years of Phillips County's cultural heritage and race history.
"At this centennial anniversary of the Elaine Massacre of 1919, a culmination but by no means the end of racist terror in Arkansas and throughout the U.S., this concert addresses history, memory, the yet-unresolved damage done by white supremacy in our region – and voices African American peoples’ continual struggle for liberation and self-determination in the Delta," stated Dr. Lauri Umansky, director of the Heritage Studies Ph.D. Program and professor of history. "I cannot imagine a more important 'heritage' for a university located in this region to probe."
This program is presented with additional funding support from the College of Liberal Arts and Communication and the Heritage Studies Ph.D. Program. The Remember2019 Collective is funded by the JKW Foundation, as well as several other nationally recognized funding sources.
The Lecture-Concert Series serves Arkansas State and the surrounding communities by bringing notable guest speakers and performers of diverse backgrounds and wide appeal to the campus.
For more details about the series, interested individuals may visit the Lecture-Concert Series website, AState.edu/LectureConcert.
# # #
