Freedom Singers return to Albany Civil Rights Institute
Original Freedom Singer Harris leads new generation of singers
By Cindi Cox
ALBANY — After a brief summer hiatus, the Freedom Singers return to the Albany Civil Rights Institute starting Saturday.
Every second Saturday of each month, the Albany Civil Rights Institute Freedom Singers, led by original Freedom Singer Rutha Harris, will perform. With song and narration, the singers will engage visitors through an oral history presentation filled with testimony of Albany Civil Rights Movement marches and arrests. They will narrate the stories with emotionally charged performances of freedom songs.
During the 1960s, these songs provided heart, soul and courage to movement participants as the Freedom Singers performed throughout the country to raise funds for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and to inform audiences about the grassroots organizing campaigns expanding in communities across the South.
Most freedom songs were common hymns or spirituals familiar to the southern black community. Freedom songs such as “Oh Freedom (Over Me)” and “This Little Light of Mine” were sung at meetings, during marches and in jail cells to help sustain the civil rights Movement.
According to published reports, folk singer Pete Seeger heard the Freedom Singers in Albany in 1962 and encouraged them to go on tour. The Freedom Singers formed in December 1962 under the leadership of SNCC field secretary Cordell Reagon, a veteran of the sit-in movement in Nashville, Tenn.
With the help of Albany natives Harris and Bernice Johnson, Reagon recruited Charles Neblett, a veteran of civil rights demonstrations, and the four performers left Albany to tour the country in support of the civil rights movement.
Over the next year, the group travelled 50,000 miles to 40 states, playing in schools, concert halls, churches and in jails. They also performed at political rallies and at the March on Washington in 1963.
During their initial tour they performed with Seeger, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.
Reagon later became a founding member of Atlanta’s Harambee Singers and founder of the critically acclaimed singing group Sweet Honey in the Rock. In 1995, Harris formed the Albany Civil Rights Museum Freedom Singers, who perform once a month at the museum.
The Albany Civil Rights Institute is located at 326 Whitmey Ave. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for students, seniors and military members. Admission for students in grades 1-4 is $3. Pre-schooler admission is $2, and a child under the age of 4 is admitted free.
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