VOICES OF WOMEN CONCERT SERIES

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Book and musical selection by Dr. Richard L. Hodges

Young Harriet: Dr. Sheronda McKee-Dollar 

Freedom Fighting Tubman: Courtney Ankerfelt 

Narrator & Everyman: Dr. Richard L. Hodges 

Accompanist: Dean Balan

Director: Dr. Richard L. Hodges

Soon One Morn - Cedric Dent
Been in the Storm So Long - Charles Brown 

Weary Traveler - Florence Price
Here’s One - William Grant Still
Doncher Let Nobody Turn You Around - Hall Johnson 

I Got to Lie Down - Hall Johnson
O, Rocks Don’t Fall On Me - J Rosamond Johnson 

Git on Board - Thomas Kerr Jr.
Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel - J. Rosamond Johnson 

Steal Away - Hall Johnson
Deep River - Moses Hogan
Done Made My Vow - Lettie Beckon Alston
Free at Last - Julia Perry
Go Down Moses - Florence Price 

Scandalize My Name - Evelyn Simpson
O Freedom - Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson 

Harriet Tubman - Joe Jordan

*Note that the composers listed above are more accurately the arrangers of these spiritual oral traditions.

Celebrating Harriet Tubman hopes to inspire audiences by taking them on a musical journey through the life and emotions of her life. This is a narrated story guided by song. “Harriet” represents her younger ideals and inspirations, while “Tubman” offers a more mature and complete focus into the depth of who she has become. All of the spirituals represent her devotion of faith to herself, family and mission. It is my hope that you leave this show inspired by her life, words and example.

 In Africa, head wraps have a practical and fashionable purpose: protection from the harsh sun, representation of ethnicity, spirituality, wealth, mourning, and marital status. During slavery, head coverings were forced on black women as a mark of a slave woman. They became symbols of inferiority, worn by field slaves and house slaves alike. They were a way to cover the beauty and differences in hair texture of black women from the predatory desire of the slave owners. However, the head wrap was also used as a way of passing code from one slave to another, depending on how they’re tied. Post slavery, these images continued to spread, in example such as Aunt Jemima. It is important to know the history of the head wrap and its imagery in American history so that we may liberate and modernize its message.