Black history comes alive in the hands and voices of prominent Brocktonians

BROCKTON – One famous scholar saw Black history as a river running toward freedom. The current was strong Saturday as a dozen Brocktonians portrayed influential Black leaders.

"The history that was captured is so relevant today," said Donna Frett, a Brockton resident for 22 years and president of the city's Lions Club. "It was amazing."

The NAACP event drew about 50 people to the main branch of the library despite bitter cold. Brockton's NAACP has put on similar performances in previous years.

Here are the Brocktonians who participated and the figures they played. Each performed excerpts from the person's writings, speeches or quotes attributed to them.

Harriet Tubman

Leona Martin gave a spirited portrayal of Harriet Tubman, who – at great risk to herself – helped hundreds of enslaved people escape bondage. She's well known as a "conductor" of the Underground Railroad, which included stops in what is now Brockton.

"I never ran a train off the track and I never lost a passenger," said Martin, who is active in the NAACP's education committee. She ended her performance dramatically with a feigned jump into a river to escape her enslavers.

"I'm going to be free, or I'm going to die," said Martin.

Frederick Douglass

Of the figures portrayed Saturday, none had a deeper connection to what's now Brockton than abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Apostle Edward Campbell, of New Jerusalem Tabernacle of Prayer for All People, delivered Douglass' famous "Fourth of July" speech, best known for the line, "What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?"

Brocktonians read the speech publicly in an annual event organized by the Frederick Douglass Neighborhood Association. That the city has a neighborhood and street named after the orator and writer gives a clue about his importance to Brockton. Douglass, among other abolitionists, spoke beneath the city's Liberty Tree.

Sojourner Truth

While many of Saturday's performers read from notes, Phyllis Ellis brought abolitionist Sojourner Truth to life from memory. Truth, born into slavery in New York state, is most famous for the line, "Ain't I a woman?" Sources differ on what exactly Truth said at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention of 1851, given that her first language was Dutch.

Truth's achievements included being one of the first Black women to prevail in a U.S. court over a white man. In that case, she succeeded in getting her son, Peter, returned from an Alabama enslaver.

"I know it was a very cold day, but they really missed a great event," said Ellis, president of the Brockton Area Branch NAACP, when asked her message for people who didn't attend the program.

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Garrett Morgan

Looking dapper in a gray waistcoat and period attire, Miles Jackson portrayed inventor Garrett Morgan. Jackson inhabited the character, telling how he used his "smoke hood" to rescue eight workers from a collapsed tunnel under Lake Erie in Cleveland in 1916.

"The mayor at that time did not want to give this Black man recognition of rescuing those people," he said.

Jackson and his inventions would eventually get the recognition they deserved. His smoke hood was the precursor to modern gas masks. He also patented the three-position traffic signal. It's impossible to say how many lives have been saved by Morgan's ingenuity.

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Rosa Parks

Courtney Henderson played the role of Rosa Parks, telling the story of how she sparked a major turning point in the civil rights movement by refusing to move to the back of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus to make room for white riders. The resulting court case established the principle that public facilities could no longer be separated by race.

"People always say I didn't give up my seat because I was tired. The only tired I was, was tired of giving in," she said.

Thurgood Marshall

Jamal Brathwaite, a close observer of city politics and former city council candidate, played Justice Thurgood Marshall. Before becoming the first Black member of the U.S. Supreme Court, Marshall was one of the nation's leading civil rights attorneys. Perhaps most famously, he argued and won Brown v. Board of Education, which put a legal end to segregated schools.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Tony Branch delivered one of the event's highlights with his rendition of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. The Southeastern Regional School Committee member put King-like intonation into the performance.

Branch worked up to King's thunderous conclusion, slapping the podium as he reached the last line "Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty we are free at last," to applause and amens from the crowd.

Malcolm X

Civil rights attorney and former candidate for Plymouth County District Attorney Rahsaan Hall portrayed Malcolm X. Hall delivered one of Malcolm X's speeches dissecting U.S. politics and laying out how Black people could take charge of their own futures.

"We don't see the American Dream. We've experienced only the American Nightmare," said Hall to shouts of "come on, come on" from the crowd. "We've not benefited from democracy. We've only suffered from America's hypocrisy."

Barack Obama

Robert Jenkins, who resigned as the head of the Brockton Redevelopment Authority this summer to take a statewide job working on similar issues with Mass Development, played President Barack Obama. Jenkins delivered an excerpt from Obama's first inaugural address.

Kamala Harris

Sydné Marrow, chief of staff to Mayor Robert Sullivan, received an assist from him as she portrayed Kamala Harris being sworn in as vice president. City Councilor Jack Lally stood in for Harris' husband, Douglas Emhoff.

Marrow drew laughs and applause from the crowd as she ushered Lally/Emhoff off the stage with a "thank you, honey." She continued with Harris' remarks at the 2020 inauguration.

"We are undaunted in our belief that we shall overcome, that we will rise up," Marrow said. "This is American aspiration."

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This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: Brockton Black History Month: NAACP holds event at library