Tallahassee Bus Boycott book transformed into 'powerful' upcoming musical performance

Part of what makes us human are the stories we first live, then repeat to others. Sometimes these stories may even change the course of a life.

And so it might be with a project developed by the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra — based on "The Pain and the Promise," a book written by Tallahassee's Glenda Alice Rabby, in which her carefully documented facts about the 1956-57 Tallahassee Bus Boycott have been transformed into music and elevated into a soaring piece of art.

The TSO’s newly commissioned symphonic/choral work, “Walk In Dignity” by Joel Thompson, will premiere March 25 and 26, first at Ruby Diamond Concert Hall at Florida State University, and the next afternoon at Florida A&M University’s Lee Hall, where the audience will be asked to join in a “Civil Rights Sing-Along.”

At these double venues the TSO and the Concert Choir of FAMU will bring to life the events of those fateful months in the mid-1950s when two young women, and later many others, were arrested for declining to “go to the back of the bus.”

Important figures in Tallahassee’s civil rights movement would coalesce to form a citywide bus boycott that eventually resulted in the desegregation of the city’s public transportation system.

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"Walk in Dignity,"which is drawn from the Rev. C.K. Steele's words: "I'd rather walk in dignity than ride in humiliation," will feature two FAMU students as vocal soloists who will represent the voices of Wilhemina Jakes and Carrie Patterson.

Commemorating Tallahassee's 'local heroes'

On a recent sunny afternoon as rehearsals were in process, the Democrat accompanied TSO CEO Amanda Stringer to the FAMU campus to chat with the Concert Choir’s Director, Mark Butler, and a few of the talented singers who will bring Thompson’s work to life. It was there that the layering of efforts to create “Walk In Dignity” became apparent.

Stringer initiated the application to the National Endowment for the Arts for the $20,000 grant for this work — now owned by the Tallahassee Symphony. How did Stringer get the idea and how does this kind of “narrative” symphonic work fit into the current repertoire?

Joel Thompson:Using music to build community: 'Seven Last Words of the Unarmed' performed at FSU

NEA grant:Tallahassee Symphony receives NEA grant to commission 'Walk in Dignity' piece

“Joel Thompson’s 'Seven Last Words of the Unarmed' had been wonderfully received when it was first performed here in 2019," Stringer said. "Then Glenda Rabby’s book was recommended to me by both my husband and Althemese Barnes, the renowned Tallahassee historian. This story of the Tallahassee Bus Boycott is one that took place right here with our own local heroes and seemed a perfect fit to impact and be meaningful to our community," Stringer said.

"There is a lot of exciting work going on in the commissioning world today where composers comment on current society. But if you think about it historically, this has always been one of the functions of art. The Thompson commission is one that will overtly speak to the public,” Stringer said.

Voices carry to convey bus boycott

In the FAMU rehearsal room, some two dozen young men and women are filing in, arranging pages of the lyrics they will soon sing, and “stretching” both their voices and their bodies in preparation. The three soloists for the new work, Siana Hayden, Jordan Booth, and Marques Jerrell Ruff will sing the words of the young women who chose arrest over going to the back of the bus and those of civil rights leaders like the Rev. C.K. Steele, who joined them.

Alexander Williams, the Concert Choir’s student president, warms up the singers. Williams said that before this work, he hadn’t really known much about the bus boycott, its obstacles and dangers. “But to hear the words in this music — 'Go to the back of the bus.' 'Give us our money back.' 'The policemen took them to jail.' And 'A cross was burnt on their lawn.' — These words are powerful. I feel like I want to learn more.”

Butler, Director of Choral Studies and Activities, is a conductor and composer whose works have been heard on Good Morning America and performed by the Boys and Girls Choir of Harlem. A pianist, he early on fell in love with the human voice. He says “its power to tell stories, to impart energy and mood when voices blend is something that has enchanted me since the beginning.”

Butler says that his own 20 published compositions are indeed “social consciousness-related,” and he shares that as the son of a single-mother in Georgia, like many, he experienced harassment and racial prejudice. “I didn’t understand it at first, but in my music, it is perhaps there.”

And then the rehearsal begins. Even without the power of the Tallahassee Symphony and Darko Butorac’s sensitive conducting behind them, the singers nevertheless seem to merge with the words they sing, slowly rocking or snapping their fingers as the music shifts from tense to passionate, from frightened to heroic.

Composer returns to Tallahassee

Thompson, the composer of “Walk In Dignity,” had not yet arrived in Tallahassee for rehearsals, but he enthusiastically spoke by phone from Texas where he is the Artist in Residence of the Houston Grand Opera.

Stringer had mentioned that since the debut of “The Seven Last Words of the Unarmed,” Thompson had become a “household name” in choral and operatic circles. “We are very, very lucky to have him creating a work for us,” she said.

Thompson’s voice is soft, “thoughtful,” filled with the pauses and breaths a singer might use in performance. And he is very busy. “I recently premiered a work for the New York Philharmonic on love, joy, and gratitude, and another for the Atlanta Symphony with the theme that sometimes we must gaze into the well to see the stars. It is about looking inward to find hope.”

Thompson allows that one of the biggest challenges as a composer of large choral works is finding that balance among voices, music, and the words. “Words are the priority, but you must use their colors carefully so they don’t overshadow or pierce the orchestral texture,” Thompson said.

“I am particularly delighted to work again with the fantastic FAMU Concert Choir. Their tone, technique, intelligence, and versatility from Baroque to Gospel is up there with the best! And of course, I love the TSO and am so grateful for the invitation to create this new work,” he said.

Though Thompson’s creativity today seems at full throttle, he also says he’s been on a two-week choral tour as a member of a choir… in the background, feeling the “community of voices” that brings personal solace.

“I actually have stage fright, and so with others around me, I feel empowered.” The composer mentions that like Butler, “and probably every Black man,” he too has felt the pain of discrimination. “That is the reality of my lived experience. But I will let my responses be in my music where I will process it without letting it destroy me.”

Thompson says that he doesn’t see himself as an “activist,” but he hopes that through his music and his art — the “stories” that he tells — his intent can transform others’ lives.

If you go

What: The Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra and the FAMU Concert Choir in “Powerful Voices: Lift Every Voice.“ Debuting “Walk In Dignity,” a symphonic/choral work by Joel Thompson.

When and where: 8 p.m. Saturday, March 25, at Ruby Diamond Concert Hall and 4 p.m. Sunday, March 26, at FAMU's Lee Hall Auditorium

Tickets: $36, $44, $52, $60; visit tallahasseesymphony.org

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee Symphony, FAMU Choir debut 'Walk in Dignity' composition