Читать книгу Freedom Facts and Firsts - Jessie Carney Smith - Страница 30

Cordell Hull Reagon was a founding member of the Freedom Singers. He was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1943 and died of a gunshot wound in his Berkeley, California, apartment in November 1996. Reagon became a civil rights leader at the age of 16. By the time he was 18 years of age, he was an experienced activist, having participated in sit-ins, freedom rides, voter demonstrations and workshops. He and Charles Sherrod were sent in 1961 to Albany, Georgia, to assist in the work of confronting and dismantling the thriving segregated system. Using non-violent tactics, they became involved in the Albany community and its fight in the face of threats and violence. In 1962, as a means of raising money to support the work and goals of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and to tell the stories of the movement, the Freedom Singers group was founded by Reagon. Reagon, who had a strong tenor voice and experience with music as a force in Nashville, joined forces with Rutha Mae Harris and Bernice Johnson (who was to marry Reagon and later formed Sweet Honey in the Rock) of Albany, Georgia, as well as Charles Neblett, a civil rights demonstrator from Cairo, Illinois. They used the rich tradition of African American music to convey their message. They toured—not without threats and violence—the country, performing at colleges, universities, homes, jails, political rallies, and in the August 1963 March on Washington. The original Freedom Singers recorded an album and disbanded in 1963.

Helen R. Houston