Liturgical dancers, puppeteers, mimes and singers and actors performed

By William K. Alcorn

alcorn@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Dramatized vignettes of black women who contributed to black history in the United States and performances by young dancers, mimes and puppeteers who represent the future were showcased in Sunday’s Black History Month talent program at Beulah Baptist Church.

The purpose of the program is to let people hear and learn about the accomplishments ofblack people, said the Rev. Mr. Jeffery Stanford, pastor of Beulah Baptist on Sherwood Avenue.

Black women recognized for their accomplishments were:

Former slave Sojourner Truth, an abolitionist and women’s rights activist, was born into slavery in Swartekill, Ulster County, N.Y., but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. She gave herself the name Sojourner Truth in 1843. Her best-known speech was delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron. The speech became widely known during the Civil War by the title “Ain’t I a Woman?”

Former slave Phyllis Wheatley was the first published black female poet. Born in West Africa, she was sold into slavery at age 7 and transported to North America and brought to Boston in 1761.

Mahalia Jackson, known as the Queen of Gospel, is revered as one of the greatest musical figures in U.S. history. Born in 1911 in New Orleans, La., Jackson started singing as a child at Mount Moriah Baptist Church. She worked with artists like Duke Ellington and Thomas A. Dorsey and also sang at the 1963 March on Washington at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Rosa Parks, a civil rights activist whose refusal to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger, spurred the Montgomery boycott and other efforts to end segregation. The United States Congress called her “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement”.

Ruby Bridges is known for being the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in Louisiana during the 20th century.

Sunday’s event was a joyful celebration filled with music and amazing performers: puppeteers, God’s Anointed Hands Ministry, from Mt. Zion Baptist Church; mimes from Beulah Baptist; liturgical dancers from New Bethel Baptist Church, and a rousing presentation by well-known local gospel singer, John Lee Wallace of Shiloh Baptist Church that lit up the crowded sanctuary.

Black History Month events will be held at 4 p.m. at Beulah Baptist Church every Sunday in February.