Movements begin with people. Rutha Mae Harris didn’t say it in so many
words. But when her wonderful voice soared to heaven at the Old Mount Zion
Church in Albany, Georgia, today, I understood what kind of impact she and
three other Freedom Singers in the early 1960s had when they toured the country
raising money for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
Harris was still a student when she became a powerful voice of and for
freedom. Together with Charles Neblett, Cordell Reagon, and Bernice Johnson
Reagon (who later would form Sweet Honey In The Rock, a world-renowned vocal
group), Harris traveled 50,000 miles through 40 states in nine months. Her
powerful voice was heard at colleges, universities, jails, political meetings,
and in 1963 at the March on Washington.
She participated in registration drives and picket lines, she demonstrated
and was jailed three times. She slept in houses of strangers and was fed
by them. “We had a great time,” she says while tears form in
her eyes. But it was also a scary time. Several times, shots were fired at
the red Buick station wagon that the Freedom Singers traveled in.
The Freedom Singers were officially formed in 1962 to raise money for SNCC.
Their repertoire was based on the rich tradition of African American choral
music. Their mission was to tell the stories of the movement in the Deep
South, where the smell of slavery was still in the air. Where gospel songs
and spirituals provided a shaft of light and where the black population of
Albany surprised itself and rose up in rebellion against racism and segregation.
It was music which had its roots in the songs from the days when slaves
found solace in them. It gave demonstrators strength and confidence when
police and sheriff's wagons showed up at protests. Lyrics and verses were
freely mixed and words were substituted to fit the current situation. A song
to the tune of the spiritual “Oh Mary, Oh Martha,” for example,
became the freedom song “Oh Pritchett, Oh Kelley,” a reference
to Albany’s notorious police chief, Laurie Pritchett, and mayor, Asa
Kelley.
The spirit lives on in Albany. Thanks to Rutha Mae Harris, who still will
not rest. In 1995 she formed a new group of Freedom Singers, the Albany Civil
Rights Museum Freedom Singers, who perform once a month at the museum.
