Step by Step: The Ruby Bridges Suite

1211 Southwest Main Street,Portland OR 97205

24 April, 2021

Description

This event was RESCHEDULED from May 9, 2020 to April 24, 2021. An emotional portrait of a dramatic time in US History. The image of a six-year-old black girl accompanied by the National Guard as she makes her way to school has become one of the iconic symbols of America’s civil rights era. The story of Ruby Bridges, the first African-American child to attend an all-white public elementary school in the American South, is a tale of courage that resonates across generations. The 2021 Marilyn Sewell Social Justice Lecture at First Unitarian Church will present, for the first time in Portland since its premiere in 2012, Darrell Grant’s Step by Step: The Ruby Bridges Suite. A multi-movement composition for instrumentalists, choir, vocal soloists, and narrator that draws on jazz, gospel and spiritual traditions, Step by Step weaves together music, historical speeches from W.E.B. Dubois and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., poems, newspaper articles, Supreme Court rulings, iconic images from the civil rights era, and the words of Ruby Bridges herself to paint an emotional portrait of a dramatic time in U.S. history. Step by Step has been performed in Nashville, New Orleans, Washington, DC, and most recently at the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History in June 2019. Directed by First Unitarian Church Director of Music DeReau Farrar, this special Portland performance features narration by First Unitarian Church’s Reverend Bill Sinkford, esteemed Portland artists Marilyn Keller and Chris Brown, and others, award-winning New York-based performer Allison Mickelson, the First Unitarian Church Chancel Choir, and members of the gospel ensembles Kingdom Sound & Zoulful Music. ABOUT Step by Step: The Ruby Bridges Suite Composed by Darrell Grant Choral arrangements by Jason Shelton Directed by DeReau Farrar featuring TBD Doors open at 6:30 pm