Change and Hope Come from the Margins
by Krista Tippett, host
I can only urge you to listen to this wise voice of history and its deep resonance for the contemporary world. Vincent Harding uses the word “magnificent” often and he embodies that word.
He offers an essential and utterly helpful perspective, I feel, to our ongoing collective reflection on civility, moral imagination, and social healing. He was a friend and speechwriter of Martin Luther King Jr. and a force in the philosophy of nonviolence that drove the civil rights movement’s success. That is to say, he was at the center of a moment of human and societal transformation that was wrested from another American era of toxic division and social violence. And Vincent Harding has continued to mine the lessons of that time in the intervening decades, and to bring them creatively and usefully to young people today.
These are stories we rarely see or hear, and they are happening in neighborhoods in places like Detroit and Philadelphia where our lens is usually focused on despair and decay.
So among other things — interestingly, from a very different direction, echoing my conversation with Frances Kissling — Vincent Harding reminds us that change and hope come from the margins. And he has stories to tell about that hope as it’s embodied and lived on the margins of today.
This is also a beautiful hour of production — rich with the music by which people, as Vincent Harding puts it, did not merely demonstrate but “sang” their way to freedom in the 1960s. You will never hear the song “This Little Light of Mine” or the phrase “a Kumbaya moment” in the same way again. Enjoy, and be enriched.
My Country ‘Tis of Thee
by Chris Heagle, producer
This morning I got a gift in my inbox. The talented René Marie responded to my request to use her rendition of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” from her pending release, Voice of My Beautiful Country, in our recent show with Vincent Harding. Her version of this track, which you can listen to above, reinterprets the classic hymn using the uniquely American forms of jazz and gospel.
In an artist statement, Ms. Marie calls this project “her love song to America” and reflects on the difficulty she had embracing these patriotic songs, given that when she learned them she was attending a segregated school in the Jim Crow South. She grew up to feel that the word “American” never really applied to her.
Using her second language of music, as she puts it, by reimagining these songs, she hopes to express the dichotomy and contradictions of being a person of color in America. The energy she and her fantastic band put into this recording is truly contagious. In fact, in an email to me she wrote:
“The last time we performed it, a petite white woman in the front row shot straight up out of her chair and began dancing. I mention her race because, honestly, I wasn’t sure when composing it just who else it would appeal to outside of those who’d grown up in the South listening to, singing, and surrounded by traditional gospel music. We call it ‘getting the spirit!’”
Getting the spirit indeed. Check out our show playlist for all the music used in “Civility, History, and Hope.” There’ll you’ll find songs that came from Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman’s 2010 documentary Soundtrack for a Revolution. The film tells the story of the music that lifted and sustained a generation of civil rights activists. Featuring remarkable archival footage and recordings, it also brings these songs forward to the present with performances by the likes of John Legend, Wyclef Jean, and The Roots.
The catch? No soundtrack is currently available. We had to get the music we used in the show right from the DVD. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that a CD will come out. Such great music deserves to find a wider audience.
Change and Hope Come from the Margins
by Krista Tippett, host
I can only urge you to listen to Vincent Harding, a wise voice of history and its deep resonance for the contemporary world. He uses the word “magnificent” often and he embodies that word.
Vincent Harding offers an essential and utterly helpful perspective, I feel, to our ongoing collective reflection on civility, moral imagination, and social healing. He was a friend and speechwriter of Martin Luther King Jr. and a force in the philosophy of nonviolence that drove the civil rights movement’s success. That is to say, he was at the center of a moment of human and societal transformation that was wrested from another American era of toxic division and social violence. And Vincent Harding has continued to mine the lessons of that time in the intervening decades, and to bring them creatively and usefully to young people today.
These are stories we rarely see or hear, and they are happening in neighborhoods in places like Detroit and Philadelphia where our lens is usually focused on despair and decay.
So among other things — interestingly, from a very different direction, echoing my conversation with Frances Kissling — Vincent Harding reminds us that change and hope come from the margins. And he has stories to tell about that hope as it’s embodied and lived on the margins of today.
This is also a beautiful hour of production — rich with the music by which people, as Vincent Harding puts it, did not merely demonstrate but “sang” their way to freedom in the 1960s. You will never hear the song “This Little Light of Mine” or the phrase “a Kumbaya moment” in the same way again. Enjoy, and be enriched.
About the image: Reverend Jim Forbes (L) hugs Dr. Vincent Harding (R) during a service at All Souls Church to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday (photo: Mark Ralston/Getty Images).
You’ll Never Hear Kumbaya the Same Way Again
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
There are a few moments from behind the glass that stop me dead in my tracks — times during an interview when a wise voice creates a new opportunity to hear something differently. To challenge a conceit. To envelop the listener in the womb of silent storytelling and place one in a position of listening profundity. Vincent Harding did just that.
In the audio above, the theologian and speechwriter for Martin Luther King Jr. creates that vulnerable opening and ever so gently corrects, without admonishment, when the “Kumbaya” is referred to as a soft and squishy moment of song:
In group after group, people were singing:
‘Kumbaya. “Come by here my Lord. Somebody’s missing Lord. Come by here.”’
I could never laugh at kumbaya moments after that. Because I saw that almost no one went home from there. This whole group of people decided that they were going to continue on the path that they had committed themselves to and a great part of the reason why they were able to do that was because of the strength and the power and the commitment that had been gained through that experience of just singing together, Kumbaya.”
I know I’ve used this this reference to a “kumbaya moment” in a slightly pejorative way. This no longer holds true. I can no longer judge using this label. Let Vincent Harding’s story be a lesson for us all.
We’re producing the radio show now and it’ll be released on February 24th.
