Welcome t Black Horizons I'm Chris Moore.

Tonight will reflect on the life and works of a civil rights icon.

And you'll also get a loo at an award winning documentary featuring the Hill District that will re-air this month.

Plus, mee some of the people responsible for a local theater's musical celebration.

But first, many people knew Coretta Scott King as slain civil rights leader Doctor Martin Luther King's wife and widow.

She was, however, an activist leader in our own right.

Coretta was also a fierce protector of her husband's legac and a promoter of nonviolence.

Joining me now to talk about Coretta Scott King is Esther Bush, president and CEO of the Urban League of Pittsburgh.

Welcome to the program.

Welcome again.

Thank you.

Once sat beside Coretta at a dinner that Magee Women's Hospital had sponsored.

Is that right?

Yes, I did.

What was that like?

It was really unreal.

It's hard to describe.

And I mean, I have met a lot of people, but you sit there when you look and you say, that's actually Coretta Scot King, Martin Luther King's wife.

She's so poise, such dignity.

When she spoke, it was like, when E.F.

Hutton speaks, you know everybody leans in and listens.

And she was, interested, caring, compassionate.

She was just everything.

All of the images that I've had of her throughout life, seeing her in television, newspapers, and I've had a chance to shake her hand a couple of times, but this was my first opportunity I ever had to literally have a conversation with her.

Do you think that she could be herself?

I mean, is a real person?

Or does she have to always have the persona of Coretta Scott King?

And carry on honorably?

And her husband's name was that.

Was that a burden for you think?

You know.

It would be interesting to ask that question to somebod that really knew her in the raw.

Because to me she seemed extremely comfortable in her skin, being who she was.

And I bet you to me she was like that all the time.

She.

I think once you live something so much and believe it, it really does become a part of who you are.

And the role that she played as the wife of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King.

And the image that she presented, the mother of his children, that role, I think all of it really became who she was.

And I think it's who she was anyway, in her heart.

But it was just developed because of the visibility that she had in her life.

I wonder with her passin and the passing of Rosa Parks, we're losin so many icons of the movement.

Do you think if we continue to teach our children about these people and who they were, that their memories will live on and it'll be something?

For instance, she campaigned against turning her husband's birthday into another Washington's day sale of presidents.

Exactly that kind of stuff.

She sai it should be a day of service.

Do you think that memories will live on if we.

If we teach the right lessons about Coretta and Doctor King and Rosa Parks?

Well, Chris what you just said, if we, you and I, and the viewing audienc continues to teach the legacy, I think what we owe to her and more importantly, what we owe to ourselves and our country is to keep her legacy and the legacy of her husband on the minds and tongues of everyone.

Because the nonviolent movement for change, civil rights, equality, all of those things we have to keep alive because we are Americans, and it's really holding America accountable to the opportunities and the promises that they made to us.

And so I think we owe it to ourselves.

And as we pay ourselves, we absolutely need to make sure that we are saying the words Coretta Scott King.

So our children understand, who she was.

When we talk about holding America accountable.

And I know you've been involved in this struggle for a long time for for working rights, for civil rights and so many women's rights.

Do you think that we have made progres since the time of Doctor King, the March on Washington and all of that?

We can absolutely measure that.

We have made progress.

But, you know, Chris, it's we've made progress, but it's for so few and so little that we still have to keep the volume up, because people across America still are not experiencing what they should experience in this country.

Some of us are still being excluded.

And I have to underscore, obviously, the African-American community, when we look at where African American men are, where African American women are, where our children are, and therefore look at the family structure.

Well, how do so many things how do we make that dream of Doctor King and Coretta?

As I'm sure she shared it with him?

How do we make it a reality?

We have to make it a reality by the way we live our individual lives and by the service that we give back, the servic that we give back on our jobs, churches, volunteering and community based organizations reaching out to individuals that are not your children and owning them and teaching them to do the right thing.

We have to live our life as a model, as an example, the way she did.

All right.

We're going to go to a clip right now of something that we shot during the 88th annual NAACP convention that was hel here in Pittsburgh back in 1997.

And I want you to look at this because she talks about, Myrlie Evers a little bit.

She talks about Miss Shabazz, Malcolm X's widow, and being the par of that widows club that nobody wants to be introduced as the widow of.

I imagine that's the worst thing that could ever happen to a woman being introduced.

Like that way.

But she had to face that all the time.

So let's listen to part of Mrs.

King's speech made at the NAACP 80th National Convention, held right here in Pittsburgh back in 1997.

We also talked about the very serious civil rights work of our husbands, our responsibilities to their legacies, the difficulties of single parenthood and the smallest things of everyday life.

Patty and Merl were special guests of the King Center during the King Birthday observance in 1995.

Betty was the keynote speaker for our annual Teaching Day program, and she did an excellent job and merrily received the King Center's Salute to Greatness Award.

One of our highest awards.

And it was at that time that we decided to plan a vacation retreat where we could spend days together.

It was so much fun.

I can't tell you how much fun it was.

We laughed.

We giggled like teenage girls.

We ate our meals together and we ate so much.

Instead of single portions as we should have taken, we took double portions.

But mostly we relaxed and enjoyed the spa and the setting.

At the time of Betty's tragic accident, we were planning another vacation retreat.

We were privileged to have Betty Shabazzs participate in A King, Another King Center program in 1989.

She took part in work in a workshop we held to help the Crips and the Bloods, rival gangs from Los Angeles, implement a truce between them, and she made an invaluable contribution to the dialog.

Whether she was speaking at a at risk young people up picking to at risk young people or educational leaders like your chair, Betty had a way of commanding attention and respect.

Always.

She brought extraordinary dignity, a passionate dedication and a powerful message to the great causes she cared so much about.

That was Coretta Scott King back in 1997, right here in Pittsburgh, speaking at the NAACP National convention.

And what's your reaction to that, Esther Bush?

I had to smile because you asked a question very early in the interview about, Coretta Scot King in terms of how you thought she was as a regular person.

And you hear, I can really picture the three of them hanging out.

They were hanging out at a spa, having a good time, laughing, eating.

I shouldn't have this ice cream, but I'm going to have it and and relaxed and enjoying each other.

And it's powerful just to think that those three women were anyplace together.

But you know what also reflected out for me that's very powerful that we probably don't even consider.

And that is all three of these ladies, Myrlie Evers Betty Shabazz, and Coretta Scott King.

Look at how they rose to public light and to carry you on their husbands legacy.

Their husbands.

Well his commitment to civil rights, and they did it so exceptionally well.

So it was like they could do it themselves.

And so they were playing a ver critical role behind the scenes before playing the appropriate role that they should have played.

But when it was their turn to step up and not let the legacy die, all three of them took it with such grace, dignity and perfection.

I mean there they ar civil rights leaders themselves.

And if you will notice, she also said Betty Shabazz took part in a forum that they would do in trying to bring peace to the Crip and the Bloods in Los Angeles.

So she even kept up with the times.

People often wonder about Doctor King's vision.

Would it have changed much and what he would be saying and working on?

And all these problems that you and I talk about all the time, right.

But you can see that she was addressing them through his legacy.

But we also have to remember, Coretta Scott King led the countr in making her husband's birthday the first national holiday of an African-American.

That is no easy task.

No one else has done that.

I remembe President Reagan saying, well, this is what they want.

And he didn't want to sign it.

So she did really have to work on.

Exactly.

That was no easy task.

So when you break down everything continuing her husband's legacy, remember when, their house was bombed?

The FBI putting out things about her husband as a wife?

As a mother.

Think about what she went through.

That was her house that was bombed.

And she's trying to raise her children.

Their children.

So when you look the burden was extremely heavy.

The focus was always on the husband because they were the ones in the spotlight.

But think about the type o woman it took behind the scenes, the strength and the support that she was providing.

Now, you mentioned the role of women and how I guess in those days it was a kind of sacred, secondary role.

And they were taking care of hearth and home.

But I look at you and look at the current head of the NAACP females.

We look in corporate Americ here, right here in Pittsburgh.

We imported dynamic examples of black women who are rising above glass ceilings everywhere.

How have the times changed since, Coretta Scott King and Doctor King were married.

And those traditional women's roles that we may have looked at in the 50s to today.

Here we are, 50 some years later, looking at you and all that you represent.

Well they're not changing fast enough because our numbers are still too small, as numbers are very much still too small, and the talent is definitely available.

The world has to adjust to let women in.

And women are breakin those glass ceilings themselves, and they're doing i by their talent and intellect.

And, the fact that they are ready to take one of the opportunities that are presented or that they see and work toward and, then in many cases, they are able to accept on roles that are nontraditional.

The Urban League of Pittsburgh is almost 90 years old, the first female, agency head.

So things are changing, but not fast enough.

And what we all need to do is understand that our world could change.

The United States could change.

Pittsburgh could chang much more readily to the good.

If we embraced all of the talent that we had in including that talen that women bring to the table, the Urban League has always had at the core of its mission, workin to improve the lives of people through getting jobs and providing training and that sort of stuff.

Where are we now?

In in that arena.

Since Coretta Scott Kin and Doctor King's heyday of bus boycotts in Montgomery?

Well, again, we've seen change to changes have been positive.

As we know, it' still just incremental, changes.

I am always appreciative that women such as Coretta Scott King continue to deliver the message, the same message about fighting for equality.

You mentioned Betty Shabazz being contemporary and dealing with the gangs, and you'll find that things change, but they remain the same.

And so we might not be looking at the issue of racism as blatant as it used to be, but it is still systemic and it's still throughout our society.

So we have to fight it differently to make change.

And it's still going to take all of us to do it.

To me, the civil rights movement is not over and will never be over.

You know, it' Black History Month and in part as part of Black History Month, we rerun in the House.

I'm not going to ask you to cheer Don't worry.

I'm not going to ask you to cheer what I love that segmen where we have you cheering and, I just wonder, as you look back on your life and what the house meant to you.

Just a brief comment about Westinghouse high school was, I think I said it on a film.

Was honestly like a parent to me.

It was the friends that I made.

We are still friends from Westinghouse High School.

The teachers, the principals.

The school just embraced you and helped you to develop as a student intellectually as well as solid character.

And we are working.

The Urban League is working in partnership right now with the new superintendent of schools, Mark Roosevelt, because we have to bring that back in a contemporary form.

But we have to intellectuall challenge our kids and make sure they have a strong base of a good character.

There's a scuffle going on about all that now.

So an editorial in the paper where in the NAACP members are disagreein with the president of the NAACP about whether Mr.

Roosevelt's plan is racist or not.

Well, a lot of people were in different places around it.

Where I am is the Board of Education must make a change.

We are still established, like we are operating with 50,000 students and in administration to equal that.

We have 30,000 kids.

Our PSA scores are no at a level where they should be.

The state is saying if you don't get it together, we're going to come in and take over.

That threat has become real in Philadelphia, Duquesne and so many other places.

So the Urban League is looking at the rightsizing plan and saying, Chris, what don't you like about the plan?

Okay, well, this is time to comment on it now.

That's right.

And what is your why don't you like it?

What's your recommendation to change it?

But I don't think we're in a position dealing realistically with.

I don't like the plan.

So if we have to be better than that.

Right?

And a final question about Coretta Scott King.

How will you personally remember her?

Oh, I remember her as a lady of strength and dignity and, I remember her as somebody that I will always look up to and always try to emulate, because she just had awesome presence.

All right.

And you share that with her.

Thank you, Esther Bush.

We appreciate you being here.

Thank you.

Coretta Scott King died Monday night January 30th, at the age of 78.

As we think about the times and events that Mrs.

King experienced we're going to now take a look at how the Hill District has changed over the years with a Black Horizon Special that we call Wylie Avenue Days.

Some Pittsburghers used to call this neighborhood Little Harlem, but most people have always called it the Hill District or just the Hill.

From the 30s through the 50s, the hill thrived, and part o it was one of the most lively, prosperous and influential black neighborhoods in America.

We had five theaters.

We had drugstores, we had furniture stores, whatever there was in the city.

We had in the hill.

The Hill district was for the Pittsburgh area, what Harlem was to New York.

It was the center for music, for art, for literature.

The hill was a thriving, bustling, safe community.

I thought it was the most exciting place I'd ever been in in my life.

One street ran the entire length of the hill into downtown Wylie Avenue.

Wylie Avenue was the center of all kinds of activity, and it really ran 24 hours a day.

It's the only street in a metropolitan city in America that begins at a church and ends at the tail.

Wylie Avenue represente the heart and soul of the hill.

When the hill was in its heyday.

This program i the story of those magic times.

What we're calling Wylie Avenue day.

You can see the Emmy Award winning Wylie Avenue Days of Black Horizons special about the people and businesses of the Hill district.

On Sunday, February 12th at noon.

Something else you don't want to miss is Kuntu Repertory Theaters new play produced written and directed by Vermeil.

A. Lily on Mahalia Jackson.

Joining me now to talk about the play are actress Teri Bridgett as the adult Mahalia an musical director Deryck Tines.

Hi.

Hi.

How are y'all doing?

Good.

Derek, was it a challeng to come up with music for this, or did you just take what Mahalia did?

Because she was famous for a really only one.

Maybe a piano, an organ, and not a whole lot more in terms of accompaniment, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, it was really pretty easy because she did a wide range of music, and basically it was the piano with Mildred, who was a musician.

And so basically we just got all of our music that was recorded, and we basically connected music out of it.

And, Teri, how is it for you to play this part?

We're talking about icons today on the program, and Mahalia Jackson is certainly an icon in the black community.

Yes, she most certainly is.

It was overwhelming at first.

And, I was wondering why me when I was given the opportunity.

Why not you?

Well, that's true because in my mind, I said I'm not really equal to Mahalia Jackson.

She is an icon.

But, But isn't that the challenge of acting?

Yes, it's a challenge too.

And I am not going to talk about me.

I want you to see.

You need to see for yourself.

What happens is a transformation up there.

Now doctor Lily wrote this right.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

How did she approach it?

Did she look a the various stages of her life?

Yeah, she picked four four specific areas of her life.

Her childhood?

When she was leaving Chicago, leaving New Orleans, going to Chicago to begin her career.

I would say that to Terkel and Mayor Daley.

And then she went to, singing with, Well, not it falls in the, childhood, her childhood she went to from childhood to live in Chicago to the, Carnegie Hall concert in Ne York to the March on Washington with Martin Luther King.

That that was important.

We've talked about Coretta Scott King in the first part of this program, but she was absolutely Doctor King's favorite singer.

Yes.

And, doctor Lily puts it in the play that that, Mahalia was one of the peopl that really helped to support it also financially.

She, she made a lot of money with her music and with her businesses and she was known for carrying money up in her in the bank, in the bank.

And she, she, she, she gave a lot of support to, the the campaign for the rights for, the marches and Luther King and all of those people.

Did she ever have any, conflict, I guess, with making money, because I understood she would not g into a nightclub to sing gospel.

She had her, religious principles, and she would no go against them.

Is that right?

That's correct.

Yeah.

She was she was very clear that she was not going to sing blues and that she was going t sing gospel, and she had an aunt called aunt Duke who I think raised her after her mother had passed and she drove that into her that, she was a gospel singer.

And her parents, father and grandfather were ministers, and she was not to sing blue.

But then she decided that when she became of age that sh did not want to sing the blues, although she sang with Bessie Smith and a few other, singers at the time.

She decided that she wanted to be a gospel singer, and she stuck to that, even though she had many opportunitie throughout the rest of her life.

Teri, how do you approach the role, especially the singing part?

I've seen you act.

I know you good, but the at the singing par and I know you can saying too, but singing Mahalia Jackson, how do you approach that?

Is it is it a case of imitation and trying to be, sincere and flattering o or do you find your own voice, so to speak?

I believe it's my own voice, but it has been given to the Holy Spirit and anointing to do the work.

What comes out is definitely from God.

It's a God given gift.

And I just I just thank God for the opportunity.

And that's gospel.

Yeah.

And that's also where doctor Lilys directing talents come in.

She's been very, very clear all throughout the rehearsals and practices that she's looking for interpretation and not exactly copy.

What?

That gives yo some freedom then as an actress.

Right?

Yes.

Okay.

Now you you're playing the young adult Mahalia.

Is that right?

In the verse and sense.

Yes.

I transformed somewhat and because of the first act and then, I am the young adult Mahalia.

And later when I go to Carnegie Hall, I blossom into that fullness of Mahalia.

All right.

So I guess then, doctor, Lily, looks at some of the trials and tribulations that Mahalia went through too in terms of she blossomed as a person.

Right?

Correct.

As a younger person, how?

When sparing, not sparing the right was a very integral part of her upbringing.

And then her principles were instilled.

Then later in life, she, worked with her.

She had husbands and tragic things that she went through a gambling husband at that.

But that marriage to many she kept that money in the bank.

That's absolutely right.

Well I'm sure people are enjoying it.

You've already opened, right?

And it's going to run all through.

You're through the 11th.

All right, we'll talk about that and give them a tickets.

Number in a minute, but we wish the best to you in this production I can't wait to see you.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

You can catch.

Kuntu Repertory Theater as Mahalia Jackson.

Standing on Holy Ground now until February 11th.

For more information, call them at (412)624-7298.

That's (412)624-7298.

Well, that about do it for today's edition of Black Horizons.

Be sure to join us next week and every Friday and most Sundays right here on WQED TV 13.

For more interesting conversation, I'm Chris Moore and for all of us here at Blac Horizons.

Have a good evening.

Set pieces provided b the History Store, Craig Street in Oakland and Chris Moore's wardrobe provided by Larrimors of Pittsburgh.