(group singing and clapping) (crowd clamoring) (discordant music) - In our darkest hour, we better look toward the light, look toward the hills from whence cometh our help.

Know that the ancestors have us when we have nothing else.

(dramatic orchestral music) In our darkest hour, we better be ready to fight.

Fight for what we need, fight for what we believe, fight for what we know we know, and what we know to be right.

(dramatic orchestral music) And know that we are not just fighting for ours, but for the lives of the youth in our darkest life.

As we see past the lies and seek the truth, we're gonna have to raise our voice and our vibration.

When it's between freedom and oppression, there is no choice.

The only cause is liberation.

That bright day that we all get to bask in after we've walked through the long, dark evening, that bright day, where we will find the poetry of community, the rhythm of unity and the harmony of freedom.

(dramatic orchestral music) (gentle piano music) - Margaret Bonds wrote the "Montgomery Variations" in 1963 after touring the South with the Manhattan Melodiers.

♪ I want Jesus ♪ ♪ To walk with me ♪ - [Dr.

Marva] Margaret Bonds made the decision to choose.

"I Want Jesus to Walk with Me" as her primary theme in this work.

♪ Jesus ♪ ♪ To walk with ♪ ♪ Me ♪ ♪ All along ♪ ♪ My pilgrim ♪ - She wisely chose this piece because it would have been representative of the Black repertoire of her ancestors as well as those who would've been protesting and engaged in the Civil Rights Movement of the fifties and the sixties.

In fact, there would not have been a Civil Rights Movement had there not been music.

(spirited orchestral music) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music) "I Want Jesus to Walk with Me," is a spiritual that is key to the Black experience.

A the Black culture is one that is connected to spirituality.

(spirited orchestral music) The spiritual was the very first genre that came out of the enslaved experience.

In the protest movement of the 1960s, they are singing songs that their grandparents sang, and those songs have even more power consequently than if they were singing a more modern day song.

(spirited orchestral music continues) Margaret Bonds wanted to connect with the ancestors through this song, as well as to use a spiritual that indeed civil rights marchers were using.

(spirited orchestral music) (spirited orchestral music) Margaret Bonds was very wise and effective by choosing "I Want Jesus to Walk with Me" all along this pilgrim journey because it would give all persons hearing this piece and singing this piece, the power and the spirit that is encompassed even in the piece itself.

(spirited orchestral music) - The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were incredible transformational victories that made our country a genuine democracy.

In every age, it is incumbent on we the people to make sure that everyone has access to voting because voting is the key that unlocks all the other rights.

And equally important to focus on the people who made transformational change and understand how they did what they did and why they did what they did.

Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr.

was a phenomenal spokesperson, organizer, and strategist, but you don't have to aspire to just be Dr.

King.

There were hundreds upon hundreds of ordinary people who marched, who did protests, boycotts, but the first step is always learning about the past, to understand what we can do in our own country moving forward today.

- The ways that they made change in this country was by marching and protesting against the system.

Martin Luther King, in particular led these marches, and this work was dedicated to Martin as the leader of the Civil Rights Movement.

(gentle orchestral music) (gentle orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) (gentle orchestral music) - Many people think that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 only relates to African Americans.

It certainly grew out of the US Civil Rights Movement, but its protections apply to everybody.

What it says is that you cannot discriminate against people based on any aspect of their identity, and that would include gender, that includes religion, freedom of conscience.

There are all sorts of identity based issues that are contained in the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

(gentle orchestral music) America was founded based on a constitution, and I think one of the threats to our democracy today is that people don't understand how the Constitution came to be and how our government is supposed to work.

So there's a separation of powers and it's really important to keep that balance.

You want our courts to be well-functioning.

You want our legislature to play its role, and we want our executive branch to play its role.

And the beauty of America and the way we become a more perfect union is when those three parts of our government all interact with each other.

And so today we see that there are threats to that happening, and it has never been more important for people to understand what makes a democracy free.

And that means people preserving their own rights to speak out, to get involved, to join forces, and to demand change.

(spirited orchestral music) (spirited orchestral music continues) - The lessons we can draw today are one of persistence, of resistance, of discipline, of engaging in an inner life, of walking with Jesus, not focusing on the outer life, but building up our inner lives.

(gentle orchestral music) (gentle orchestral music) - History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.

And we can learn a lot by looking at the past, understanding how people faced adversity and threats in the past.

And so an institution like ours plays a role of bringing that history to life and showing people how we arrive at where we are today.

We don't need to reinvent the wheel.

We have roadmaps for how people have banded together and fought for rights throughout our history.

(spirited orchestral music) - When I was in high school, I especially remember boycotting 7-Eleven.

I lived in Waco, Texas, which was very segregated, and there was a 7-11 store in the black neighborhood, but they would not hire Blacks.

And so for a full summer in the hot Texas sun, I walked with a picket sign in front of 7-11 until eventually they opened their doors to Blacks being hired in that establishment.

(spirited orchestral music continues) (dramatic orchestral music) (gentle orchestral music) Two weeks following the march on Washington, there was a bombing that took place at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.

Four young children were killed.

(melancholic orchestral music) (melancholic orchestral music) (melancholic orchestral music) The country was devastated.

In fact, Martin Luther King himself gave a eulogy on that occasion.

I felt if you could not be safe in Sunday school, you could not be safe anywhere.

And for four little children who were innocent, harmless, trying to learn more about Jesus, wanting Jesus to walk with them as Margaret Bonds uses in her work and being killed innocently, it was devastating.

(somber orchestral music) (melancholic orchestral music) - It has always been young people who have been at the forefront of change on almost any issue you can imagine.

And so I think it's important for young people not to despair.

Don't agonize, organize.

Don't wring your hands, roll up your sleeves.

There is always something that can be done, and I think it's important to figure out what role you wanna play and then play it.

(spirited orchestral music) - We don't yet know what the future holds.

It will involve struggle.

It will involve spirituality, staying strong, being willing to die for democracy and for freedom and social justice.

(spirited orchestral music) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) (spirited orchestral music continues) - We began with the choice to act.

We pushed past injustices perimeter found our spiritual center, and walked toward liberation, knowing there was no going back.

It didn't feel like a choice in fact, but a mandate that every woman and manmade, both historically and presently, because the cost of the struggle can be heard in history's echo and more than ever we know.

- We need to preserve and protect our legacy.

- Let it be that we speak truth to power for all our years.

- Let freedom and liberation be music to our ears and a bomb to our souls.

- And know wherever there is the harmony of freedom thereto shall we be, thereto shall we go.

♪ I want Jesus ♪ ♪ To walk with me ♪ ♪ I want Jesus ♪ ♪ To walk with me ♪ - [Automated voice] WABE.