Community Choir Celebrates Black History Month

The Community Room at the Lemon Grove Branch Library must have looked like a church to library visitors Wednesday evening. With hands raised and voices loud, the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Choir San Diego performed for a packed room.

The third annual concert, which was almost an hour long, was the culmination of daylong festivities in celebration of Black History Month. The choir performed a lineup of songs that included upbeat gospel tunes such as “Seek the Lord While He May Be Found” and “Worship the Lord/Can't Stop Praising His Name,” as well as emotional solos like “You Raise Me Up.”

“It was wonderful,” Beverly Stebbins said after the concert. “They’re so enthusiastic. It was really great!”

Leslie Cooper-Hooker agreed: “It was wonderful, as always.”

Cooper-Hooker has followed the choir for eight years. Although she watched this performance, she will soon be singing along on stage as a new choir member.

At the start of the event, Branch Manager Amparo Madera thanked the choir for returning to the library.

“We’re really excited to have you all here again,” she said.

Artistic Director Ken Anderson told attendees that the music the choir sings is rooted in the traditions from the Southern states during the slave movement. After the performance, Anderson explained that some people sing gospel music “without knowledge of its history and its rich heritage.”

“Many people don’t know that it comes from the negro spirituals, just like all the other styles—jazz, rhythm and blues, rock 'n' roll, pop,” he said. “It came from very dark and very heavy places. Out of all that incredible darkness and incredible weight of heaviness, the songs are filled with joy and with hope, lifting the spirit.”

More than 50 attendees joined the choir in singing, clapping and swaying to the music. A keyboard and a djembe, which is an African drum, accompanied the singers’ voices.

Arnessa Rickett, who often led the choir and sang a few different solos, said the concert was “joyous.”

 “It’s family to me,” said Rickett, who is the vice chair, assistant director and lead soloist of the choir. “This choir is a family.”

Bobby Simmons, who played the djembe, said every choir member is talented.

“The people in the choir, they’re wonderful people,” he said. “They go to different churches, they have many different faiths and there are so many nationalities. I love that.”

Many choir members said they were thankful for the opportunity to celebrate Black History Month at the local library.

“Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech about all people to come together,” Rickett said. “Celebrating Black History Month is very important, because it draws all of us together to unite as one.”

Board Chair Cherry Arnold-Verry added that the occasion enabled people to better understand one another.

“I think it helps us understand each other when we talk about what we’ve been through, what we’ve overcome, how we were overcome, because we didn’t do it by ourselves,” she said. “People helped us, and people need to know we’re not just talking about ourselves. It’s American history.”

After the performance, choir and audience members were treated to macaroni and cheese, cake and drinks. The choir also accepted donations and sold CDs to attendees.

Through donations and music sales, Martin Luther King Jr. Community Choir San Diego raises funds to provide educational grants to graduating high school seniors pursuing visual and fine arts in college.  The choir provides several grants each year, ranging from $1,000-$3,500.

“It seems the people who are running most of the boards that make decisions are more academic,” Anderson said. “They don’t see the value, nor do they see that there is academics in the arts.”

The Martin Luther King Jr. Community Choir San Diego was formed in 1996. Some of the founding members were a part of a commemorative choir, and Anderson was their guest conductor. Anderson said they “expressed desire to be a choir unto themselves rather than under a ministerial alliance.”

The choir has since grown to about 110 official members. Roughly 60-7o members perform at each event, Anderson said.

Anderson expressed gratitude to the Lemon Grove Branch Library for inviting the choir back for a third year.

“We like to perform,” he said. “It’s not so much the venue as it’s just performing.”