October 3, 2003

BIRMINGHAM, AL — A program sponsored by the Purdue University Black Cultural Center (BCC) will bring Purdue students to Birmingham and Montgomery for a Civil Rights and the Black Arts Movement Tour, “Freedom Ain’t Free: Civil Rights and the Cost of Liberation.”

The group, led by BCC director Renee Thomas, is scheduled to visit many sites in both cities October 11-13, including a city tour of Birmingham, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Students also will have the opportunity to attend a master class on gospel music with Kevin Turner, director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Gospel Choir.

Topics for Turner’s music master class include: basic gospel music as performed today; black gospel music as written and performed by the pioneering gospel musicians; the civil rights era “Sweet Honey in the Rock”; Birmingham’s own the late Professor Carlton Reese; biblical references: the plight of the children of Israel; biblical instruments and singing; and anthems, hymns, gospel hymns, spirituals, quartet, gospel choirs/choral, jubilee and slave music.

For information, contact Kevin Turner at kturner@uab.edu or (205) 934-6155. For a Purdue contact before the group arrives, contact Nebi Hilliard, assistant director, Black Cultural Center, at (765) 494-3095 or at dhilliard@purdue.edu.