6 days Ago
They had finished their first rehearsal for "Sanctuary Road," an acclaimed opera that tells the stories of fugitive slaves who heroically made their way to freedom through the Underground Railroad. The Charleston Symphony Orchestra opening was still two nights away, but now it was time for a late dinner and drinks. Fellow artists, together, looking ahead.
It was the first time in Charleston for them all, and this elite group of African American opera singers convened a block down from the Gaillard at the Big Gun Burger Shop & Bar. A block down from where a racist murdered nine parishioners inside Mother Emanuel Church nine years ago. "We left the bar around 12:05 a.
m. Thursday morning," Joshua Blue, one of the soloists, recounted to me in an email. "As three of us began our short walk back to the Francis Marion hotel a truck pulled up alongside us on the street, rolled the window down, and a young white man leaned out towards us, yelled ‘N*****,’ and drove off into the night.
" Steve Bailey The hateful incident has sparked shock and embarrassment. Tonya Matthews, CEO of the International African American Museum, revealed what happened to the audience at the intermission Friday night. Michael Smith, the symphony’s own CEO, called it "appalling" and offered to allow the five soloists to cancel the performance.
They all wanted to go ahead. The audiences, Friday and Saturday, gave them warm, standing ovations. Not everyone was shocked and embarrassed.
"I don’t believe it," one knucklehead shouted from a box next to my friend on Friday. Believe it. It’s not news that we live in ugly times.
We all know this regardless of who we voted for. Knowing that is one thing; fixing it seems mostly hopeless. I know it does to me.
In the days after the election, racist text messages were sent to black college students nationwide, including students from at least four South Carolina schools. The texts said the recipients were "selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation." Believe it.
The symphony had billed last week’s performances as "an all-American program of music that expresses the pulse of freedom that courses through all of us." It ranged from Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber to what the symphony called "the operatic storytelling of history in Sanctuary Road." Based on the writings of William Still, an African American abolitionist, two Pulitzer Prize winners, composer Paul Moravec and librettist Mark Campbell turned it into a powerful opera.
It specifically calls out Charleston as a center of the slave trade. "This promises to be a performance not soon forgotten by an audience that will undoubtedly be moved," the program notes promised. And so it was — all too painfully.
Joshua Blue is a hugely accomplished British American tenor; his list of credits could take up this entire column. He’s also smart enough to know that speaking up only makes him a target. He asked me to omit the names of the other soloists, and I will honor that.
"If someone really wants to know who we are, they’ll find us, I’m sure," he wrote. Believe it. Blue, however, isn’t going to be silent.
He has no doubt why this ugly incident unfolded on the night it did, not 24 hours after the election was called. "We have just elected a man who regardless of concepts of plans and policies has had no problem spewing vitriol against any who he deems beneath him," Blue says. "Which includes, but is not limited to, women, people of color, the LGBTQIA+ community, especially trans people, and immigrants.
When over 74 million Americans cast their vote for Donald Trump, they cosigned this behavior." He blames Charleston not at all — a place where he, otherwise, found people to be kind and friendly. Charleston is no more racist than New York, he said.
"So where do we go from here? Well, you can hate me with every fiber of your being, but you can never stop me from singing, so singing is exactly what I’ll keep on doing." This is something to believe in. Believe it.
Steve Bailey is a regular contributor to The Post and Courier Opinion section. He can be reached at [email protected] .
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