‘Realizing the Dream’ Concert Unites Voices at UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Emerging artists from Tuscaloosa and Birmingham will highlight the “21st Annual Realizing the Dream Concert Honoring the Life and Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”

The performance will be at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 16, in the Concert Hall of Moody Music Building on The University of Alabama campus.

With the theme “Realizing the Dream: Then and Now,” the Realizing the Dream Committee celebrates the voices and talents of the younger generation who share King’s vision for a peaceful and just society while remembering the King legacy and call to action.

The concert will entwine music and dance with excerpts from King’s speeches, read by Dr. Aaron Dobynes, pastor of Evergreen Baptist Church in Shreveport, La., and a 1984 graduate of UA, as well as others. The featured singer is soprano Belinda George-Peoples, a schoolteacher in Birmingham, who has soloed with the Alabama Symphony and performed in Sweden and Spain.

Also performing is the Prentice Concert Chorale, Tuscaloosa’s first integrated choral group, which was founded in 1966. In addition, the program includes the Tuscaloosa City Schools Middle School Honor Choir and students from UA, Stillman College and area high schools.

Tickets are $15. Phone 205/348-7111 for more information. Tickets go on sale at 9 a.m. Monday, Jan. 11.

In addition to the concert, the Realizing the Dream committee, in collaboration with the Tuscaloosa Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, is presenting the Legacy Banquet at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 15, at the Hotel Capstone. Tickets for the banquet are $25 a person or $150 for a table of eight. For details, phone 205/348-7111. The featured speaker is Dr. Trudier Harris, a Tuscaloosa native, author and recently retired professor of English at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

At the banquet, three people will be honored: Jerria Martin, a native of Selma and a senior majoring in English at Stillman College, will receive the Horizon Award. Dorothy Montez McDade, a retired teacher at the University of Texas-El Paso and Hispanic ministry coordinator for Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Tuscaloosa, will receive the Call to Conscience Award. Odessa Warrick, a nurse and a Tuscaloosa advocate for education, a clean and safe community and equal opportunity, will receive the Mountaintop Award.

Funded in part by an endowment from the Fiesta Bowl, which also funds minority scholarships at UA, the “Realizing the Dream” concert brings together different parts of the community in ways that are fresh and rewarding. The Martin Luther King Jr. Realizing the Dream Committee is comprised of faculty and staff from Shelton State Community College, Stillman College and The University of Alabama. The committee’s mission is to raise consciousness about injustice and promote equality, peace and social justice by creating educational and cultural opportunities for growth, empowerment and social change so that every person may experience the bounty of life’s abundant possibilities.

Contact

Contact: Dr. Samory Pruitt, vice president for community affairs, 205/348-8376, samory.pruitt@ua.edu; Richard LeComte, media relations, rllecomte@ur.ua.edu, 205/348-3782