Singing Self, Hearing Nation: Program 3

Ep 16

This program turns to the ugliness of racism in American life with Shawn E. Okpebholo’s Two Black Churches, a song cycle that addresses two acts of white supremacist violence that happened fifty years apart. In this episode, Song of America Fellow Emma Beachy considers the role of grief, tragedy, and injustice in American identity. This program contains potentially upsetting and triggering references to racialized violence and white supremacy.

Info / Credits

This program turns to the ugliness of racism in American life with Shawn E. Okpebholo’s Two Black Churches, a song cycle that addresses two acts of white supremacist violence that happened fifty years apart. In this episode, Song of America Fellow Emma Beachy considers the role of grief, tragedy, and injustice in American identity. This program contains potentially upsetting and triggering references to racialized violence and white supremacy.

Host, Audio Editing & Scriptwriter: Emma Beachy
Production Support: Christie Finn

Recording:
Dreams of a New Day (Cedille Records)
Will Liverman, baritone
Paul Sánchez, piano

This program was created in 2023-2024 and released in September 2024 as part of the Song of America Fellowship Program, a project of the Classic Song Research Initiative between the Hampsong Foundation and the University of Michigan, School of Music, Theatre, and Dance.

Songs

Two Black Churches2020Shawn E. OkpebholoDudley Randall, Marcus Amaker