Freedom Song: Young Voices and the Struggle for Civil Rights
back Immediately local black university women and the NAACP began to organize They called for mass protest meetings By December 5 black residents of Montgomery had agreed to boycott the bus system meaning that they would refuse to ride the city’s buses at all until the unfair treatment ended The leaders of the bus boycott included many local ministers including the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr and the campaign started with meetings in the churches People at the meetings sang as a way of praying They sang to express their deepest feelings In the songs they connected with one another Their passion and commitment to the movement and to one another grew through the singing And just about one year after the boycott began they won segregation on Montgomery buses ended Back in 1956 as the bus boycott was nearing victory in Alabama a new minister came to the First Unitarian Church in Chicago His name was Chris Moore He was young and energetic He was a musician And he was also filled with the spirit of the civil rights move ment He believed deeply in the equality of all people and in the need to work for justice Chris Moore started a children's choir Chicago is a northern city so it did not have strict segregation laws like those in the South But Moore understood that this did not mean the city was inte grated Far from it Segregation in the South was enforced by law Segregation in the North was
enforced by simple racism In Chicago black people and white people lived in different neighborhoods Real estate agents would not sell homes in white neighborhoods to black families If a black family managed to buy a home in a white neighborhood they faced violence They might be shunned by their neighbors or even attacked on the street Their home could be vandal ized or worse Because housing was segregated schools were segregated too Schools in black neigh borhoods were for black children Schools in white neighborhoods were for white children Chris Moore however believed in integration in bringing people of different races together instead of separating them His mother had been involved in Unitarian service work on Navajo reservations and in Nigeria At First Unitarian Moore found a church with the same commitment Back in 1948 First Uni tarian had passed a resolution to invite our friends of other races and colors who are interested in Uni tarianism to join our church The First Unitarian Church was in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood Hyde Park is located in the part of Chicago called the South Side The University of Chicago is in Hyde Park Many professors and stu dents live there Hyde Park is an integrated neighbor hood It is a well to do neighborhood Poorer neighborhoods surround Hyde Park Woodlawn Kenwood Washington Park Englewood and Oak
land These neighborhoods are mostly black That is the way Chicago looked in 1956 That is still largely the way it looks today At first Moore's choir was made up of children from the First Unitarian Church but he moved quickly to include other children especially black children from economically poor neighborhoods As director Moore insisted on two things The choir would help children to become excellent singers never compromising on quality And it would include children of all races and economic backgrounds on an equal level never compromising on justice The choir that Chris Moore started grew into the Chicago Chil dren's Choir Rob Eller Isaacs joined the choir when he was seven years old As an adult he recalled the experi ence Here we were middle class kids from the chronically overeducated Hyde Park getting to know and become friends with kids who lived in the projects Kids from all over the city Not out of noblesse oblige a feeling that the privileged are obligated to help the less fortunate but out of a common commitment to musical excellence In 1975 Moore wrote about his life for the 25th reunion of classmates from Harvard University I have been deeply concerned about this country and the world in which we live My way of attempting to help change it has been working with children and youth in and through music to assist them to a deeper understand ing of the whole process of building and maintaining a culture that nourishes and ministers to its
And when that process includes the fortunate side by side with street kids and those of every imaginable back ground and circumstance and nothing is of importance but the persons themselves and what they are about together then I begin to feel that there may be some sub stance to that American Dream of the open society that we have so often preferred to mouth rather than to accept to live Today the Chicago Children's Choir provides music programs to dozens of Chicago elementary schools and offers eight after school neighborhood choirs The Hyde Park neighborhood choir is pictured here Andrea Bechert courtesy of the Chicago Children's Choir Moore died in 1987 but the Chicago Children's Choir continues So does its commitment to racial equality and justice From the first dozen children the Chicago Chil dren's Choir has grown to include thousands of chil dren each year Today there are almost 3 000 children involved in the choir Some sing in school choirs in
