[Scmusenet] In The Shadow of Slavery - Frederick Douglass - February 19, 6:00 pm

Fri Feb 13 14:18:42 EST 2009

Don't miss this wonderful opportunity to look in on Frederick Douglass
"live"  and in Spartanburg!  For only $10 a seat, you can enjoy this
wonderful performance as well as a brief presentation of the Community
Weavers of 2009.  Proceeds support the Regional Museum of History, one of
the historic resources of the Spartanburg County Historical Association.

Let me know if you have questions!

Becky Slayton
Acting Executive Director, 864-278-9664
Administrator, Walnut Grove Plantation & Price House, 864-576-6546

 In The Shadow of Slavery
Mel Johnson Portrays Frederick Douglass in One-Man Show
(see attachments)

*Date & time:*  Thursday, February 19 at 6:00 pm
**
*Where:* David Reid Theater, Chapman Cultural Center, 200 East St. John
Street, Spartanburg, SC 29306
**
*Tickets**:* *$10 each * *- May* *be purchased by calling 542-ARTS or visit
the Chapman Cultural Center Box Office.*

*Sponsored by the Spartanburg County Historical Association (SCHA).   All
proceeds will go to support the SCHA.*
**
The Shadow of Slavery was written by actor/director Tom Dugan, who will also
be in Spartanburg for this performance. His credits include acting in
*Ghostbusters
II*, *Kindergarten Cop* and *Beethoven II* and playwriting *Robert E.
Lee—Shades of Gray* and *Confessions of a Swordfish*.

*About F**r**ederick Douglass*
Before Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, there was Frederick Douglass, a
slave who spoke up for freedom and eloquently set the course of civil rights
in America. His story will be told Thursday, Feb. 19, by Broadway star Mel
Johnson Jr. in a one-man play presented at the Chapman Cultural Center.

*In The Shadow of Slavery* will be presented by the Spartanburg County
Historical Association in honor of Black History Month. In addition to the
one-and-a-half-hour-long performance of storytelling and song, the
recipients of the annual Spartanburg Community Weavers awards will be
announced. Community Weavers are African American citizens who are
recognized for "weaving the tapestry of the community with their spirit,
vision and leadership."

 "It will be a wonderful evening," Nannie Jefferies, the Regional History
Museum Administrator, said. "We are so very lucky to have been able to book
this performance, especially with an actor of Mel Johnson's caliber. The
play is right in line with our celebration of Black History Month, telling a
story that everyone needs to hear. It will be most entertaining, as well as
educational. Also, we'll start the evening with the Spartanburg Community
Weavers awards. These are citizens who have led by example and who need to
be recognized as leaders in our community. With both the performance and the
awards, this will be an historic evening to remember."

In addition to presenting *In The Shadow of Slavery* and the Spartanburg
Community Weavers awards, the Historical Association will honor Black
History Month with a special exhibit in the Regional History Museum at the
Chapman Cultural Center. *Powerful Expressions, Changing Lives* will run
Feb. 3-28 and will focus on great national orators and the powerful words
they spoke, words that inspired and changed people's lives. Also to be
featured in this exhibit will be the Community Weavers. The exhibit will be
open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. It is free to individual
patrons.

As a historical figure, Douglass established himself early in life as a man
of inspiring words. At the age of 23, he stood before a group of
abolitionists—the annual Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Convention—and told his
life story of being born a slave. His words were so stirring and eloquent he
eventually became internationally sought after as a lecturer on equal
rights.

Born in February 1818 on Maryland's eastern shore, Frederick Augustus
Washington Bailey was the son of a black slave woman and a white man he
never knew. His early childhood was spent with his grandparents, having only
seen his mother four or five times before her death and his seventh
birthday. During these early years, Douglass (a last name he later assumed),
was exposed to all the degradations of slavery, including whippings, cold
and hunger.

At 8-years-old, Douglass was sent to live in Baltimore and with a ship
carpenter named Hugh Auld. It was during this time, he first heard the word
"abolition." This was also when he learned to read. Douglass spent seven
relatively comfortable years in Baltimore… that "laid the foundation and
opened the gateway to all my subsequent prosperity," he later said.

However, as a young man, Douglass was sent back to the country, where he was
hired out to a farm run by a notoriously brutal slavebreaker named Edward
Covey. Whipped daily and starved, Douglass was soon "broken in body, soul
and spirit."

In 1838, after two years of planning, Douglass finally made his escape and
his way to New York City. Soon thereafter, he married, changed his named and
settled in New Bedford, MA. Always striving to improve himself, Douglass
joined various organizations and began attending abolitionists' meetings. It
was through these activities that he made contact with William Lloyd
Garrison and his weekly journal, *The Liberator*. Each man impressed the
other and soon a strong bond was forged in the name of freedom.

It was through his association with Garrision that Douglass began his career
as a lecturer for the Anti-Slavery Society. "Flinty hearts were pierced, and
cold ones melted by his eloquence," is how one correspondent described
Douglass's speeches. Throughout the rest of Douglass's life, he toured the
world speaking out against slavery. Eventually, he published his own life
story and his own weekly newsletter, the *North Star*.

 Known as the "Father of the Civil Rights Movement," Douglass advised
Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and recruited northern Blacks for the
Union Army. After the war, he added the rights of women to his agenda.

"Frederick Douglass had a very interesting life," Jefferies said. "His place
in history is solid. But this show is also entertaining and inspiring. Since
it opened in 2006, it has played all over the country to great reviews."
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