 Good evening. Thank you for joining us for Get The Word Out. My name is Lisa Thomas and tonight's theme is Black History Month. My guests this evening are Lelling Bee Voice and Terry Turner. In celebration of Black History Month, Lelling Bee Voice, singer and storyteller will share some historical African-American traditions derived from her program titled Rock of My Soul. This program is a celebration of African-American spirituals and folk tales that appeals to both children and adults and offers sing-alongs, some tears and lots of laughter. Half of the program is storytelling and two of the spirituals are woven around many dramas. Dialect is used liberally. This show flows seamlessly while illuminating what throbs at the heart of the African-American experience. Rock of My Soul is described as spellbinding and as a show for all Americans. Please welcome Lelling Bee Voice who will open our show by telling the story, Burr-Possum's Dilemma. Thank you, Lelling Bee. And thank you. Actually, I'm only going to excerpt a portion of this story for you. I first heard this story from Jackie Torrance, a nationally famous storyteller, and I've adapted it to fit my style. Now in this story, you'll hear me speak with three voices. I'll be the narrator, I'll be Burr-Possum, and I'll be Burr-Snake. And I'm starting somewhere in the middle, but I think you will catch the flavor very readily. Burr-Possum tiptoed up to that large hole and when he got to the edge, he peeked in. But no sooner did he peek in than he jumped back cause the line on the bottom of that hole with a brick on his back was Old Burr-Snake. And Old Burr-Possum said to himself, I best get on out of here cause Old Burr-Snake is mean, evil, and low down too. And if an odd gets to sticking around here, he just might get to snapping and biting and carrying on. So Old Burr-Possum tiptoed away from the hole and started back down the road. But unbeknownst to him, Old Burr-Snake had already seen him. And Old Burr-Snake convinces the calling out, Burr-Pah! Burr-Snake must have seen it in me. What you reckon he won't? Where Old Burr-Possum's kind heart took him back to that hole to see what Old Burr-Snake wanted. Burr-Snake, was that you were calling me? What you won't? Old Burr-Snake replied, I've been down in this hole a mighty long time. And this brick on my back is a chip. Won't you kindly come down and take this brick off in my back? Burr-Snake, uh, Burr-Snake, no, I will not get down in that hole and take that brick off in your back. You know, and I know, if I were to get down in that hole and start to lift that brick off in your back, you wouldn't do nothing but bite me, show nothing. Maybe not. Maybe not. And that concludes my proportion from Burr-Possum's dilemma. It gives you a good idea of how that story flows. And now I would like to share with you one of the audience participation numbers from my show. There are two audience participation numbers. One is a story and one is a very well known spiritual. Swing low, sweet chariot. Now this spiritual was once considered the most beloved spiritual in the world. It is the song of a dying slave. But it is a joyous song because the slave is looking forward to being relieved of the trials and tribulations of a cruel and brutal world. So the chariot in this song is very sweet indeed. I'm going to use my instrument here, a pitch pipe to get my note. I'll sit down. Thank you very much, Lellingbee. We enjoyed that very much. I would now like to feature Terry Turner. Terry Turner is a professor at Yuba Community College in Woodland, and he will be talking to us today about the African American, about Black History Month and the African American diaspora and how art can be used to tell a historical story about the African American experience. Can you tell us, give us some overview of what your feelings are about how paintings can tell the story of the history of African Americans? Well, paintings have been part of the experience of all people in Western society, particularly African Americans and diaspora, as in slavery sort of encompassed of who we are in the United States. A little as it's known, but African American artists have been working since they stepped foot in this country, and much of the art that was done during slavery times, a lot of it was done by African Americans quilting, a lot of the architecture, sculpture, metalwork and many things like that. Well, this work is transpired through generations to present, and we, myself and people even following me in the process of my son and many others. Art has been a way for us to express ourselves, just like we have here in storytelling. We use it in terms of a visual narrative and discussion of our families and our expression of gender, all of the different questions that we may have with each other and the community in modern times. Do you suppose people, particularly African Americans, in an artistic expression, utilize this as a tool for healing? Would you like to talk about that? What kinds of representation do you see in works of others? And I know that you do artwork yourself, and we can talk about that a little bit later. What kinds of expressions do you see, or what kind of feelings do you get when you view the works of African Americans in terms of suffrage and where we were then and what we've come to now? Well, in looking at the work, you can always get assessed through the imagery, through the use of color, textures, of how people felt, how they felt and bondaged, and how they felt in their own freedom. Art acknowledges a particular freedom that you have no matter what. So an artist has a general freedom that is innate in just the process of doing it. So African American artists have always used that in order to have that freedom, whether there was a historically say in bondage or whatever it may be, we're always have been free through the art. And I think you used the word healing. Yes. Yeah, it allows us that opportunity to heal. And I think about you find a, through the process of art, we found ways to do spiritual renewal, maybe not religious in a classical sense, but a spiritual sense of renewal. I always remember the story that my great-grandmother told me that God is in the water and the trees and the sun and every human being, you know? I mean, often we hear stories of looking for God or something out there, and she told me, no, it's here and everything. And it's not in buildings or in books, it's in people and life itself. And the energy and you can express that in art. A lot of the early artists were landscape painters, and I believe that's a lot of the reason for doing so. And Van Aker and many others that I've seen. And they have been the people that has impressed me the most. And using the landscape as a quilt, and that we are on and keeps us warm and also that we are part of and project the art through that. Okay. Let's take a look at some of your paintings. Can you tell us, before we look at these clips, what inspires you to paint and specifically the works we're about to look at? Well, what inspires me to paint is a lot of, it's my way to find my own personal freedom and expression that my life is pretty impacted with things throughout the day and the week with social issues and community issues and being a teacher. But my art allows me the time to see who Terry is and find that expression, which I can't do otherwise. I can find a quiet, peaceful time within that and be able to develop these things and that's what I do. Okay. Okay. So what do we have here? Can you tell us a little bit about this piece when you created it? What types of materials you used and what propelled you to create this work of art? And what is it titled? It's called the Blue Hole. This is actually after another painting called the Blue Hole in the Little Miami, which is in the Cincinnati at the museum there. My mother, I'm from Cincinnati and my mother used to take me to the museum. We'd go downtown and go shopping at pennies and head off to the museum and so I was a pretty lucky kid. The museum wasn't far from me in my neighborhood and so we would go there and I remember this painting. What types of materials did you use here? Oh, this is acrylic on canvas and it's a pretty large canvas and it's an acrylic paint. Okay. How about if we look at another one? What's this one titled? We are not afraid. I was working on this. I had been working on a mural in Oakland, a friend of mine, Judy Hauke, and we worked together. My son and this young lady here last name is Holmes, Charles Holmes' daughter, Meredith. We worked on this down there and afterwards I needed something to work and get back into this. So I used that face in the back, sort of Madonna as a projection into this and I also like to use collage material and so forth. So I collage images of family and history and other things out of my experience into these things. And how about that figure in the forefront there? Is that a figure of somebody looking on? That's two figures. Two figures. Sort of holding on to the suggestion of it takes as unity, it takes two people to really be not afraid. You can't be, you know, I believe that it takes, there's always two. I don't really see finding, I just think that human being and myself, all of us, we need two in some way to work. It's either me and the community, me and the audience or me and something. So that's what I use that as an image that they are faceless and they're just two human figures that I've painted with a bird as well. Okay. All right, we're ready to look at another one. Did you have another picture, another painting for us to look at? Yeah, there's this one. Okay, what's this? This one's called At One Met. I took it out of a book, they were talking about atonement and I changed it to a one that, to be at one with stuff. And this again, I used the images of a well-seeing, you know, the biblical well. I don't know why I came to this, but I sort of made this well and this water was frothing and I thought at one point that I should smooth it up and I left it in a frothing way. And then again, I put symbols in there of Africa and I believe there's my son in there and my grandson and some other images in there. It's my way to introduce my son and everybody to my family. What about the green shrubbery there? Is there any special signification there? Well, I grew up in Ohio where we have a lot of green shrubbery around and it always makes me feel at home. And it's sort of like a womb, a comfort zone. And so I sort of go in there and I like to work with the vegetation of the shrubbery. And also I always thought water and shrubbery always smells good. So it's my way to do that. Can you tell us how you employ artistic representation with regard to freedom in your work that you do at Yuba Community College as a professor? What kind of guidance would you give students in terms of expressing themselves as free individuals? Well, I tell them the first step I think is to not make opinions or make an idea of what they think something should be but allow it to be what it is and just go there because I believe that our opinions limit us and try and exploring and finding our visions or finding out new things that we can go to. And I think art is a process of exploration like life and that's what I try to tell. And in closing, in terms of Black History Month, what do you think is the most significant contribution artistically individuals can make? What would your recommendation be for a cultural expression given that it's Black History Month? What? Visual art? Yeah, visual art. Oh, I think that it's a way that encapsulates our present and our past and it's a way of recording it and I think that it's to be a visual historian is a wonderful thing to do. I mean, it's something that lasts at least as long as a painting lasts and maybe nothing is permanent but the idea that at least you can do something and art is less abstract than writing in a sense. You know, it's more primal and so you can really do that and a lot of people can do that if allowing themselves to do that. Go there. Okay, well thank you very much for sharing your artistic thoughts with us, Professor Terry Turner. I would now like to turn back to Lelling Bee Boys for another story. This one is titled No More Auction Block. Would you like to give us an introduction to the story? Okay. This is really a song and in my program I present two versions of No More Auction Block for me. Now, the most frequently heard version is very slow and that was the one I initially heard but the one I'd like to share with you is one that arose before the slower quieter one arose. It was sung as a marching song by freed slaves who had joined up with union forces. It was a song of triumph so I'll give you a brief taste of No More Auction Block for me as a marching song. Following emancipation we had the reconstruction era and out of that era that marching song you just heard became a slow mournful statement. But I will sit down now. Thank you. Okay Terry, can you tell us a little bit more about what Black History Month means to you? Do you have any family traditions or have you been to any events in the Davis community lately surrounding the celebration of Black History Month? Well, actually I haven't, except I did go to the exhibition that they had in Sacramento. I think it's still going on. The one that's an exhibition of African American art that goes over two centuries and that's a pretty beautiful show and beside the one that I did, but much smaller than that in scale. But ideally I haven't done very much. This is my first thing that I've done and most of the time I've been working and celebrating Black History Month by teaching people and doing that is my expression. Why don't you tell us about your show. You have an art show that's showing at the Woodland Community College Library on Gibson Road. What types of works do you have on display there? Well, the three pieces that we've shown here and several others they're all that sort of thing. My paintings have been for the past 25 or years or more have been visual narratives on this landscape, which I consider a quilt, so to speak. And that's what they're about. So they're about that issue and being able to explore all of our gifts and being able to explore the wholeness and richness of a culture which gets unsaid except for once a year during this month. So I'm always happy to do that and I've always enjoyed February because it's a time that I can express and share. But I believe in multiculturalism so I have this opportunity by teaching at a community college that I can impuse my classes for 25 years with this stuff all the time. So I celebrate African American History Month all my life and every day and that's what I do. Well, thank you very much. Can I share some words? Yes, please do. I caught a show this past weekend that was a delightful surprise. It appears we have in Davis, in residence at the University in the Music Department, one of the rising young piano stars in the United States. And she was part of a Black History celebration. Her name is Lara Downs and she was the lead performer in a program called I Too Sing America which gave some of the writings of the Harlem Renaissance set to music and there were two other very distinguished musicians who came in for the program. But I would also like to add that I will be performing again this week, February 22nd, 3.30 p.m. at the Davis Senior Center and everyone's welcome, you don't have to be a senior to come. Well, thank you very much. Will this be the Rock of My Soul program? Yes, it will be the Rock of My Soul, a celebration of African American spirituals and folk dance. And you'll get the full show on Thursday, not just excerpts. Well, thank you so much for sharing that with us. I'd like to turn it back to you, Terry, a little bit more about Black History Month. Have you ever taught any African American History classes in your curriculum in high school or at the community college level or what sorts of cultural materials and topics do you insert? I know I've taken one of your classes at Yuba Community College. It seemed like the program that you offered there was very culturally rich. How do you insert African American culture in your curriculum at the community college level now? Well, how I do that is I insert things through literature, music, visual art and just general history. And I like to express sort of political and economic discussions in my humanities classes. Also, I get to share them sometimes personal issues that I've had. My family were musicians and poets as well. And so I've had all of that. I'm able to share a lot of that with them. But years ago, when I first started teaching, I taught at the Experimental College at the university and I think I taught at the first African American History class at UC Davis or in this community. So I did that. And I've been infusing and working these things as much as possible. But I'd like to try to, in doing so, I evoke a lot of different cultures in that because in the history of Langston-Jews, who they traveled all over the world and down through Mexico and Central America and Africa and Europe, I've traveled there as well. So I'm able to share some of these things with them and do that. I think some of the richest things I ever found was down on the Atlantic coast in Guatemala and El Salvador. African culture is still in there in beautiful ways. I'm able to share that with students and pictures of the art and discussions in terms of discussing Western art and humanities. How about in the student organizations? I know that at Yuba College I was in the Black Student Union. Was that still active at the Yuba Community College? No, it's not very active right now. We've been having a struggle. It's somewhat active in Marysville, but in Woodland it's pretty, it's gotten, I would like to see it grow. It's not, we used to have a director, Mary Ann Shivers, who helped keep that sort of thing alive. And she's now in Marysville, so I don't have any support much for doing that. At least that help, I have support. But teaching six classes makes it a little difficult. I need some students to help me. That would be ideal and often we do. But we're getting together African American experience and education. And so we're developing that within the whole district and trying to bring students to faculty and staff and involve them in that process. As a relative newcomer to this area, I'm curious about what percent of the school population at your school is Black? Well, that's a big question, probably one percent or so, especially in this growing. That's more African American people who are moving into this area, from the Bay Area. We're also getting African students from Africa and African Americans who just come around and they're now deciding to go to the community colleges growing. But Woodland and Davis hasn't fostered that kind of climate very well, but it's getting better. And Marysville had Beale Air Base up there, so there was more African Americans because of the Air Force Base. And as you know, going north of there gets a little thin for African Americans, so we don't have very much people. It's been difficult in terms of that, but we would like to foster more. No percentages have good points and bad points. I remember when I went to UCB, we were very low. But every time a Black person saw me, I was greeted so warmly, it was a wonderful kind of fraternity at the time. Well, there's that. The students treat me warmly over there because I'm the only African American instructor in the entire district, so I get a warm reception. Okay. Well, thank you so much, both of you. Professor Terry Turner and singer and storyteller, Lelling B. Voice, for joining us on the Get the Word Out program tonight's theme being Black History Month. My name is Lisa Thomas. Thank you for joining us. Good night.