When senior Gabriel Ackall, the jovial host of last Wednesday’s final virtual mic for Black History Month called on the next performer, I sure wasn’t expecting my freshman biology teacher to unmute. A letter at the corner of my screen disappeared, and a small box revealed Ms. Manning at her home piano, a living room mainly consisting of two comfy-looking sofas forming the visibly chill backdrop.
Seriously, Ms. Manning, who had helped me mix chemicals last year, was about to perform for us? The same Ms. Manning who had revealed the wonders of DNA, would in moments be belting out snappy lyrics?
Eagerly I began amping up my laptop’s volume, as waves of sound started floating around my bedroom. And there, on screen, the imaginary turned visionary: Ms. Manning, splitting all molds with her trenchant rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” brought wrenching, richly exquisite vocals to this anthem of Black suffering and endurance. With startling grace and precision, the sweet motherly instructive tone I remembered from last year transformed into a pipe for powerful hymns. Even with Google Meet intermittently cutting out the audio, it was unmistakably clear that Ms. Manning’s pulsating voice and sheer emotional depth were nothing short of glorious.
The chatbox overflowed with this sentiment. Long after she had lifted her hands off the piano, a chorus of compliments kept pouring in.
Again and again, with every performance, a sense of empowerment proved the overwhelming vibe that afternoon. The virtual mic, which encouraged participants to sing, rap, recite poetry or play a favorite instrument, was hosted by the National Achievers Society and Future Advancement for Minority Education (NAS/FAME). Aiming to celebrate one another in the “spirit of unity,” the event aptly questioned in its invite, “What better way to bring us together than by music and movement?”
Indeed, living fully up to its hype, the mic fostered connections seemingly impossible to achieve over the radio waves. While each performance was singular, every performer jived together and embraced one another in an open sky of endless possibilities.
A chief one of those was the representation of teachers as poets, or otherwise vessels of eternal verse. Ms. James kicked off the get-together, which was open to the whole school, with the deeply meditative poem “Fly” by Gary Jackson. Adding to the train of reflective pieces, Mr. Alguire elucidated dreams of freedom and equality with Langston Hughes’ hauntingly resonant “Let America Be America Again.”
And Ms. Berge, after sharing her childhood upbringings as the darkest person in an all-white neighborhood in Columbia, broke up the series of longer poems with a short jewel passed down from her mother. After apologizing for delivering it in Spanish, she was quickly assured (or gently scolded) by Ms. Barnes, “Don’t apologize for using your native tongue!”
Students too who could harness the power of poetry emerged from the event. Senior Richard Yuan, a singer-songwriter, proved a man of multiple talents with an original poem that he had composed in the hours leading up to the meet. Drawing inspiration from the style of political poetry made popular by Amanda Gorman, the typically mellow Yuan was animated by rhymes that shed wit and wisdom on confronting racial and social barriers. In the chat, participants rallied him to “run for president,” while others lauded him as a minister of the moment with tributes like “preach.”
Sophomore Mitra Samei not so much recited as embodied the upfront spirit of Audre Lorde, a self-described “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” with an abridged version of “Afterimages,” which honors the tragic legacy of Emmet Till. Another sophomore, Darya Loiko, introduced the audience to George Moses Horton, the superb Black 19th century poet hailing from Chapel Hill. In a series of quatrains sounding almost like salvations, Loiko took us outdoors with “On Summer,” a colorful poem featuring evocative scenery and creatures. Like several others, she ushered an overlooked poet into the limelight.
In addition to Ms. Manning, the program was richly punctuated by stirring musical acts interspersed among the poems, like senior Ethan Taylor’s soothing piano performance of “Fields of Gold.” A brave and unwavering contributor, performing at every mic since his freshman year, Taylor radiated joy and serenity with chords that rippled from his fingertips.
Freshman Maleah Nelson, another singer-songwriter, lifted us still higher in her original song, “1863,” named for the transformative year in U.S. and African-American history. A racial reckoning through light-footed lyrics is no easy task, yet Nelson’s work was equal to the challenge, dutifully dignifying this monumental date in Black and U.S. history, as well as the nearly eight score years of civil rights milestones since.
The voices that have been on mute all year long and the faces that have been locked into cells each class period shone with outsize positivity and resilience last Wednesday. In a year defined by isolation and uncertainty, a sense of both individuality and community artfully intermixed to illuminate an important message: Even if we’re apart, we’re never alone.
Photo courtesy of Mararie/Flickr
