Eye On Gospel
8y MARGARE T MANSF IELD
of
h ve come out and hav not b en
afraid to move toward change.
And I think that' p itive." While
thi may plea e Winans, what ure­
ly doe n't plea e him is the trend
toward ecular companie buying
into gospel.
"Here are the people that eem­
ingly scorned the Winans ... said we
were too ecular and were selling
out the gospel. Now because
th y're able to make mon y, and
maybe orne have the purpo e of
wider distribution, but certainly
that is not the cenario with mo t
gospel labels."
is biggest fear, of course, is
obvious. "Go pel mu ic ... the
go pel industry must be in the
hands of those who feel a calling to
the gospel. If there's no allegiance
to the gospel...if you are not totally
committed to promulgating the
go pel, it all is a business move."
These daySfODO oftW' o'
When uperproducers Jimmy Jam
and Terry Lewi et about the busi­
ness of building their own label, they
looked for groups who e musical
creativity reflected the essence of
what they tood for. They didn't
have to look far to find the potential
for success.
The Sounds of Blackne s, the very
first act to have had an album released
on Perspective Records, is a 40 mem­
ber vocal and instrumental ensemble
tha I. h l been the toast of
Minneapolis' thriving recording
scene for background sessi-ns and
their elaborately-staged mus.cals for
some time.
Wl�.· A,Choir .! ,'" ,
his Detroit-based Perfected Praise
Church grew from eight members
to well over 1,300. Winans waited
16 months before even forming a
choir at his Detroit-based church.
Relea ed last month, the choir is
now winding its way up tho gospel
charts. His secret?
"Well, we did something that
was kind of unheard offor a church
choir. First of all, you had to .be a
member of the church. Then you
had to be auditioned." Not urpris­
ingly, much of the material is the
inspired testimonies of his mem­
bers.
A fact he prides himself on.
"After working with the choir," he
says, "it was time to hare the
songs we sing on Sunday with the
world."
RELIGION
7
Sounds of Blackness are the talk of
the nation and parts of the world.
Since their formal introduction to
the world of popular music through
their debut release, Th Evolution of
Gospel, the group has wona Grammy
Award for Best Gospel Album,
received nominations for numerous
honors including Stellar, Image and
Soul Train Award, recorded with
legendary producer Quincy Jones on
the upcoming release, Handel's Mes­
siah-A Soulful Celebration and
hared in the success of the Perspec­
tive soundtrack Mo' Money with
their slammin' tune "Joy".
THE SOUNDS' SPECIAL
The Sounds Of Blackness .
lions through live performances in
venues all over the world, from New
York's historic Apollo Theatre to the
tradi tionall y Black colle ges in U.S. to
the Sonesta Koppel in the The
Netherlands, to. the Greenbelt Fes­
tival in London, to Washington's
Smithsonian Institute and as the
opening act for R&B great Luther
Vandross on the successful "Power­
ful of Love" tour.
The Sounds have given featured
performances on such popular
television shows as The Tonight
Show, The Arsenio Hall Show, The
Today Show, CNN and as a special
guest of Luther Vandross and Aretha
Franklin on the 1991 Grammy
Awards Show.
It is hard to cl ify The Sounds of
Blackness, and lock them away in a
neat little niche. They defy limitation
in both sound and cope. The Gram­
my Award winning debut album, The
Evolution of Gospel, is on the line of
a concept album, definitive of why
the group was the first to be igned to
Perspective.
Their current release, The Night
Before Christmas ... A Musical Fan­
tasy, a comical Black adaptation of
the classi poem, is exemplary of the
musical tenet of the group-the
celebration and utilization of the en­
tire spectrum of African-American
muslc=gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm
& blues, rock & roll, rap and funk.
"We grew up Ii tening to The
ounds," ay Jimmy Jam. "They
typify what the lab I i all about- ,
diversity and arti try."
Indeed, Jam & Lewis have intro- .
duced the bigge t group to hit the
music world in recent years. By
sheer numbers alone--30 vocali ts
and a ten-piece orchestra, the group .
is staggering in its proportions and .
just as awe orne in its cope.
ental nine
ha arning Ign • too.
For a free bookl
bout mental llln • call :
1-800-969-NMHA.
Learn to ee the warntnc IICn •.
omen w, 0 01ler urnea rae
'That'S why we were put h
"ll"W:
II '
re
By A�NE GEARAN
A •• ocl.tfJd PI ••• Wrlt.r
SPARTA, V • (AP) - On a warm
night when she was a new bride of 17,
Mildred Loving awoke in terror to a
sheriff standing over her bed. Her
crime? She was a black woman mar­
ried to it white man.
That night marked the beginning
of a legal battle that led to the
_ Supreme Court's rejection 25 years
ago of alll�ws forbidding Interracial'
marriage.
"I believe that's why we were put
here," Mrs. Loving says softly.
"That's why we were married."
But in 1958, Mildred Jeter and
Richard Loving were simply a young
couple in love who wanted to become
husband and wife. "I didn't know it
was against any law. We were just
happy to be together," she said.
Billy Pre ton i ordered into a
drug rehab: A Superior court
judge in Santa Monica handed
former gospel tar Billy Preston a
uspended jail entence while or­
dering him to move into a drug
rehabilitation facility. This stem­
ming from charges that he attacked
and made sexual advances on a
teenage • oy in 1991.
. The 46-year-old Preston was to
begin his nine-month lockup rehab
program mmediately. Addition­
ally, Preston received five-years
probation during which he'll un­
dergo periodic drug te ting and
psychiatric care.
HER HUSBAND-TO-BE may
have known about Virginia's anti­
miscegenation, or race-mixing, law,
but he said nothing. She didn't ask
him why they traveled 80 miles from
Caroline County to Washington,
. D.C., to man).
"We weren't out to change noth­
ing, ',: she said.
But the marriage of the pretty,
slim woman and the shy, gangly
bricklayer changed everything. It put
them in jail. It forced them to leave
the hilly countryside near some of the
storied battlefields of a war .over race
fought a century before. And, in
1967, it resulted in a ruling that over­
turned one of the last legal struts to
racism and egregation in Virginia
and 15 other states.
"It wa taken for granted before
1954 and never questioned," said
Erwi n Griswold, former dean of Har­
vard University Law School and U.S.
solicitor general from 1967 to 1973.
"It wa all part of the Jim Crow pat­
tern in force throughout the South."
The prosecutor, who did ot take
part in the case, ,said the law served
Briefly: Those joining the star-
tudded cast of the Winans upcom­
ing go pel Christmas special, were
Levert, Glady Knight, Kenny
Loggins, Edward Jame Olmo,
Michael McDonald, and Sinbad.
The how i lated for broadcast
omeume next month. We'll have
more detail justa oon as they are
available.
This week's cripture: "To love
him with all your heart, with all
your understanding and with all
your trength; and to lov your
neighbor as your elf is more im­
portant than all burnt offerings
and sacrifices, " -Mark 12:33.
after the wedding. Three officers in Alexandria, Va., so they met at the
came to the house and woke the �CLU office in Washington.
couple at 2 a.m. "I couldn't believe it," Cohen
said. "I knew it was going to be a
landmark case. I knew it was going to
the Supreme Court. And I definitely
thought there was something seren­
dipitous about the fact that the case
would be called Loving vs. the Com­
monwealth of Virginia.' ,
Co-hen sued Virginia under an
obscure law that allowed him to chal­
. lenge the Lovings' conviction even
THEY WERE CHARGED though they had never appealed.
under the 1922 anti-miscegenation
law that stated: "If any white person
intermarry with a colored person, or
any colored person intermarry with a
white person, he shall be guilty of a
felony." Punishment was �ne to five
years in prison.
"It does seem incredible now,"
said Bern rei Cohen, who was a 33-
year-Old lawyer just starting his prac­
tice when he took the Lovings' case
for free in 1964.
That was long after Mildred and
Richard Loving were convicted and
sentenced to a year in prison.
The judge suspended the sentence
on the condition the couple leave the
state, but told them: "Almighty God
created the races white, black, yel­
low, Malay and red, and he placed
them on separate continents. And but
for the interference. with his arrange-
IN RURAL CAROLINE Coun- ment there would be no cause for
ty in the 1950s, blacks and whites such marriages. The fact that he
socialized frequently, although separated the races showed that he
school and churches were strictly did not intend for the races to mix."
segregated. . The Lovings spent several unhap-
Mrs. Loving knew her husband py years in a cramped apartment in
from childhood. Richard Loving Washington, unable to travel to Vir­
began courting her when she was 11 ginia together for visits.
and he would come to her family' In 1964, Mildred Loving wrote to
farmhouse to hear her seven brothers Attorney General Robert Kennedy,
play "hillbilly music." asking if the just-pas ed Civil Rights
No one in their tight-knit corn-: . Act wou�d help them return home.
munity gave them any trouble or She received a personal reply. No,
voiced objections to their plans to Kennedy wrote, the law would not
marry. Mrs. Loving said. "But we apply .. But h� �rg� he� to co�tact the
had one enemy, I gues ." she said. Arnencan CIVil Libertie Uruon.
That anonymous enemy was the per- The Lovings were afraid to cro
on who called authorities a month the Potomac River to Cohen's office
the same public interests as those bar­
ring polygamy and incest. "It
seemed to me and others who were
then working before the Supreme
Court that it was a natural and in­
evitable development," Griswold
said.
MILDRED LOVING IS alone
now; the marriage that entered her
name in law school textbooks ended
in 1975 when a drunken driver broad­
sided the couple's car, killing her
husband.
She lives quietly in the small
cinderblock house Loving built for
his wife and three children after the
Supreme Court declsion allowed
them toreturn to Virginia.
At 52, Mrs. Loving is hobbled by
arthritis and rarely ventures more
than a few miles from the tiny town
where she and Loving grew up. She
thinks of the case only rarely, and it
is rarer still that anyone mentions it to
her. Her grandchildren have heard 'the
story hundreds of times, but she's not
sure they can really understand it.
"It's history," she said. "It's all
different now from how it was then. ' ,
Then, the Lovings were the only
black-white married couple they
knew. Now, there are about 231,000
such couples in the United States,
according to Census data.
"I was scared to death," Mrs.
Loving said.
With the flood of a flashlight full
on their faces, the officers demanded
that Richard Loving identify the
woman lying beside him.
"At first, he didn't say anything.
So I spoke up. I said I was his wife,"
Mrs. Loving said.
The case bounced back and forth
between state and federal courts for
several years, before the Virginia
Supreme Court ruled the law valid.
Before arguing the case before the
U.S. Supreme Court, Cohen said be .
tried to explain to Richard Loving the
legal doctrines he would use.
"He was very country, sort of .
rough," Cohen said. "He just aid,
'Tell them I don't understand why if
a man loves a woman he can't marry
her no matter what her color."
Anniversary
Celebration
Greater Grace's 25th anniversary
will be held November 13th thru the
15th. Friday, the guest speaker will
be Elder Walter Abernathy. Satur­
day there will be a prayer breakfast
at 9:30 a.m. and tickets are $5. Sun­
day at 5 p.m. there will b a concert
featuring the Bishop Choir and th
Male Choir. For more information
call·342-2300 .
Flea Market
Blessed Sacrament Al tar Society
presents a flea market November 14,
at 10 a.m. The flea market will be
held at 150 Belmont at John R. For
more information contact Ruby
Davis at 869-7543.
Hartford Memorial
Baptist Church' 20th
Annual Bazar
During the 75th anniversary of the
church. Hartford would like to wel- .
come all membe and friends to I
th ir 20th annual hazar, Saturday,
November 14 beginning at 10 a.m.
The event will b held at the Fellow­
ship Hall. For more information call '.
861 .. 1300.
i¥t., � Hollywood Fashion
'.. Gospel Hours
W.C.H.B. 1200 AM -7:00 a.m. - 11 :00 a.m.
Every Sunday Morning
----
894-8774
298-6333
298-6334 .
298-6335
Henry Ruff Rd.
Inkster I Mich.
Rev. Wilmore Allen
Rev. A.J. Rogers
Joe Ella Ukely
Catherine Robinson
Gloria Parker
Lorraine Walker
Bro. Dunkin