The Sunday morning of Sept.
15, 1963 was Youth Day at the
16th Street Baptist Church in
Birmingham, Ala. Dr. Sarah Col-
lins Rudolph described it as a
joyous morning buzzing with
excitement and children’s laugh-
ter as she and four other little
girls went to the basement of the
church to freshen up. These four
little girls were her sister, Addie
Mae Collins, and best friends
Denise McNair, Carole Robert-
son and Cynthia Wesley. While
down in that basement of a place
that was meant to be safe and
sacred, Rudolph recalls hearing
a “big BOOM.” She called out for
her sister Addie Mae again and
again to no response, then every-
thing went black.
It was only days later while
recovering in the hospital, now
blind in her left eye, that Rudolph
was informed that she was car-
ried out of that basement through
the hole left by the bomb by a
bishop as the only survivor. The
lives of her sister Addie Mae and
friends Denise, Carole and Cyn-
thia were taken that day due to a
hateful attack by four members
of the Ku Klux Klan. The city of
Birmingham, Ala. was forever
changed as a resurgence of pro-
tests and strikes broke out.
This was the scene portrayed
in a powerful dance performed by
“Music, Theatre & Dance senior
Brooke Taylor and members of
the Black Scholars in Dance orga-
nization titled “For the Five.”
Audience members were frozen
in their seats as Music, Theatre
& Dance sophomore Nile Andah
provided vocals, accompanied by
LSA senior Favour Kerobo on the
piano, began to sing “Pass me not,
O gentle Savior / Hear my humble
cry / While on others Thou art
calling / Do not pass me by” and
the five women on stage danced
the sentiments of that horrid day
in Birmingham, Ala.
The mood of the piece con-
tinuously shifted from childlike
joy and innocence to sorrow and
loss. Taylor, at various points,
seemed to lose herself in the
playfulness of each girl’s dance,
whether that be through laughter
or skipping or swinging hand in
hand until she was dragged back
into the harsh reality of what had
happened and the tears on stage
were more than real.
The final scene of this perfor-
mance still holds residence in my
mind. Four dancers all dressed
in white (representing the four
girls that were murdered) wave
goodbye to Taylor, who was rep-
resenting Sarah Collins Rudolph,
as the chorus of the hymn “Pass
Me Not, O Gentle Savior” bellows
over the room. As the lights cut
out at the end of the number, the
room is silent except for sounds
of sniffling. Even backstage,
where I was located, the other
performers could not help them-
selves from crying.
The final scene of this perfor-
mance still holds residence in my
mind. Four dancers all dressed
in white (representing the four
girls that were murdered) wave
goodbye to Taylor, who was rep-
resenting Sarah Collins Rudolph,
as the chorus of the hymn “Pass
Me Not, O Gentle Savior” bellows
over the room. As the lights cut
out at the end of the number, the
room is silent except for sounds
of sniffling. Even backstage,
where I was located, the other
performers could not help them-
selves from crying.
Thus, “An Evening for Sarah:
A concert in honor of the civil
rights activist and survivor of the
16th Street Baptist Church bomb-
ing, Sarah Collins Rudolph” came
to fruition.
To start the evening off, U-M
dance professor Robin Wilson
cleared the space through an
African derived ritual called
“Libations,” where one pours
water into a plant as they honor
and recognize their ancestors
before them.
“This libation, this pouring of
water into the earth, is a way to
clear the space, to cool our hearts,
to open our minds,” Wilson said.
Throughout the libations, Mar-
wan Amen-Ra played the drums
and audience members called
out the names of lash dewanoved
ones who have passed. All to the
sound of a resounding Asé.
Following the “For the Five”
dance tribute, I performed a poem
entitled “A Poem for Sarah.” This
poem was dedicated to the young
Sarah Collins and all the other
former Black girls in the room
who were forced to grow up way
before they should have needed
to. I was incredibly grateful for
this opportunity to share my
words with a Civil Rights activ-
ist and survivor, and I didn’t take
that opportunity lightly but I was
also writing for me. I was writ-
ing for the little Black girl that
I used to be who needed to hear
the words “You’re Beautiful” and
“I’m Sorry.” While on that stage,
it felt like it was just me and Mrs.
Rudolph, like we were two Black
girls who understood each other.
At the culmination of the
concert, the Black Scholars in
Dance organization recognized
Rudolph once again. Taylor, the
organization’s founder, present-
ed her with an award that said,
“We honor you as a hero, whose
voice was once silenced, but now
was heard and inspires a whole
new generation.”
Then, Rudolph sat down for
a question and answer session.
During this time, she recounted
the day of the bombing and the
events to follow. As an audience
member myself, I hung on to her
each and every word.
She recalled holding a lot of
anger in her heart in the years
following the death of her sister
and friends and the loss of her
eye. She was not given any coun-
seling before being sent back to
school. She has Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder and would “freak
out” whenever she heard a loud
noise. This PTSD would ulti-
mately stop her from pursuing
her dream of nursing school. To
this day, she still has not received
restitution from the state of Ala-
bama. To make matters worse, it
took 39 years for all of the men
responsible for the 16th Street
Baptist Church bombing to be
prosecuted and held responsible
for their crimes.
Yet, through her words and
responses
to
people’s
ques-
tions, it was beyond evident how
important Rudolph’s faith in
God was in her journey, a faith
that eventually led her to forgive
the men that did this to her. She
spoke about how the anger she
was holding felt like a sickness
in her body and that she couldn’t
continue holding onto that much
hatred, for her own sake. It
wasn’t until she was prayed over
at a church service years later
that she felt free of that burden of
hate and the weight of the anger
in her heart. She believes that it
was God’s plan for her to survive
and be a testimony of what hap-
pened that morning of Sept. 15
1963.
It was also during this ques-
tion and answer session that a
representative of Oakland Uni-
versity announced that there
will soon be a nursing scholar-
ship in honor of Rudolph.
The evening was a moment
in Black History that was more
than needed on this campus. It
truly exemplified the intersec-
tion between art and activism. I
am more than honored to have
been a part of it, and I am more
than grateful for artivists like
Brooke Taylor. I have never met
someone just as committed to
their art as they are to social jus-
tice and Black remembrance. She
is truly a community builder if
I’ve ever met one.
“I consider myself an artivist,
which is an artist and an activ-
ist,” Taylor said. “I think that
means that whatever I do, when
I’m creating art, I strive to tell
a story and to really intersect
activism with my art…I wanted
to do my last year at the Universi-
ty of Michigan right by honoring
a Civil Rights Hero and survivor
of a bombing that many people
aren’t aware about and they defi-
nitely should be.”
Michigan in Color
Wednesday, March 8, 2023 — 7
An evening for Sarah
SARAH OGUNTOMILADE &
AKASH DEWAN
MiC Senior Editor &
MiC Head of Photography
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
When we are done (Ctrl. X&V)
Shut the door. The mirror beckons.
Wait for it to get humid,
And steep the Selves like tea,
shed the sanctions, the shirts, and whisper,
We’ve grown up hiding and lying,
riding and flying,
and drifting between living and dying.
We of yellowed skin and a temperament for Ambition;
an affliction that tilts the world to slipping, missing, hating
but searching for the firm grasp of My mother’s arms.
When we are done cutting and pasting,
we bathe in the extremes.
An exorbitant amount of shampoo
and dangerously hot water will
slough away any shame.
We are full of ourselves and humbled
by celebrating the depth of the graves
of which we’ve so gracefully created.
We of hidden lunchboxes and a spectrum of voices,
this delicate dance that we’ve devised,
when we’re not all made to be dancers.
When we are done cutting and pasting,
a little too much soap can bathe it all away,
scalding hot water will boil away mistakes,
a little extra scrubbing, sting,
can mask red marks with smiles.
We are larger than whole in pieces,
jumping from place to place,
and staring at Faults in the face.
We who are void of and saturated in talent,
in masses liability grasped in our hands,
maybe we’ve trapped ourselves by the fingers
and the mouths.
When we are done cutting and pasting,
a lot of everything,
soap, temperature, tears,
is still not enough to fill the chunks we’ve cut from flesh
and a little bit of everything,
is yet always a tightening leash.
When we are done cutting and pasting,
we will still be hiding and lying,
riding and flying,
and remaining restlessly
somewhere between living and dying.
So the mirror doesn’t matter,
since the door shuts in the steam.
ALICE HB LEE
MiC Columnist
Design by Tamara Turner
AKASH DEWAN/Daily