Afterschool program uplifting Chicago students' voices through music

Yahoo

21-02-2025

(NewsNation) — A group of Chicago students are lending their voices to honor Black History Month and learning about the significance of Black culture along the way.
Change, power and resilience — that's the message these young voices are spotlighting while coming together to represent Africana music and culture.
Uniting Voices Chicago is an afterschool program made up of 3,000 students across 88 Chicago public schools who perform free public shows at the Chicago Symphony Center.
Lincoln Park High School student Daelyn Calloway is one of the voices involved.
'Singing songs like this is really exciting because I get to learn more about my culture personally and things that I wouldn't learn about in school about key songs in history, and seeing people gather together is so exciting, seeing stuff that has to do with me,' Calloway told 'Morning in America.'
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The group's annual Black Futures Concert series, titled 'Afrofuturism: The Freedom Metropolis,' takes the audience through a journey of Black history, led by conductor Lonnie Norwood.
'We are putting forth the people, the civilization, the ways of knowing, the practices, the momentum. And the memory of those things make us tell their story the way that it's intended to be told,' Norwood said.
The show features various genres of music and includes songs such as the 'Black National Anthem' and 'Swing Low.'
During the show, the audience is introduced to the character Kendrick and his dream world, where he explores and finds healing through Afrofuturism.
Uniting Voices Chicago has been performing for more than 60 years, and Norwood said the group takes pride in knowing diversity still plays a present role in its mission.
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'It was intentional to bring people of diverse backgrounds together to show those adults in the world who didn't know how to live together in harmony,' Norwood said.
He said he is excited for the program to grow further and for the impact it will have on generations to come.
'This is really a love letter to the students to let them know that you have the ability right now — not later, but now — to start making real change in your world,' Norwood said. 'You have to start using your imagination and tapping into it. Start being critical thinkers. And we want to just challenge them to see the world first that they want to live in and then just make it happen.'
That message has resonated with its students.
'You see young people coming together as one, not caring about anything else, just about music, and I think that's really important,' Calloway, 16, said. 'And if kids can do it, what can the adults do?'
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