View all King event photos on Flickr
The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, in conjunction with Black History Month, hosted “King” in celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum. King featured a spoken word piece by playwright/librettist Sandra Seaton, spirituals performed by tenor George Shirley with pianist Stanley Waldon, and special musical tribute by Wally Tett and Daniel Washington.
The performance was underwritten by Foundation Trustee Hank Meijer and Liesel Meijer. They provided opening remarks which included highlighting Gerald R. Ford’s legacy involving Black History Month. Black history awareness was expanded from a week to a month in 1976 during the nation’s bicentennial celebration as President Gerald R. Ford urged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”
King, a mixture of poetry and brief reflections, remembers Reverend King as an individual with human limitations who nevertheless answered the call to leadership. His life serves as a model for all, especially the young, to believe that anything can be achieved with a dream and the will to lead. The work, divided into four sections, “Nobel-man,” “Chicago,” “Bottles and Rocks,” and “Memphis 1968,” takes us on the journey of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as he struggled to bring civil rights to the United States.
Program participant biographies:
SANDRA SEATON is a playwright and librettist. Her plays have been performed in cities throughout the country, including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and her libretto for the song cycle From the Diary of Sally Hemings, set to music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer William Bolcom, has been performed at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. Seaton’s twelve plays include The Bridge Party, set in the WWII South, The Will, a Civil War play, and Music History, about students at the University of Illinois during the Civil Rights era. Her most recent work is Chicago Trilogy, three one-act plays adapted from short stories by Chicago writer Cyrus Colter. King: A Reflection on the Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. premiered at the Wharton Center in East Lansing, Michigan.
GEORGE SHIRLEY is The Joseph Edgar Maddy Distinguished University Emeritus Professor of Music and former Director of the Vocal Arts Division of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance. He has won international acclaim for his performances with the Metropolitan Opera, where he was the first African American tenor to sing leading roles, and with major opera houses and festivals in Europe, Asia, and South America. Mr. Shirley received a Grammy Award for his role (Ferrando) in the RCA record- ing of Mozart’s Cosí Fan Tutte. He has performed more than 80 operatic roles as well as oratorio and recital literature over the span of his 54-year career. George Shirley created the role of “Ford” in Sandra Seaton’s A Chance Meeting at The Arthur Miller Theatre in Ann Arbor in 2009 and the role of “Fritz Smiley” in her play Black for Dinner. George Shirley has starred in Chicago Trilogy and in the 2013 performance of King at the Virgil Carr Center in Detroit.
DANIEL WASHINGTON is Professor of Voice at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, & Dance. He performed the role of Crown in a new production of the opera Porgy and Bess at the Opéra Comique in Paris and at the Grand Theatre de Luxembourg. He also performed concert versions of this American classic with the Berlin Philharmonic and other prominent orchestras. Highlights of his operatic career include his Royal Opera Covent Garden debut in Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, conducted by Bernard Haitink. Washington created the role of Steven Biko in the world premiere of the opera Biko. His many other roles include Wolfram in Tannhäuser , Balthazar in Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, Amonasro in Verdi’s Aida, Jochanaan in Strauss’s Salome, Marcello in La Bohème , Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen, and the title roles in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer and Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
WALLY TETT was born in Detroit, Michigan and moved to Grand Rapids as a child. He is a 22-year veteran of the Grand Rapids Police Department. Wally Tett has performed with multiple R&B and rock groups and is a member of the Resurrection Life Church Choir. He is a husband, a father of four boys and grandfather of two.
STANLEY H. WALDON has provided piano accompaniment for such world-renowned artists as Florence Quivar, George Shirley, Delores Ivory Davis, Janet Williams, Wayne State University (WSU) Men’s Glee Club, the Donald Vails Choraleers, The Rackham Symphony Choir, The Whitfield Company, and the Michigan Technological University Choir. Dr. Waldon has served as the church organist at Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church for 23 years and is currently the director of both the Chancel Choir at Peoples Community Church and the Male Chorus of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church. Among his many awards and recognitions are a Fulbright-Hayes Teaching Fellowship to Zimbabwe; the Alumni Achievement Award presented by the Organization of Black Alumni of WSU, and Distinguished Alumni of the Year at WSU. Presently Stanley Waldon teaches at Wayne State University in the College of Fine and Performing Arts.
