On August 20th, 2019, in the pre-Covid-19 world, many of us saw an amazing and transformative performance created by Faye Carol, Joanna Haigood, Marcus Shelby, Cheo Tyehimba-Taylor, David Goldberg, Kim Euell, Steven Anthony Jones, and Joe Warner. The performance took us from Mother Africa in the 1600s to the present day.
In the intervening seven months, Meher Dhaliwal with pro bono assistance from Gary R. Greenstein from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati has been working to get the rights to the songs used in the performance. Think Sisyphus. We secured the rights for use on August 20th but securing them for use in a video to be housed on our website took a lot longer and more money. Luckily, our friend Henry Hecht made a gift that covers the added expenses.
There was another complication that will be apparent to those of you who were there at the SF Jazz Center. The brilliant video that was projected on the screen at the back of the stage contained a lot of material from various license holders. It was simply too burdensome to locate all the license holders so the filmmaker, Kevin Johnson of NorthStarr Media Group, went back and deleted all that video.
We asked Kevin for a lot during the editing process required by our licensing challenges and we are grateful for his talents and the incredible amount of time he spent.
Despite the edits, the performance is still powerful and painful. We present to you Remembering 1619.
~ Eva Paterson