The World House Choir joins the Yellow Springs Community to celebrate the courage, tenacity and activism of Dr. Martin Luther King on Monday January 15 at the John Bryan Community Center, 100 Dayton Street in Yellow Springs at 11 AM. 

The Yellow Springs MLK Day organizing committee in choosing to call this year’s program “The Courage to Take a Stand” summons us to wake up, find our voice and stand up/show up for our democracy and for the least of us. 

As part of the day’s program, the World House Choir will sing an arrangement of the beloved African-American spiritual, “Oh, Freedom.” We’ll also perform Roland Carter’s setting of the anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” composed in 1900 by brothers J. Rosemond and James Weldon Johnson. The Carter arrangement is by turns majestic, thoughtful and dramatic with dynamic tempo changes and rich harmonies. We will ask the audience to stand and sing the first verse along with us.

Tenor soloist Christopher G. Smith joins the World House to sing “City Called Heaven,” a gospel hymn. And much to our delight, we welcome our Police Chief, Brian Carlson to join us by singing the solo in the rousing, “I’ll Make the Difference.”