In low voices, the audience began singing, “We are climbing Jacob’s ladder.”
On a stage, the character of Deacon A. L. Wiley, an African-American man living in the Los Angeles boom town of 1904, had been telling them a story.
“I recall there’s a man,” he said. “He’s been held down in the slave pins, being held with his family waiting to get sold. And there’s other families there, and he called them all together. He said, ‘Come on, we got to pray, we got to pray that they sell us all together as a family.’ They commenced to prayin’.”
Wiley, played by Emmy-award winner GregAlan Williams, is the sole character in the play The Life and Times of Deacon A.L. Wiley, which he wrote based on the experiences of 19th century Africans-Americans. The play received the Black Film Makers Hall of Fame Winning Masterpiece Award.
On May 13 and 14, Williams, known for his roles in the films In the Line of Fire and Remember the Titans, will take the stage at Harris-Stowe State University’s Emerson Theater.
The production celebrates the stories from elders, all hewn from actual Library of Congress documents. So it’s a fitting production to represent the JOSH Partnership and help raise funds for a collaborative summer program, said Lillian Curlett, executive director of the partnership.
Formed two years ago, the JOSH Partnership includes three non-profit groups working together to provide after-school and summer programs for at-risk African-American students in low-performing schools. The teachers of these programs are all college students, the majority African-American from Harris-Stowe.
“A big piece of who we are came out the black church,” Curlett said. “We are all faith-based. This play is also about life in a black church. And the views of those struggles in a black church are all from one man’s point of view. It’s appropriate that it come to St. Louis.”
In 1993, Curlett helped to found the Jamison Memorial Human Resource and Development Agency. Over the past 10 years, Curlett has collaborated with St. John’s Community Improvement Corporation, which helps teenagers 14 to 16 learn to operate in a business setting. They also have a tutoring component, which aids students in the after-school programs to raise their reading levels, often by two grades.
Jamison Memorial had also been working closely with HopeBUILD a gardening and nutrition program. For the summer program, HopeBUILD works with students to care for the food gardens one day a week, and then teaches about recipes and how to grow their own food.
Since the three groups were already sharing resources, they decided to become a partnership.
“This world is not going to change until we turn around our students,” Curlett said.
The fundraiser will support the partnership’s summer programming, where they aim to serve at least 150 children. The programs are held at St. John’s AME Church and Normandy United Methodist Church.
“I think the play is going to be awesome for the St. Louis audience because of GregAlan,” she said. “There’s power in his presentation, power in his voice. The other side is his interest in helping African-American students and historically black colleges and universities.”
Williams has starred in television shows, such as Baywatch, The West Wing, The Sopranos, The District, City of Angels, The Game, Law and Order and Drop Dead Diva.
In 1992, millions around the world watched him rescue a brutally beaten motorist at the riot-torn intersection of Florence and Normandy in Los Angeles. Williams was honored for his rescue of the Japanese-American motorist who was pulled out of his car and beaten by a mob.
In the play as Deacon A.L. Wiley, Williams finishes his story to the audience by telling them how courageous slaves would come out of their cabins at night and softly sing, “We are climbing Jacob’s ladder.”
“But you ain’t got to sing soft no more,” he told the audience.
The show runs May 13-14 at Harris-Stowe State University’s Emerson Theater, 3026 Laclede Ave. General admission is $35, or $50 for VIP, which includes a reception and meeting with GregAlan Williams after the show. For tickets, call 314-534-1111. For VIP tickets, call Lillian Curlett at 314-269-6450.
