Members of Roosevelt Intermediate School’s Sharps and Flats choral group joined the visiting Newark Boys Chorus in a rendition of the spiritual song “Think of Me” on Friday, February 2, 2018, to kick off the school’s 11th Annual Black History Assembly.
“We are so blessed to have the Newark Boys Chorus sing at our Black History Assembly every year,” said computer technology teacher Pamela Friedman who has been organizing the powerful event since 2007. “They have performed in Washington, D.C. for then president Bill Clinton and in South Africa for the late Nelson Mandela.”
The boys, under the tutelage of music director Donald Morris, lifted their young voices in several songs as Roosevelt students and staff listened appreciatively.
The assembly’s keynote speaker was the Reverend Dr. DeForest B. Soaries, Jr., senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset who told the gathering about two defining moments that “changed my life.” The first, he said, was an encounter with a teacher when he was in sixth grade.
“My teacher said, Buster, (my friends called me Buster), you are going to jail,” said Rev. Soaries. “That indicated to me that she believed I was destined to fail. Those were the days when a lot of things were determined by the color of your skin.”
“Black history says that no matter what people think of you, what matters most is what you think of yourself,” he added.
Soaries said the second defining moment came when two schoolmates who disliked him threw a blueberry pie into his face. The two boys were African-American.
“What that taught me,” he said, “is that meanness and ugliness knows no color and knows no kind.”
The minister quoted his “hero,” the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from his “I Have a Dream” speech about the importance of judging another person “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
“We were able to overcome insurmountable odds because we never walked alone,” said Soaries to students and staff. “And if you have character, you will never walk alone either.”
Before the assembly concluded, Roosevelt assistant principal Brian Gechtman paid tribute to the “amazing voices” of the Newark Boys Chorus with director Morris and the Sharps and Flats chorus with choral directors Sabino Losco and Karen Romero. Gechtman also thanked Friedman for “all of your work behind the scenes” and expressed to keynote speaker Rev. Soaries: “Your words are beyond powerful.”
Photos courtesy of Westfield Public Schools
(above) Members of Roosevelt Intermediate School’s Sharps and Flats chorus joins the Newark Boys Chorus with music director Donald Morris (left) to kick off the 11th Annual Black History Assembly.
(above) The Newark Boys Chorus performs for Roosevelt Intermediate School students and staff at the school’s 11th Annual Black History Assembly.
(above, l-r) Gechtman, Soaries, and Pamela Friedman, teacher and organizer of the event.
