Pursued by a fleet of state troopers, Olivia White hunched over the steering wheel of the youth choir bus and stepped further onto the gas pedal, pushing 100 mph. The children on the bus huddled together on the floor and found bravery in singing the songs they traveled around the country to perform.
“They were singing, Oh, freedom, Oh freedom over me,” White said. “And before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free.”
The T.Y. Rogers Choir was a group of middle school, high school, and college students who sang and marched for rights throughout the United States. They traveled on buses alongside Martin Luther King to churches, courthouses and other areas to spread their message of equal rights and encourage citizens to vote.
They stayed at Dr. King’s side for over four years until they sang at his funeral.
Who is Olivia White?
Currently in her 80s, White was the piano accompanist and one of the choir’s leaders.
Music has been a cornerstone in White’s life, and she believes the soothing effect of music and its ability to express emotion made the youth choir powerful throughout its ten years of performance.
“I always loved music. My mother said that as a little kid, I used to play about anything that made a noise,” White said.
White began piano lessons in third grade. She continued with the same teacher until tenth grade when the teacher expressed disappointment in her interest in gospel music.
“She was not very pleased with me because she had heard me playing gospel music,” she said. “That was beneath her. She just wanted to sing things that were exactly off the book, more Mozart.”
After becoming deeply interested in James Cleveland’s music, a renowned gospel singer, she began to attend the gospel music workshop of America.
She began playing in her first choir during her teens but this choir ended abruptly when the Ku Klux Klan terrorized the community. A judge forbade the pastor from returning to the church due to his civil rights teachings.
At age 22, while White worked as a cashier and attended nursing school at Shelton State, she was approached on the job by a man representing Reverend Rogers, the civil rights leader in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She agreed to help lead a youth choir with a repertoire of freedom-focused music.
Her Time in the Choir
Participating in the choir came with constant risk. Dr. King and others often arranged for the youth choir to leave first during events to protect the children, yet they still often were chased by state troopers and other officials across state lines.
Despite her bravery in these terrifying situations, White said she experienced many terrifying moments.
“One man was dressed in a National Guard outfit, and others were state troopers. So when you see that show of authority, and you know you’re defying it, if you’re doing something that’s wrong, there’s no way in the heavens you can say that you’re not scared.”
White drove at high speeds and instructed the kids to lie on the bus floor and protect each other.
“My dad had taught me to drive like a boy, taking curves without breaks and running 80-100 miles an hour,” White said.
While White says the children in the choir exhibited no fear, Bishop Marvin Thomas, who was a choir member from high school until the choir’s end, said it was the brave leadership of White and the other adults that promoted their positive attitudes.
“There could be some really frightening moments, but we just felt secure and protected by the folks such as Michael, Olivia, John Byrd, Daniel and the other adults,” Thomas said. “Because of their strength and not displaying any fear, I think it just rubbed off on us.”
Their roles were not limited to singing. They often participated in marches and approached community members about the importance of voting. Dr. King insisted that the kids in the choir receive classes teaching them their constitutional rights.
“We would go up every day and work to like five o’clock. We would go door to door with flyers encouraging people to vote,” White said. “A lot of elderly people were afraid to vote, and it was our job to listen to their fears and to assure them that nothing was going to happen to them, that God would protect them.”
White says one of the most powerful moments she witnessed in the choir was Dr. King’s speech at First African Baptist Church.
Their original plan was to sing a song titled “We Can All Walk a Little Bit Proud,” however, Dr. King passed a note to White saying to let John Byrd, the main male singer of the choir, sing “Precious Lord.” White trusted Dr. King’s ability to choose music that would powerfully move the audience.
“It felt like heaven,” White said. “It was so quiet in there. Every time I would try to end the song, the audience would want him to keep singing, and they’re like, ‘Sing boy! Sing boy!’ It was unforgettable.”
White said that Dr. King’s speech that night, in which he spoke of his wish to return home to his children and wife and his plan to continue God’s work despite his exhaustion, was life-changing.
This was the last of King’s speeches that White heard before his assassination on April 4, 1968.
Dr. King’s funeral was held at Ebenezer Baptist Church, and the T.Y. Rogers choir sang with the Ebenezer Choir to honor Dr. King.
“There was two parts to that funeral,” White said. “We marched up Auburn Avenue singing. So from maybe a mile before we got to Ebenezer Baptist Church, the choir was singing with others, and we just sang and sounded like one big choir.”
White said that music still does and will continue to have a profound social impact, and as music evolves, it stays true to original rhythms and tunes used throughout time.
“I noticed that even though rap is new on the scene, rap is a repetition of something that was from Africa.”
How Music Can Express Emotions
Carolina K-12 Director Christie Norris says that by connecting current music to songs used in the civil rights movement, educators can effectively teach students about the emotions felt during this time and build historical empathy.
“Going back to spirituals of the enslaved to freedom songs from Parchman prison, you can hear the resistance in the community, you can hear the joy in the music, and you can also hear the sorrow and the music, and all of that together is a part of the complete picture,” Norris said. “To miss any component of that is to miss a crucial part of the story.”
Norris has created a lesson plan that implements teaching African-American songs in civil rights K-12 education.
“I think anybody can listen to any of the freedom songs or any of the spirituals that so many of those freedom songs came out of and simply just talk about how it makes them feel,” Norris said.
White’s service continued past her participation in the choir. When she finished nursing school, she entered the U.S. Army Reserve, originally intending to be there for six weeks. She ended up running the clinic alongside several aides.
She served for 12 months and was commonly airlifted into areas with wounded soldiers, where she helped hands-on.
White spent the next portion of her life as a nurse due to her love of children and helping others.
“I worked in labor and delivery. Regardless of the color of the mother, when the baby come out it’s just an innocent soul. They don’t know anything but just falling in love, unless we teach them hate.”
Thomas also says his time in the choir greatly influenced the rest of his life and career path. He is currently a Bishop of a primarily African-American denomination, and he has continued to be involved in civil rights through his position on the National Board of Directors of the NAACP.
“Looking up to the person for whom the choir was named, as a young man who saw the ministry as something that I was aspiring to be, not just being a preacher pastoring a church but being a preacher who was involved in the cause of social justice for his people, it shaped who I am,” Thomas said.
The children of the choir grew up to succeed in various career paths. One became the Sheriff of Birmingham, another is a Lieutenant in the Tuscaloosa Police Department and many others are teachers, nurses, businessmen or community leaders.
White continues to find joy in playing alongside children’s choirs. She’s participated in eight different choirs throughout her lifetime and still plays with one at a nearby church.
“Many times, I’ll hear some of the elderly people say, ‘Why do you spend so much time with the children’. The point is: children are the seeds of the future.”
Leena Mathew, the Angel City Chorale vice president, feels the same way. The choir, focused on diversity and inclusion, is a non-profit that performs nationwide fundraising for those in need. They’ve traveled to South Africa to support the Amy Biehl Foundation, taken tours across Europe raising money for non-profits and received the golden buzzer on America’s Got Talent.
In 2018, they created the Angel City Youth Chorale, and they work with the Boys & Girls Club to provide this program at no cost to participants.
“We wanted to give these kids an opportunity,” Mathew said. “So, we write grants, and we have music teachers who all sing in the choir go to various locations across the country and teach the kids for free.”
For the T.Y. Rogers choir, the Angel City Chorale and students throughout the country learning about civil rights, music has played a primary role in championing a cause through sharing emotions.
“Even though the situation might be sad, the music soothed away the pain,” White said. “If we’re happy, you could play something and the music will express our feelings. Music has the propensity to allow us to sing emotions.”
The impact of the choir’s music became abundantly clear when White watched several men using cables struggling to lift a piano to the fourth floor of an Alabama courthouse for the performance. Following the election of a black sheriff and a black judge, the T.Y. Rogers Choir sang at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King.
“I never thought I would be playing for the first two black officials to be elected there in Alabama.”
