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Winston-Salem State University Lyceum Cultural Events – Performing Arts Series -  presents The Parchman Hour (a dramatic play) Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. in the Kenneth R. Williams Auditorium.  Admission is free and open to the public.  Doors open at 7:00p.m.
 
Mike Wiley Productions’ newest work commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Riders. In 1961, the original 13 riders boarded a bus in Washington, DC bound for New Orleans via Mississippi and Alabama. They barely made it out of Alabama alive. Over the course of the next three months, approximately 300 other riders took up the mantle and followed the path of those first brave few. Mobs brutally assaulted many. Others were arrested and, instead of posting bail, chose to serve sentences in one of the most brutal prisons in the South, Parchman Farm, proving the Freedom Riders and the movement to desegregate interstate travel would not be deterred.
 
Presented in the style of the variety shows of yesteryear – utilizing the race rhetoric and the soulful sounds of the 1960’s, an 8 – member ensemble breathes new life into what was perhaps the most tense three months of the American Civil Rights Movement. The Parchman Hour brings to the stage powerful oral histories and conversations from the Freedom Rides’ most iconic protagonists and antagonists.
 
Originally produced by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and the Department of Dramatic Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The Parchman Hour is a celebration of bravery and a call to action through remembrance, leaving the audience asking, “Who stood up for me? Moreover, for whom can I stand up for today? Who needs my words, my song, my voice?”

Contact 336.750.2530 or legettel@wssu.edu for additional information.