“WHERE IS THE FREEDOM IN THE LAND OF THE FREE?”

A COMING MARGARET BONDS PREMIERE WORKS TO RIGHT AN OLD NEST OF WRONGS

Part 3 of 4

In June 2025, I posted Part 1 and Part 2 of the series that continues here and concludes next weekend – a series of posts that centers on the upcoming premiere of the surviving magnum opus of Margaret Bonds’s late years in California (1967-72). The work in question is the musical Bitter Laurel, a musical-dramatic celebration of the life and legacy of Elizabeth Hobbes Keckley (1818-1907). Its historic premiere will take place in the Sarah Belk Gambrell Center for the Arts and Civic Engagement at Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina two weeks from today (Saturday, April 18 and Sunday, April 19), directed by the redoubtable playwright Margarette Joyner, musically directed by Dr. Justin Smith, and with vocal coaching by Dr. Sequina DuBose. Tickets are available here. There will also be a free lecture and roundtable discussion about the work and the significance of the event on Friday, April 17; that unticketed event will be from 7:30 – 9:30 p.m. in the Tyson Great Room in the Gambrell Center.

            There’s too much to say about Bitter Laurel to put into any blog post; a dissertation or book is warranted. In the space we have here, I want to do two things:

            First, I’m delighted to say that the energy surrounding the run-up to this event is fantastic. Part of that energy is reflected in a brilliant display in the Everett Library at Queens University of Charlotte. That display, created by Kel Williams (who plays the role of Elizabeth Keckley in Bitter Laurel) along with special collections librarian Sarah Sowa and interns V McGuireand Erin Douglas, is captured in an absolutely brilliant Prezi presentation here. You should definitely check this out.

(Prezi novices: there’s an opportunity to create an account or login, but that’s not necessary. Just click on the green right arrow at the bottom and you’ll be guided through the presentation one panel at a time.)

            Then, in the final installment of this post, which will go live on Saturday, April 11, I’ll share a program note for Bitter Laurel – an introduction to the work, its plot, and how its music and themes work. The musical is briefly mentioned in my 2025 Margaret Bonds biography published by Oxford University Press, but aside from that it’s never gained any space in any of the literature on the composer – a terrible shame, since it is the magnum opus of Margaret Bonds’s late years and a masterpiece worthy of a place alongside her well-known cantatas The Ballad of the Brown King and Simon Bore the Cross. As a matter of fact, Bitter Laurel continues those masterpieces’ project of lifting up notable Black folk from history by re-inserting their stories into a racist world that was determined to erase them, also offering inspirations and historical role models for contemporaries. But in The Ballad of the Brown King and Simon Bore the Cross, the Black heroes were men. In Bitter Laurel, it’s a woman.

            So please check back. And in the meantime, if you are in the Charlotte area please consider attending this historic premiere of a newly recovered masterpiece by the extraordinary Margaret Bonds. Tickets are available here!