When times get tough, LaNesha DeBardelaben often turns to the writings of thinkers like James Baldwin, Maya Angelou or Cornel West. But as she did so last fall, yearning for solace after a summer of racial justice protests and a devastating pandemic with no clear end in sight, something new happened. A quote by West, she says, “literally jumped off the page.” It read: “To live is to wrestle with despair, yet never allow despair to have the last word.”
Suddenly, DeBardelaben, president and CEO of Seattle’s Northwest African American Museum, or NAAM, knew exactly what she needed to do: establish a gospel choir.
“When I came across that quote, the idea of creating a cultural ensemble that would travel with this message of hope within the context of Black musical artistic heritage was born,” DeBardelaben says. “I knew that if we could create something living and vibrant and colorful and rooted in our cultural artistic tradition … it could change lives. It could change perspectives, attitudes and mindsets. And it could honor our ancestors.”
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