High School Open Rehearsal: Thomas Wilkins conducts Bonds, Davis, and Dawson with Anthony McGill, clarinet

Dr. King’s peaceful but powerful advocacy for racial justice inspired Bonds to write The Montgomery Variations, a series of meditations on the spiritual “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me.”

You Have the Right to Remain Silent was composer Anthony Davis's reaction to a traffic stop in which he was mistaken for another Black man and experienced the fear, anger, and aftereffects of that encounter.

William Levi Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony, a major success upon its 1934 premiere, is largely based on Black spirituals, transformed much in the way—as he said—Tchaikovsky and Dvořák had transformed folk music in their symphonies.