Men of Morehouse; Morehouse Men
It's not all Crossfittin' and Community Events here in the Roc. We also squeezed in some culture this week. The world-famous Morehouse Glee Club paid Rochester a visit. The car was in use by the youngest of our hard-working children, so we tromped the mile or so to the august halls of Asbury First United Methodist.
The church; beautiful. The mayor; present. It felt like the Williams College of worship, full of gravitas and ivy, grey stone, grey heads. The crowd, inter-generational, inter-racial, and buzzing with excitement to hear both the storied harmonies and to celebrate the lives of several Black men of distinction.
The event opened with some words about Morehouse. The college has a noble mission of intellectual, physical, and social development and a laundry list of famous alumni from Martin Luther King, Jr and Raphael Warnock, to Spike Lee and Samuel L. Jackson. We learned the distinction between undergraduates, "men of Morehouse," who strive to be matriculated as "Morehouse Men."
Morehouse College
The program was in two parts. First, the men of Morehouse thundered in at a double trot. The initial half of the program was chorale music; slow, Christian, and deeply harmonic. The sound was beautiful, their voice could become one mighty instrument. But twas also slow. Part of the mission of the club is to preserve African-American spirituals, and preserve they did, in amber.
We paused for a celebration of the lives of two Rochester Morehouse Men, who had lived parallel lives (three decades at Xerox, 50 plus years married to devoted partners, a life of service to Morehouse and Rochester). And the mayor presented the key to the city to the director of the Glee Club, who's been leading the group for 20+ years and has Rochester roots.
The second half picked up the pace some. There was an immersive and rousing hymn in Yoruba with percussion. There was a silky pop cover. There were also more languid spirituals.
We closed with a rousing hymn to Morehouse...
For Morehouse
...and puffed our way out into the chill night, inspired and grateful.
