Dorothy Parker watched from her living-room window on the morning of Sept. 4, 1957, as her mother Helen Anderson walked down the street toward her workplace. The 10-year-old would normally be at school, but her mom urged her to stay home that day. A naive Parker had no idea her mother wanted her to stay home due to the violence Anderson suspected could ensue at Central High School, not far from their home in the projects.

The U.S. Supreme Court had just struck down segregation in schools in Brown v. Board of Education earlier in May. And now, nine Black students would be integrating Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. Little did Anderson know that her daughter had seen the news in a newspaper, ignorantly thinking it was a celebration for kids.

As soon as Parker was sure her mother would not be returning, she skipped down the steps of her home and ran to Central High School. As she grew closer, she could hear the noise surrounding the entrance of the school, noise she interpreted as excitement. She climbed the wall enclosing the football field, sitting perched high to watch the nine students enter the school.

Adults of various ethnicities tried to urge Parker to go home, feeling the rage of the mob surge as a vehicle pulled up with the students. As the Black students made their way toward the previously all-white school, Parker began to notice that the mob crowding the school was far from jubilant.

New York City Mayor Robert Wagner greets the teenagers who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. Pictured, front row, left to right: Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Carlotta Walls, Mayor Robert Wagner, Thelma Mothershed, Gloria Ray; back row, left to right: Terrence Roberts, Ernest Green, Melba Pattilo, Jefferson Thomas. Photo New York World-Telegram and the Sun Walter Albertin

The harsh sound of a bulb flashing jolted Parker out of her daze, and she jumped off the wall, running back home as fast as her legs would carry her. She zoomed to her bedroom, closing the door, and she threw herself onto her bed with a flop. Tears spilled down her cheeks in rivulets, and she attempted to process what she saw. “Mom was right,” she thought to herself. “I should’ve stayed home.”

Her young eyes took in everything. White objectors were furious, their faces as red as cherries that they looked close to bursting. Spit flew out of their mouths like venom. They yelled expletives with such vitriol, words her mom often told her not to repeat. Their negative energy coiled around Parker, exacerbating her emotions and filling her with fear and confusion.

Helen Anderson walked through the front door, calling her daughter’s name along the way as she slipped out of her shoes. When no answer greeted her, she walked down the hall to Parker’s bedroom, knocking before entering. The sniffles alerted her to Parker’s mood, but with strict instructions to stay inside today, she could not fathom what could make her daughter cry.

“What happened?” she asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“I went to the high school,” she responded. “I thought it was a celebration.”

Helen sighed, pulling her daughter into a hug and rubbing her back to soothe her. She could chastise her for not listening another day. Her daughter’s innocence of the world had been shattered, and now she had to pick up the pieces and educate Parker on the wickedness present within the world.

‘Civil-Rights Leader on Steroids’

Christopher Parker, Dorothy’s son, said people never really discussed the LIttle Rock Nine when he was growing up. Their story—the story his mother witnessed, in part, firsthand—was told in whispers, discussed behind closed doors.

It was a full-circle moment for the pianist and composer when the nonprofit Oxford American commissioned him, alongside Kelley Hurt, to write a piece of music commemorating the Little Rock Nine for the 66th anniversary of their integration in 2017. The duo formed a band named No Tears and produced a six-track album dedicated to the anniversary titled “No Tears Suite.” It was a wonderful, one-time experience. At least, that’s what Christopher thought at the time.

“The whole thing to me is miraculous,” Christopher Parker told the Mississippi Free Press. “I’m not a church person, but the universe has obviously decided that Kelly and I need to take these talents and this little musical family and do what it is we’re doing.”

No Tears, a music collective, will be visiting Jackson for a residency that aims at educating and healing through community concerts, a panel discussion and youth education programs Sept. 27 to Sept. 29 across various sites in the city. Graphic courtesy No Tears Project Jackson: Be Heard in 2024

From there, Parker, Hurt and the band partnered with the Little Rock Symphony to perform the album in 2019. Their performance went so well that National Park Services representatives from New Orleans invited them to the city to perform. COVID-19 struck, though, forcing them to play virtually in 2020. The following year, they performed in Fayetteville, Ark., and Tulsa, Okla., and then in St. Louis, Mo., in 2023.

At first, St. Louis organizers were hesitant to fund a performance telling the story of these students from the South, but they agreed when No Tears offered to change the theme to also incorporate history and information about local historical figures Dred and Harriet Scott. The Scotts, American-born slaves, filed a lawsuit against Irene Emerson for their freedom on April 6, 1846. After many appeals and new lawsuits, the case went to the Supreme Court. The verdict ruled against Scott, stating he was still a slave and not a free man or citizen. St. Louis native Oliver Lake and other local artists helped No Tears arrange the modified show near the anniversary of their case.

No Tears’ tour continued to Memphis, Tenn., afterward, where Martin Luther King Jr. was the focus. James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. outside the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968. The collective repeated the same formula from St. Louis, employing Memphis musicians and having Memphis native Donald Brown recite “A Poem for Martin” while saxophone player Bobby LaVell composed “My Spirit is Stronger Than Your Persecution.”

James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Lurther King Jr. outside the Lorraine Motel (pictured) in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968. The hotel is now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum. Photo courtesy National Park Services / DavGreg

While in Memphis, the National Park Service hosted a panel discussion with Medgar Evers’ daughter, Reena Evers. At the time, they hadn’t decided where the next city would be, but then it just clicked one day, Parker said.

“We’re writing these grants, and I’m like, ‘Why don’t we just go down to Jackson?’ Talk about a superhero action figure for a subject, Medgar Evers; he’s like the civil-rights leader on steroids. You can’t get a better story than that,” he said.

Parker suggested Rodney Jordan write the piece on Evers, as he is a Jackson State University alum and has written pieces for the Jackson (now Mississippi) Symphony Orchestra. The No Tears residency will debut for the first time in Jackson the weekend of Sept. 27 through Sept. 29, 2024. The free event combines music and outreach programs aimed at inciting meaningful conversations and healing communities.

“We’re going to try to do voter registration at our events through One Voice, and that’ll be the last five days or so that you can do any more voter registration in Mississippi. So it’ll be like a final push to get people to register to vote,” the pianist said.

“Then we’re also going to partner with the Mississippi Book Festival and try to give away books, especially books that are on the ban list or potentially on a ban list,” Parker added. “(It will be) a literacy and voter-awareness type campaign, which makes a lot of sense given where (Evers) was going, where he was pushing.”

‘Why Mississippi?’

Rodney Jordan connected with No Tears a few years ago after they asked him to be a part of the Little Rock Nine project, so he was elated when the group approached him to write the Medgar Evers piece this year. He spent some time in Jackson during his college years at Jackson State, where he played in the orchestra and jazz band.

“Although I went to Jackson State and I spent several years in Jackson, Mississippi, I don’t know that I really studied anything about Medgar Evers,” Jordan told the Mississippi Free Press. “I didn’t know a lot about him. I’m from Memphis, Tennessee, where Martin Luther King was assassinated. That was a big part of my history. I knew a lot about that, but not as much about Medgar, and he was before Martin Luther King Jr., so it was something I wanted to just know more about.”

Before composing his piece, Jordan started reading “Mississippi Martyr” by Michael William and “Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story that Awakened America” by Joy Ann Reid, which had a wealth of information, details, dates and places from which he could pull.

Violinist Rodney Jordan will compose an original musical piece for the No Tears Project Jackson titled “Why Mississippi?” He composed it after conducting research and spending time in Jackson, Miss. Photo by Longs Photography

A few weeks before his phone interview with the Mississippi Free Press, Jordan traveled to Jackson to tour the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Mississippi Museum of History, spending an entire day there gathering photos that helped put a perspective together. He also visited the Medgar Evers home for the first time.

“I got a chance to go in and really take a look at the house,” the big bass violin player said. “It’s really a house and military barracks the way he designed it. The house not having a front door, the children’s rooms was just mattresses on the floor as he had them sleeping down low just in case bullets hit the house.”

Jordan walked away from the trip with a renewed admiration for Medgar Evers, particularly in how he raised his family as a Black man in America. Evers was strong and had conviction, traits that the musician can relate to as a Black man raising his own family.

“I was really amazed at the fact that he would want to go to the University of Mississippi to study law,” Jordan said. “He could have easily gone somewhere else to study law if he wanted to, but he wanted to study law in Mississippi. He had a firm commitment to the state of Mississippi, so I wrote a piece called ‘Why Mississippi?’”

Medgar and Myrlie Evers both dedicated their lives to fighting, as Medgar put it, “until every vestige of segregation and discrimination in America becomes annihilated.” Photo courtesy Evers family

It took him a few weeks to write the piece. The music started in his head, and he translated it to paper and then into the computer to put through music-notation software. He describes the song as a mix of blues, hip-hop and orchestra, a sound that really pulls on the state’s musical roots and the music he studied growing up.

For Jordan, music is like a second language and, at times, a first language he uses to communicate with others because it can convey things words sometimes cannot, he said.

“Music can convey so many feelings. We use music for funerals. We use music for weddings. We use music for birthdays. We use music to celebrate everything we do in life. So music is right there with water. It’s something that we have to have in our lives, and it’s part of what makes us human,” Jordan said.

The No Tears Project Jackson: Be Heard 2024 will land in Jackson, Miss., on Sept. 27 and run through Sept. 29, 2024. The show is free to the public and will include community concerts, a panel discussion and youth-education programs located at Myrlie’s Garden (part of the Medgar Evers Home National Monument property), Shady Grove Missionary Baptist Church, and other sites across the city. For more information about the No Tears Project and the work they are doing, visit notearsproject.com. Learn more about Oxford America at oxfordamerican.org.

Read original article by clicking here.

‘Music Is Right There With Water’: No Tears Project Jackson Centers on Medgar Evers With Performances This September

‘Civil-Rights Leader on Steroids’

‘Why Mississippi?’

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