Marion Hayden Legacy Ensemble – Up South – Reflections of the Great Migration

Kerrytown Concert House's Along the Road to Freedom Project aims to highlight the rich African American history of what is now known as the Kerrytown District, using the Arts as a vehicle to inform, honor, and elevate awareness of its neighborhood's rich African American heritage dating back to the late 1800s.

The project's first installment features the Marion Hayden Legacy Ensemble. It explores the role that Southeastern Michigan and Ann Arbor played in "The Great Migration" (the mass movement of African Americans from the rural South to urban areas in the North, Midwest, and West between 1916 and 1970).

In the early 20th century, the industrial North was the site of the largest population migration in U.S. history, with African Americans and others moving from southern agricultural states to major industrial cities such as Detroit, Chicago, and Cleveland to escape the perils of Jim Crow and search for a better future. The travelers came north with all their worldly possessions, deeply held values of work and family, and their music traditions, including spirituals, blues, and jazz. Up South – Reflections of the Great Migration is a celebration of these sojourners through the lens of the Douglas and Maber Ford family. Douglas and Maber Ford moved to Detroit from Tennessee in the first quarter of the 20th century. Their story is one of entrepreneurship, perseverance, faith, family, and community. 

This compelling program will feature prose and original music, including works by Langston Hughes, J. Rosamond and James Weldon Johnson, Billy Taylor, and members of the ensemble, and is punctuated by visual imagery in a multimedia presentation.