‘Feel your soul move’: Former Chapel Hill mayor Howard Lee to sing spirituals at event

Former Chapel Hill mayor Howard Lee and his daughter, Angela Lee, will lead an event this Sunday to teach about the history of African American spirituals — and they’ll sing a few, too.

The event, “Wade in the Water: Listening to the Spirituals,” is hosted by Binkley Baptist Church in Chapel Hill.

Lee and his family have been members of Binkley since the mid-1960s.

The program is part of a Binkley Baptist series on faith and the arts, said Stephanie Ford, the church’s minister of Christian formation. Future events will feature topics including pottery and fabrics.

“When we were thinking about what to do for this series, I thought of including spirituals almost immediately,” Ford said. “I think they’re one of the most beautiful and poignant arts of spirituality anywhere, but we have such a wonderful legacy right here.

“When you hear Howard and Angela sing, you feel your soul move,” she said.

Lee was the first (and remains the only) Black mayor of Chapel Hill, elected in 1969 — the year after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. He was elected to the North Carolina Senate in 1990, and he served for 13 years.

Binkley Baptist’s longtime pastor and NC social justice leader Robert Seymour, who died in 2020, encouraged Lee to run for political office, The News & Observer previously reported.

The N&O spoke with Howard and Angela Lee ahead of the Sunday event.

Demonstrating a message through song

For Sunday’s program, Lee’s daughter Angela will give a synopsis of the meaning of the songs and how they have impacted people in various segments of time, Howard Lee said.

“I will probably sing a couple of the selected songs to demonstrate the message that comes through these songs when they’re sung,” he said.

“I’ve throughout the years been a strong student of Negro spirituals, and Angela, in her life, began to have more of an interest in it and discover it with her own understanding, what meaning it has for history and the present.”

Lee started singing and learning about spirituals in high school, he said, learning how they brought people through times of slavery. He even produced an album of spirituals in conjunction with NC Central University in the early 1990s and performed spirituals in choirs, he said.

“I’ve continued sporadically singing spirituals, depending on the circumstance,” he said. “This time, what we’re doing is in response to a request, not something we ourselves would have done otherwise.”

Spirituals: influence and understanding

Learning about spirituals is important because they are rooted in the African American experience and influence other music, Angela Lee said.

“They continue to tell our stories. And telling our stories ourselves is such an important part of where we’ve been,” she said. “Any time there’s an opportunity and platform to do that, it’s really good if we can take advantage of that opportunity and platform.

“It’s the Negro spirituals that have impacted and influenced so much other music too. They were an integral part of the Civil Rights Movement, for example. Even today, they’re a part of different struggles and movements that we’re a part of.”

Howard Lee agrees that learning about the tradition of spirituals is vital to our understanding of each other.

“I think any time we can expand people’s knowledge and understanding of history — and spirituals are part of the history of America — but also understanding how it can be inspirational and impactful for the lives of people today,” Howard Lee said.

“They add a deeper understanding and let us relate in different ways to each other,” he said.

Info on the ‘Wade in the Water’ event

“Wade in the Water: Listening to the Spirituals” happens at Chapel Hill’s Binkley Baptist Church this Sunday, July 17.

It will start at 9:45 a.m., according to Howard Lee, and last for about 45 minutes, taking place before regular Sunday church service.

For more information about the event this Sunday, visit facebook.com/watch.