Teaching about ‘Heroes’

By Hugh Fisher

Kannapolis Citizen

“Nobody wanted to be a slave,” said Shawn Rice, dressed in Civil War-era costume, as he stood on stage in front of about 60 children and adults at the Kannapolis Branch Library Saturday.

Nearby, Alex Marshall-Brown — in a long homespun dress with a wide-brimmed hat — went through the motions of being a slave woman on an American plantation.

Shawn Rice, left, and Alex Marshall-Brown discuss ways that whites helped direct runaway slaves to the north in “Heroes of the Underground Railroad” Saturday at the Kannapolis Branch Library as the crowd listening. Photo by Hugh Fisher.

She mimed feeding chickens and working in the fields as Rice reminded the audience of the grueling life of a slave — long hours, no pay, the constant threat of torture and of having one’s family stripped away at a whim.

“I think the show causes people to reflect on their history and to act,” Marshall-Brown said of her involvement in “Heroes of the Underground Railroad,” the traveling show she and Rice perform as members of Bright Star Children’s Theatre.

Through costumes, songs and stories, Marshall-Brown and Rice performed the stories of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Levi Coffin and other freedom fighters in “Heroes of the Underground Railroad” to help the Kannapolis Branch Library celebrate Black History Month.

Young and old watched, almost spellbound, as the two actors performed these men and women’s exploits with minimal props and costumes.

They saw a wooden crate of the size that Henry “Box” Brown hid in for 26 hours as he was shipped from the south to Pennsylvania and freedom. And they learned the words and meanings of the song “Drinking Gourd,” whose lyrics helped runaway slaves remember how to use the North Star to navigate on their journeys.

The 50-minute performance focused on African-American heroes as well as whites who helped slaves escape to freedom along the Underground Railroad.

The performance moved the audience to react. At one point, when Marshall-Smith asked, in character, for help in escaping, a small girl in the audience softly said, “I’ll help!”

“What about you folks?” she said at another point, in character as Harriet Tubman, the famous woman who made 19 trips back to the South after her own escape. “What are you going to do to make the world a better place?”

The show earned Rice and Marshall-Smith a standing ovation and many questions from kids during the discussion that followed. Those in the audience said they learned a lot from the show, which was free to the public.

“I didn’t know that guy who spent 26 hours in a box,” said Matthew Young, who came to the performance with his friend Andrew Lunn and Lunn’s mother, Margaret.

Margaret Lunn said that the history she learned was the best part of the experience.

“The names of the people who were involved, most of us had heard of before,” she said. “But a lot of the names have been lost.”

This is underscored by Rice and Marshall-Smith, who let the audience know that many hundreds of people, white and black, worked to free tens of thousands of slaves during the decades before Abraham Lincoln ended slavery in 1863.

Shawn Rice, right, and Alex Marshall-Brown discuss ways that whites helped direct runaway slaves to the north in “Heroes of the Underground Railroad” Saturday at the Kannapolis Branch Library. Photo by Hugh Fisher.

Their message for today’s children is that anyone can work for change — regardless of skin color or age.

“There is great injustice in the world, but every person in this play is a normal, everyday person who just decided to say no,” said Rice. “And these people watching have just as much power, if not more.”

Contact Hugh Fisher at 704-933-3450 or hfisher@kannapoliscitizen.com.