By TERRY FARISH
2021 Seacoast NAACP/ Jukwaa Mazoa Productions will stream, “Set the House on Fire” Gospel Concert Celebrating the Life and Legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on January 18 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
“I was kind of young,” actor Kevin Wade Mitchell said. “I was seven years old. Someone said the Pastor has been shot. I didn’t understand why anyone would kill a Reverend.”
Mitchell, actor and scholar with the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire’s Sankofa Tours, will join gospel musicians and performers as Martin Luther King at the 2021 Seacoast NAACP/ Jukwaa Mazoa Productions: “Set the House on Fire” Gospel Concert Celebrating the Life and Legacy of the Reverend, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is organized and presented in collaboration with Seacoast Repertory Theatre’s “Najee Brown’s Sol Series.”
Mitchell said, “We’re living in a country full of discord and chaos. Martin Luther King stood for people’s rights and his work is something people need to look at again today.”
Mitchell will perform “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” Dr. King’s last speech. He was addressing followers in Memphis on April 3, 1968. “We’ve got some difficult days ahead,” he said. “But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop … I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.” The next day King was killed.
“Set the House on Fire” Gospel Concert will be performed at Seacoast Rep with no audience in Portsmouth and streamed live at httpsa://www.facebook.com/seacoastrep, January 18, 6:30-8:30. Another event partner, the Green Acre Bahá’í Center, offers information and links to the streaming event at https://www.greenacre.org/event/celebrating-dr-martin-luther-king-junior/