Blues artist Gaye Adegbalola – singer, songwriter, storyteller and international performer – will present “Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Gay Rights and the Blues” inside the Hurley Convergence Center Digital Auditorium at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 21. The performance is free and open to the public.
The show, a concert-and-talk combination, will feature Adegbalola’s music about such topics as racism, political activism, feminist concerns and the LGBTQ+ community. She also will intersperse stories from her life about civil rights, Black Power and segregation in Fredericksburg, where she graduated valedictorian at the once-segregated Walker-Grant High School.
Adegbalola has performed around the world solo; with her former group of 25 years, Saffire – The Uppity Blues Women; and with the a capella blues quartet The Wild Rūtz.
The show is sponsored by “Race and Revolution,” a course that explores the life and work of James Farmer, the U.S. Civil Rights leader who taught at Mary Washington during the 1990s. It is among UMW’s First Year Seminars, a series of small, interactive courses designed to give freshmen with unique academic passions a chance to connect with like-minded classmates.
For more information, call 540-654-1023.