Milton Black History Month celebration to feature female singers

MILTON — The Fellowship Churches of Santa Rosa County, Inc. will celebrate Black History Month 6 p.m. Saturday at Milton High School’s auditorium. The theme for this year's program is “The Soul of a Sista”: a tribute to African American women in music.

The program will feature local women singing songs from artists including Mahalia Jackson, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, Chaka Khan, Diana Ross and the Supremes and Queen Latifah.

“We’re going to be recognizing and honoring the women from our past and present through music,” Carolyn McCray, production manager for the event, said, “music made that impacted our culture and… we will have people displaying somebody from each era.” 

A portrayal of the poet Maya Angelou will be featured as well as gospel songs from the Black History Celebration Choir. 

“We have some [MHS] students helping us with things,” McCray said. “We always recruit to try and involve the youth.” 

The program is open to the public with free admission. Concessions will be available for purchase. Donations will be collected during the program for those interested in donating to the Fellowship Churches. 

“We anticipate it being a really good program — a lot of knowledge, a lot of things that people did not know about the people we stand on the shoulders of right now,” McCray said. “We’re doing it through music, so we think that it’s fantastic… it varies, what we do every year.”

This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Milton Black History Month celebration to feature female singers