This week we’re highlighting Black voices in performance with Apphia Campbell’s ‘Black is the Color of My Voice’. Last week, Apphia Campbell returned to Edinburgh Fringe Festival direct from sell-out performances in London and on tour with her play inspired by the life of Nina Simone.
‘Black is the Color of My Voice’ follows the successful jazz singer and civil rights activist seeking redemption after the untimely death of her father. While in Liberia, West Africa she reflects on her journey as a young piano prodigy destined for a life in the service of the church, to a renowned jazz vocalist at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement.
Despite poverty, Apphia shows how the church, gospel music and faith proved to be a blessing in Nina Simone’s life, though we observe the singing in church witnessing Simone’s parents being directed to the back of the room in favour of the white congregation. Simone refuses to perform and responds: “If they are not put back in the front seat, I don’t play”, which was her first encounter with racism.
This is one of many tragic events in her life that led towards her eventual activism and becoming a friend and ally of Dr Martin Luther King joining the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960’s.