Dr. Billie Jean Young, Artist-in-Residence and Associate Professor of Fine and Performing Arts at Judson College, will perform her one-woman show, Fannie Lou Hamer: This Little Light, once again in Marion. The performance will be on Saturday, October 11 at 6 p.m. in the Judson College Alumnae Auditorium.
Young has delighted audiences with her Civil Rights Era play depicting the life of Fannie Lou Hamer. Mrs. Hamer was a sharecropper in Mississippi who was drawn into the Civil Rights Movement by her desire to secure equality and voting rights for all America’s people.
“I wrote the play, Fannie Lou Hamer: This Little Light, to give voice to a then unsung heroine and because the Civil Rights Movement was an important part of my own life,” Young said.
This upcoming performance is being made possible at the request of a group of 40 faculty, students, and alumni from the University of Washington in Seattle. They will travel to Alabama to see the show. Young agreed to do the performance as a fundraiser for another of her Civil Rights dramas, JimmyLee.
According to Young, the public is invited to attend This Little Light, and, although there will be no admission, audience members are encouraged to make donations to assist in raising funds for the upcoming spring 2015 production of JimmyLee.
Young graduated with distinction from Judson College in 1974 and went on to earn a law degree from Cumberland School of Law. She returned to her alma mater in 2006 as artist-in-residence and is now also associate professor of fine and performing arts.