Jeanne B. Goodwin Storytelling Festival

By Margaret Hicks

Staff Writer

mhicks@theoklahomaeagle.net

Featuring Musician/Storyteller Reggie Harris

On Wednesday, July 19, 2017, from 10–11 a.m., musician/storyteller Reggie Harris will be the featured speaker at Rudisill Regional Library, 1520 N. Hartford Avenue, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at the annual Jeanne B. Goodwin Storytelling Festival. The event is free and open to the public in the Ancestral Hall.

About Reggie Harris

Harris is a well-traveled performer, lecturer and cultural ambassador, and earns wide acclaim and respect from peers and audiences alike around the world. He combines spirituals and roots music, historic inspiration, and moving original songs, often in the themes of unity and social justice. Knowing this, audiences have bestowed upon him a fitting slogan: “Songs of Joy, Hope, and Freedom.”

Harris’ storytelling ranges from the historical, cultural base of the Underground Railroad and the Modern Civil Rights Movement to stories that frame the rich context of our American past and present.

He is also a master of sharing inspiring personal tales of lessons learned in the twists and

turns along life’s moments of discovery.

About the art of collaboration Harris said “Looking back over the years, it appears that I was born to collaborate! Starting when I was 4 or 5, my mom, my sister Marlene, and I would gather at the piano on a Friday night at home there in Philly, and we’d sing hymns and other songs until bedtime. With the TV turned off and Nana napping in her big chair (periodically waking to smile!) we would take turns and share the verses on songs like ‘How Great Thou Art’ or ‘Shall We Gather at the River.’  Occasionally, some show tune from South Pacific, one of the few shows I remember my very religious mom taking us to see in the theater, or a Harry Belafonte song, would find its way into the mix.”

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In a phone interview Harris said he is looking forward to his visit to Tulsa and that he will be sharing songs and stories about “heroes and sheroes that include Harriet Tubman, and Tulsan Woody Guthrie,” and a story of “friendship and cooperation” from Surinam.

To see some of Harris’ performances search Reggie Harris on www.YouTube.com.

About Jeanne B. Goodwin

           The festival is named as a tribute to the late Jeanne B. Goodwin, a lifelong educator and literacy champion.

           Goodwin was born July 6, 1903, in Springfield, Ill. She died Jan. 25, 2006. Goodwin was wife, mother, educator, journalist and a “quiet, powerful activist.” Between 1927 and 1968, Goodwin taught in four Oklahoma school systems: Tulsa, Alsuma, Bixby, and Jenks. She worked alongside her husband, the late Edward L. Goodwin, Sr., publisher of The Oklahoma Eagle newspaper, which has continued in the Goodwin family since 1936 with the creed “We make America better when we aid our people.”

            Her creeds were: “Service is the price we pay for our room and board on earth” and “You don’t get bitter, you get better.”

            For more than 50 years, Goodwin wrote a column titled “Scooping the Scoop” for The Oklahoma Eagle.

            Celebrating her 100th birthday in 2003, Rudisill Regional Library’s Storytime room was dedicated in her honor.