The voices of leading gospel choirs and Beverley Knight will fill Newcastle Cathedral this October during a special concert to commemorate the 55-year anniversary of the time Dr Martin Luther King came to the city.
The famous 1967 visit by the civil rights campaigner will be recalled in Songs of Freedom which will take place in the cathedral on October 14. Soul legend Knight will be joined on the line-up by the Grammy award-winning Soweto Gospel Choir and Voices of Virtue Gospel Choir. The concert, being presented by Northern Roots, will tell the powerful story of the civil rights movement through music acting as a soundtrack to the struggle for social and racial equality.
Newcastle was the only place, outside of London, that King ever visited in Britain and when he was presented here with an honorary degree from Newcastle University he famously made a long speech. During it he said: “There are three urgent and indeed great problems we face .... the problem of racism, the problem of poverty and the problem of war."
