Smith: Local actress favors talk on race that can be painful, but heals - Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Jacqueline Lawrence has for decades been getting down and painfully honest about race. She’ll do it again Saturday, and she invites us to take part and perhaps do some good at an angry and troubled time.

I’ve heard this potent, supremely talented Black woman plead with listeners to open up and say anything at all — no holds barred — about what they think or feel or fear or wonder about African Americans, or about whites.

A performer and activist, Lawrence rattles the rafters while performing and singing as a slave. She knows that makes some people of all colors very uncomfortable, but she thinks it’s essential because America hasn’t yet come to terms with the horrors and far-reaching consequences of slavery.

Lawrence grew up as one of few Black people in Santa Rosa, then she enrolled at Alabama’s historic Tuskegee University. “I was afraid of all those Black folks,” she allows. But by her second semester, “I felt like the blackest person there.”

Straight-talking and seemingly fearless, Lawrence tells of the time long later that she accompanied her children and grandkids to a former plantation in Louisiana. She held back as the others ventured on from the slaves’ quarters.

“I talked to the spirits of the slaves,” Lawrence recalls. “I told them I was sorry for the way a lot of people ignored them and their struggles and their hard work.

“I told them I would not let their legacy die because they did so much for this country. Not only this country, but the world.”

Lawrence ruminates constantly on the grievances Black people have against white people, and that whites have against Blacks. She promotes the difficult work of speaking honestly and not giving up on getting to the place of awareness that, truly, there is only one race and we’re all in it.

…

FOR JUNETEENTH on Saturday, Lawrence will produce on Zoom (Meeting ID 872 9830 5062) a full-day program, “The Road to Self-Emancipation; Mind, Body and Spirit.”

On the schedule, to start at 9 a.m., are performances, interviews, worship, a presentation on health in the time of COVID-19, a slave song workshop and other attractions that include a conversation on race that Lawrence counts on to “provide some healing.”

She said that though she’d love for participants everywhere to take in the entire, nine-hour program, “You can pop on and off all day.”

There’s no charge but Lawrence will accept donations to her service and educational nonprofit, Heiress Productions, Inc.

…

IN ADDITION to her program, there is also on Saturday the 50th Sonoma County Juneteenth Celebration known as the MLK Community Festival.

It starts at 1 p.m. To register, go to www.sonomacountyjuneteenth.com.

Nancy Rogers, who chairs the Juneteenth committee, said that amid all that’s happened since the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, there appears to be extraordinary interest in this year’s festival.

She tells of hearing from great numbers of people, many of them white and interested to learn what Juneteenth is.

“People want to know, they want to come together,” Rogers said. “I’m really excited about it.”

You can contact Chris Smith at 707 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.

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Smith: Local actress favors talk on race that can be painful, but heals - Santa Rosa Press Democrat
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