In the decade after USC desegregated, the small but growing number of Black students wanted to establish a sense of belonging on a big campus that was growing bigger every year. In 1975, the Southern Christian Fellowship student group was established with a gospel choir called A Touch of Faith.
TRANSCRIPT
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The students hail from many academic disciplines at the University of South Carolina and from small towns and big cities. But when they get together to sing, they have a common purpose.
I’m Chris Horn for Remembering the Days, and today we’re catching up with a student choral group at USC that got its start 50 years ago.
USC desegregated in 1963 with three African American students, a number that increased gradually through the remainder of that decade and into the 1970s. Black students were eager to establish a foothold, a sense of belonging at a university that was big and getting bigger every year. In 1975, they launched the Southern Christian Fellowship, a student organization for Black students who wanted to maintain a religious affiliation away from home. Almost immediately, the group formed a choir called A Touch of Faith.
Romell Dash: “In the early '70s, the fact that you made it to school was a blessing. There was no I'm gonna go catch a ride with my friend to because most people didn't have cars or couldn't even afford cars. So for them, just getting education was the most important thing. So once they got together, they said, well, we're just going to have a little Bible study. We're going to just do a little choir, you know, just something they just put together.
They were the first Black Christian organization on the University of South Carolina campus. And from there, they just kept it going.”
That’s Romell Dash, longtime director of the Touch of Faith Gospel Choir. Dash was a student at Carolina in the mid-1990s and ended up becoming the choir director in 1997 during his junior year. He’s been leading it ever since, and over the years Dash has met a lot of USC alumni from across the state who were part of the Southern Christian Fellowship and the gospel choir during the early years.
Romell Dash: “There were a lot of people I knew that functioned in churches as pastors and preachers, directors, ministers of music. Then I found out, oh, I was a part of a Touch of Faith gospel choir. I was part of Student Christian Fellowship. Whoa, so your history started there. So it encouraged me that I'm not only doing this as a means to just give them something to do for now, but this is going to lead to other areas of their life for the rest of their life. So to meet people who started here and just was on the choir, and now they are pastors or directors or ministers or missionaries or ministers of music, worship leaders. And it started right here at Student Christian Fellowship, a Touch of Faith Gospel Choir. Makes it a good history to be a part of.
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The gospel choir often performs at campus events and at churches in Columbia and around the state. Not everyone in the Student Christian Fellowship sings in the choir, but every year there are more than enough choir members to fill a stage.
Like every other musical genre, African American gospel music has evolved in the past 50 years — it’s not your grandparents’ gospel music that the Touch of Faith Gospel Choir typically performs.
Elizabeth Kennedy, a public health major from Greer, South Carolina, says the style of the music is different from what she grew up singing. But she likes the robust sound the choir makes together.
Elizabeth Kennedy: “I would say the sound is different. So coming in, I would do mostly choral or operatic singing. Here it’s mostly just belting full out. It feels like you're yelling, but you're more — you're louder with your sound here, and I love that.”
Though the style of gospel music might change over time, the substance of its message does not. That’s what continues to attract students to the choir. D’ria Dickey is a public health sophomore from Lake City, South Carolina.
D’ria Dickey: “It's amazing. Singing is my life. My whole family sings. So for me to be in my roots on campus, like, there's people like me here, and it's just amazing that I get to share this part with other people.”
Stop by one of their weekly rehearsals and it’s obvious that the choir members take their musical endeavor seriously.
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They start out with an hourlong Bible study in the Rutledge Chapel, then practice songs for upcoming performances for two hours or more. Under Romell Dash’s direction, the students hone their vocal skills to hit just the right notes, the nuanced intonations that give gospel music its own distinctive flavor.
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For 50 years, the Student Christian Fellowship and A Touch of Faith Gospel Choir have been giving students a place on campus to practice their faith and maintain a connection with their spiritual upbringing. For Abram Jamison, a finance major from Greenville, South Carolina, the choir has become an extension of home.
Abram Jamison: "Back at home, church is like a cornerstone of my family. So we’ve all had some instrumental part in the church, like whether it be ministering, pastoring or anything like that or singing like myself. So I've just grown up around stuff like this. So I just — why not bring it here with me and bring it along with me to college?"
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That’s all for this episode. On the next Remembering the Days, Evan Faulkenbury and I will be talking with Christian Anderson, a USC education professor and director of the Museum of Education on campus. Anderson has done some digging into the university’s history during the 1870s and has some interesting insights to share. I hope you’ll join us then. Thanks for listening today, and forever to thee.