Lift Every Voice and Sing

Two years ago, one classroom inside Savannah’s Hodge Elementary School was filled with little boys facing big problems.

Many were falling behind in their school work. Some were struggling with emotional and behavioral issues. Others left the safety and security of the school building every afternoon to return to a home in crisis.

The school’s principal decided to separate these boys from the other children in an effort to give them their best shot at learning before it was too late. And when veteran educator Alucia Walton (’84) learned she would be teaching music to this class, she knew she quickly had to connect with the children in a way others had not.

A boys choir, she thought, would surely open the hearts and the minds of these children who many times seemed unreachable.
The boys disagreed.

“The boys didn’t want to sing because they thought it was sissy,” Walton recalled.

Walton wasn’t giving up that easily.

“I went on YouTube and found the Harlem Boys Choir and let them look at the video,” she said. “I let them look at the Temptations and talked to them about the rappers they like to listen to. The band director came and talked to them and I showed them they could sing.”

Walton said once she sold the 3rd and 4th graders on the idea of singing, she was careful to select songs that would appeal to boys.

“They like the Temptations’ ‘My Girl’ and the movements and they really got a kick out of doing that. We did some spirituals – they seemed to like those – along with songs from male gospel groups and male R&B groups,” said Walton.

Soon, it was time to take the show on the road.

Hodge Elementary School’s students come from an area filled with poverty. Some of the students had never been to a mall or to a beach. Some had never left their neighborhood. Music – and the chance to perform it – would open the door to an entirely new world.

“Once we started touring and they had such a good response, they caught the attention of some people in the community,” Walton remembered. “I had former students come and talk to them about life and grooming and they started to change. We began to talk to them about being brothers – everything does not have to be solved by a fight.”

Walton began keeping up with the children’s school work through their homeroom teachers. She said boys started staying out of trouble so they could go on the performance field trips. Test scores went up and attitudes changed.

The Hodge Boys Choir was opened up to anyone who wanted to join, and soon the group doubled in size from the original 25 to 50 members. But getting in and staying in were two different things. Bullies were kicked out. Grades were expected to stay up.

The choir continued to draw the attention of the community and soon donations allowed the school to purchase uniforms. “Some of these children had never even had dress shoes, and this uniform adds to their self esteem. They began to dress better with their hair cut and their clothes were kept neater,” Walton said.

And now the boys who once stood out for all of the wrong reasons can proudly take center stage, lift their voices, and sing.