The Black History in Centre County Project will offer two workshop readings of a new play with choral music, “Finding Home: Adeline Lawson Graham, Colored Citizen of Bellefonte.” The staged readings, free and open to the public, will take place at 6 p.m. on Saturday at Faith United Church of Christ, 300 E. College Ave. in State College, and at 3 p.m. on Sunday at Trinity United Methodist Church,128 E. Howard St. in Bellefonte.
The play, written by Penn State graduate student Carmin Wong, is based on events from the life of Adeline Harris Lawson Graham (1856-1930). Graham was born in Bellefonte and as a teenager work for a Quaker farmer in Chester County who was married to a daughter of Bellefonte ironmaster George Valentine. She then returned to Bellefonte and served as a cook in the home of former Gov. Andrew Curtin. In 1901, she married a prosperous barber, Henry W. Graham, at St. Paul AME Church in Bellefonte and moved to Emporium. She is buried in Bellefonte’s Union Cemetery.
The production will feature music by singers from the Essence of Joy choir and Harrisburg tenor soloist Christyn Seay, under the direction of Anthony Leach. Afterward, audience members will be invited to engage in a talk-back with creators Wong, Leach, Charles Dumas and Philip Ruth, research coordinator for the Black History in Centre County Project. Donations received at the door will support preservation work of the Bellefonte Cemetery Association.
The Black History in Centre County Project is a group of historians, librarians, geographers, writers, and artists who aim to collect, assess, and preserve lost narratives of African American residents of Centre County from 1800 through 1950. In collaboration with local organizations and individuals—Penn State’s College of Liberal Arts, the Penn State University Libraries, the Centre County Library and Historical Museum and the Bellefonte Historical and Cultural Association—the group aims to place archival resources and artistic and technical expertise in the service of community-collected genealogies, public records and artifacts. To learn more about the project, see blkctrco.psu.edu.
