Kuumba Director Winfrey Devotes 25 Years to Harvard Music, Community

Music has sustained him. And for 25 years, he has sustained the Harvard-Radcliffe Kuumba Singers.

Robert Winfrey, director of the Kuumba Singers, will step down this June after a quarter-century of dedicated service.

For 27 years, his troupe's members have lifted their voices in songs of African-American community and spirituality.

They often have trekked across the American landscape during College breaks--garnering distinctions from Cambridge to Detroit to Georgia.

Winfrey has made his own journey--which has taken him from a poor home in Atlanta to the richest university in the nation.

We Shall Overcome

Winfrey vividly remembers the days of hurtful discrimination against blacks in the South, but he recounts a strong support network which guided him.

"You couldn't be a black and not experience discrimination," Winfrey says. "Everything was so obvious--not a day went by when you didn't feel it. It was a worst part of growing up in the South."

Yet black teachers in elementary and secondary school served as "surrogate parents--making you think--fertilizing your thinking."

A self-described "proud product of Atlanta public schools," Winfrey says--despite the challenges of a "fiercely segregated" system of racially-designated water fountains and seats on public transportation--his childhood was a happy one.

"I feel very blessed by the guidance provided by my home and church life," Winfrey says.

Winfrey's mother took on a second job so her precocious son could explore his penchant for music, taking piano and later organ lessons. Winfrey went on to play for the Liberty Baptist Church, a neighbor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Winfrey "got to know [Dr. King] very well," and found the Reverend's sermons and speeches "truly uplifting."

From College to Choirs

Winfrey has always followed the music--of a band or a choir.

Earning an academic scholarship to Morehouse College, he served as student band director and assistant chapel organizer ("In those days, attendance was required," Winfrey muses) for the all-male institution.

Winfrey is full of praise for his alma mater.

"There was a culture there that was just so dynamic," Winfrey says. "Academic excellence, artistic excellence--it was the best of everything there."

After graduating in 1954, Winfrey joined the U.S. Army at Ft. Bliss, Tx. In between guided missile instruction, he served as brigade choirmaster and organist.

His term of service in the army as a chaplain's assistant helped Winfrey determine his direction.

Witnessing the powers of instruction and "character guidance" between the chaplain and the enlisted men in his brigade, Winfrey said he learned how "education can be a tremendous source to lift people to higher lives."

Inspired to teach, Winfrey accepted a position as a combination band-choral director in Georgia after being discharged from the service.

A year later, he began graduate work at Columbia University's Teachers College, and ultimately moved his family to the Northeast after "a lot of convincing" from friends and colleagues in the Boston public school system.

Lift Every Voice And Sing

Two years after the move, Winfrey had secured a position as a music teacher, composed the piece "Let's Build A City" for the Boston Expo, and had been offered the directorial position of a fledging musical group at Harvard--the Kuumba Singers.

Originally, Winfrey had promised his wife that he would not assume too many responsibilities beyond his full-time job. When asked to lead the two-year-old Harvard choral ensemble, Winfrey asked its members to continue the search while he considered the appointment.

Later that year, Winfrey attended one of the group's meetings brandishing a letter stating that he would not be able to head Kuumba. Before Winfrey could state his intentions, then-Kuumba President Kenneth Ingraham '74 announced that Winfrey was the organization's unanimous choice for director.

Winfrey put his letter in his pocket--in what he now calls a "pocket veto." Kuumba had won Winfrey's heart.

"The rest is history," he laughs.

Having spent "25 glorious years with bright young minds," Winfrey says Kuumba has not only played an integral role in his life, but has become "central" to the University.

"I cannot imagine a Harvard without Kuumba," Winfrey says. "You can see how it enriches the University community."

Through programs like the Afro-American Studies department, the W.E.B. DuBois Institute and Kuumba, Winfrey says Harvard's commitment to black history and culture serves as an international example.

"Kuumba provides music unlimited," Winfrey says. "We spread a message of love and peace in artistic renditions--and live it also."

"If they were just a polished stand-up choir, that would have value in itself. But there's more. There are the human values," he says.

Winfrey says he is most proud of the family atmosphere of the ensemble, and the success of its members.

Alumni return to Harvard and tell Winfrey that their experiences with Kuumba were "the guiding light to their careers."

"They are Harvard graduates but they always call themselves Kuumba alumni," Winfrey says, "and that makes my heart glad beyond expression."

No Slowing Down

Winfrey shows no signs of stopping soon.

Pending a final decision from Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III, Winfrey--who is also retiring from his position at Boston's Roland Hayes School of Music--will become an advisor to Kuumba.

Winfrey says when his parents died about 10 years ago, working with Kuumba allowed him to resolve his grief--and focused him on perhaps his next project: completing his doctoral work and writing a dissertation on the training and the role of the black church music director.

"Kuumba has always been a source of personal growth and fulfillment," the 64-year-old Winfrey says. "I don't know if other groups have that spirit. We've got it."