Bridget B. here, the Saturday, January 3rd show, An Evening of Afrotainment, was a bit reflective with a little nudge on how we the people, in 2009, can be change agents.  I went back in time to play some old "spirituals" using Amazing Grace and Ol' Man River as my easing in approach to the first segment of the show. 

It was 1927, Jerome Kern created the music and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote the lyrics.  Show Boat was the musical that told the melancholy story of the hardships black people went through and the "...struggles of the time, related to the endless flow of the Mississippi River, from the view of a dock worker on a showboat. It is the most famous song from the show.  However, the most famous rendition of it, one that is still noted today, was sung by Paul Robeson in James Whale's 1936 film version of Show Boat (Robeson had first performed the song in the 1928 London production of the show and in the 1932 Broadway revival, and