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Photo 1. March 1985; ACDA National Conference; Salt Lake City. Left to Right: Arthur Evans, South Carolina State University; Eugene T.
Simpson, Rowan University; William L. Dawson; James Kinchen, Winston-Salem State University. Photo provided by Emory University Special
Collections. Used with permission.

that tall on my way out. made me marvel. He was walking with three vigorous
There were subsequent opportunities for memories men who ranged from thirty years to fifty years his ju-
with Dawson. Dawson the musician hardly ever missed nior, and here he was in his mid-eighties, matching our
a beat, but I once saw Dawson skip! He attended the strides down the street.
1985 National at Salt Lake City, and there he, Arthur
Evans of South Carolina State University, Gene Simp-
son of what is now Rowan University, and I hung out Dawson in Residency
together (Photo 1). Walking down the street next to him I sat on the Winston-Salem State University Lyceum
one day, I thought I saw him take a skip. A bit later, it Committee, the group that oversaw large event cultural
happened again! He noticed my puzzlement and real- programming for the campus. Mr. Harry Pickard, who
ized that I was eager for an explanation. From march- chaired the committee and, as savvy as he was crusty,
ing drills in his youth at Tuskegee, he explained, he would sometimes ask me as the youngster on the com-
literally had keeping in step so deeply ingrained that mittee, “Mr. Kinchen, do you have any ideas?” Now, in
he could not walk side-by-side with anyone without the fall of 1985, I had an idea. As proud as Dawson was
matching their step. Later reflection on this moment of his choral oeuvre, his Negro Folk Symphony, premiered

CHORAL JOURNAL September 2024 Volume 65 Number 2 23