Othello Wilson:
Let Your Light Shine
About the project and documentary
"Othello Wilson: Let Your Light Shine"
As a teacher and community activist during the 20th century in the American South, Mr. Othello Wilson changed the course of many lives and enhanced a school system hampered by Jim Crow laws. The journey which started in the Virginia communities of Salem, Hampton, and Massies Mill, and traversed across North America and Europe has been captured in the documentary, “Othello Wilson: Let Your Light Shine". This documentary is the start of a project that will encompass the preservation and archiving of Othello Wilson's work and memorabilia during his career; and that of the Musical Arts Choir, which he founded and served as director for over 40 years.
Further production of this project will exhibit not only a biographical sketch of Mr. Wilson, but also the influence and serious discipline of the negro spiritual, how educational awareness and activism shaped a community, the significance of religion in schools in the early 20th century, and the results of spontaneous and interracial social assemblies during a sensitive time in America's history.