Reviewed by George Luke

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. Her arrest sparked off a boycott of Montgomery's bus service and paved the way for Martin Luther King's rise to prominence in the Civil Rights movement. 40 years on and several of America's leading gospel artists assembled to pay tribute to the great lady. Fred Hammond, Yolanda Adams, John P Kee, Sounds Of Blackness, Oleta Adams - these are just a few of the multitude gathered. The album opens with an all-star rendition of "Something Inside So Strong" (which I thought was a bit predictable) and was quite enjoyable to listen to until I hit the track "Rosa", on which John P Kee employed that most American of emotion-hijacking tactics (that's right - he had children singing on it). The group Chosen went African with the township swingbeat track "Help Us Lord", and Vanessa Bell Armstrong's "Pressing On" brought back memories of a few years ago. In between, Mrs Parks talked about her life's work and that fateful bus ride that helped kickstart a revolution. One or two of the tracks - in particular the closing one - tread the thin line between honouring Rosa and deifying her, but on the whole, it's an uplifting, educational piece of American history. Oh yes, and it's a pretty cool album, too.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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