Albany Honors Black History Month with Living Legacy of Freedom Singer Rutha Mae Harris

For Black History Month 2026, Visit Albany, Georgia invites visitors and media to explore the living history of the Civil Rights Movement through the remarkable life and voice of Miss Rutha Mae Harris, the last remaining original member of the Albany Freedom Singers in Deep South Georgia along the banks of the Flint River.

Harris’s extraordinary journey–from singing freedom songs in mass meetings and jail cells during the Albany Movement of 1961–1962 to touring the nation with the Freedom Singers–offers a powerful and personal lens on one of the most pivotal campaigns of the modern Civil Rights Movement.

“I’ve never been afraid when I am singing,” Harris has said of the role music played in sustaining activists on the front lines of justice. Her voice continues to lift spirits and carry the truth of Albany’s struggle for equality into the present day.

A movement born of music and local courage

In the fall of 1961, Albany became the focus of a bold grassroots effort to dismantle segregation across an entire city. Thousands of local residents–including students, church congregations and families–risked arrest in mass protests that drew national attention. In this landscape, freedom songs weren’t mere accompaniment…they were essential tools of resilience and unity.

At churches throughout Albany, activists gathered nightly, often standing room only as crowds swelled from one service to the next. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in Albany, he traveled from church to church in a single day, speaking to growing audiences and helping amplify the movement’s message of justice and nonviolent resistance.

From those gatherings emerged the Freedom Singers, a quartet formed in 1962 that included Harris along with Bernice Johnson Reagon, Cordell Reagon and Charles Neblett. The group toured across the country, performing at universities, churches and civic halls—even at the historic March on Washington—spreading the message of freedom through song and raising funds for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Celebrate Black History Month in Albany

Albany’s civil rights story is preserved through multiple historic sites that offer visitors immersive experiences:

• Albany Civil Rights Institute—Exhibits, archives and programming that bring the Albany Movement to life.
• Old Mt. Zion Baptist Church & Shiloh Baptist Church—Sites where mass meetings and freedom singing were central to organizing.
• Charles Sherrod Civil Rights Park—Honors a key leader of Albany’s movement.

Throughout February, life and legacy come together in Albany as the city commemorates Black History Month with opportunities to engage with living history, reflective tours and performances inspired by the music and spirit of the movement.

“Albany’s civil rights heritage is not a photo in a book—it’s a voice you can still hear today,” said Kasey Summerville, executive director at Visit Albany, Georgia.