Mary D. Williams an Afro American historian studies performer for over 20 years and counting, song and narrative of the Black South. I have traveled to more than 35 colleges and universities, more than 30 public schools, over 100 churches, a dozen libraries, and seven public school teachers institutes, several of them week-long training sessions for teachers. My friend and colleague Dr. Timothy B. Tyson and I have taught our community-based college course, “The South in Black and White: History, Culture and Politics in the 20th Century South,” four times with total of roughly 975 students. Several semesters we have taught the course at Hayti Heritage Center in Durham, for undergraduates from North Carolina Central University, Duke University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Currently teaching “The South in Black and White” at the historic Williston School in Wilmington on Thursday nights. Next semester, We will be teaching it on Tuesday nights at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University for 20 of Durham’s public school teachers, who are sponsored by the North Carolina Humanities Council; 20 aspiring pastors from Duke Divinity School; and several dozen undergraduates at these three universities. I have developed into a public educator, studying North Carolina history and culture in Dr. Timothy B. Tyson’s author of “Blood Done Sign My Name” graduate seminars at Duke and have been doing scholarly explorations of the history and theory of gospel music with Professor Jerma Jackson at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I hope to enroll full-time at UNC in the spring and continue these studies in a more formal manner. My knowledge of the music and the culture from which it emerged is not merely layman’s learning and experiential understanding, but is rooted in serious scholarly work. I constantly share what I have learned with the public, from Duke Divinity School to the UNC Dental School to the public school classrooms of our state to the sanctuaries of our churches. It is my goal not to just perform the best traditions of North Carolina, but to dissect their subtleties in an accessible manner for a wide listening and learning audience. I am well positioned, disciplined, focused, passionate and prepared. I offer students in the classroom respect and enrichment. I’m considered a scholar in professional circles in writings and by performance. Professor Craig Werner, musicologist and chair of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, offers “ a glimpse into a world where the ideals of democracy and Christianity are something more than empty words.” I performed and provided my voice to the soundtrack for a forthcoming Hollywood movie, directed by North Carolina’s own Jeb Stuart, ”Blood Done Sign My Name.” And the forthcoming television movie “The Wronged Man” a lifetime movie premiering in November. I will star with Mike Wiley, an African-American genius playwright and actor, in his play “Blood Done Sign My Name,” which opened at Shafer Theatre at Duke on November 6. Recently I was featured on Dick Gordon’s show, “The Story,” on National Public Radio, a program which called upon my mind, memory and my singing voice: “When you listen to Mary D. Williams, ”Professor Werner continues, “ you’re hearing the voice of a great singer, but you’re also hearing the voices of the elders and the ancestors.” Dr. Timothy B. Tyson author, Senior Research Scholar, Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, Adjunct Professor of American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill states, “Though her voice is uniquely her own, her music and her message emerge from a chorus, born in the bondage of slavery, that still speaks to our struggles against what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called the “thingification” of human beings. Her power as a singer and educator comes from the heart and her scholarship, from her commitment to humanity and her belief in the God who drowned Pharaoh’s army and still seeks to let His people go, and from her faith in the blood that has signed all our names.”