Bronzeville high school choir alums are celebrated at Wendell Phillips High School

They were hailed as “Living Legends” as they returned to their high school’s stage for the first time since graduating half a century or more ago.

Ten singers from the Wendell Phillips High School alumni a capella choir — whose talents were honed in the 1960s and 1970s under beloved director Andrew Duncan — came back to the Bronzeville high school as honored guests at a musical assembly capping Black History Month.

For the choir, the performance was fueled by more than just being able to get together and sing. They've been doing that every summer since 1992, with Mr. Duncan — that's what they knew him as then and still, out of respect, call him — leading them in songs he’d taught their teenage selves. That continued until he died at 90 in 2023. And they continued to honor his wish to stay together even after his death.

This time, the three sopranos, three altos, two tenors and two basses from Phillips High classes from 1965 to 1974 assembled inside the auditorium of Chicago’s first Black high school hoping to rouse in its 400 students a sense of their place in a historic legacy and of their own potential.

Phillips’ alumni include some well-known names in music, like Sam Cooke and Roebuck “Pops” Staples. But, beyond that, there was a time when Phillips was teeming with thousands of neighborhood kids, and its a capella choir was a powerhouse. The choir dominated city competitions, was called upon to sing by the mayor, recorded three albums and performed across the United States and even on a 1970 European tour, when it was the first American choir invited to a prestigious international youth singing festival in Germany, the only Black choir to perform that year.

“All of these people that you see on stage are alums of this school,” Joseph Smith, class of 1965, told the gathering of current Phillips students from the stage on Thursday. "At one time, we proudly sat where you are sitting.

“We hope that you will enjoy this and that you will glean from this that we need to do something about the music program at your school, to do something to rebuild and redevelop the music legacy at Wendell Phillips High School.”

They began, as Mr. Duncan always did — with “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” which was written at nearby Pilgrim Baptist Church by Thomas A Dorsey, renowned as the “Father of Gospel Music.” Then, the choir brought out another reunion staple: “Amen.”

The singers were decked out in finery from Ghana and Zambia. La Nitta Fletcher Johnson, class of 1974, brought her 96-year-old mother, who wanted to see the choir perform once again. Michael Hill, class of 1972, invited some aunts. Carol Duncan, Mr. Duncan’s widow, got her son to drive her from Racine, Wisconsin.

The other singers who were there: Gertrude Jackson Hill, class of 1965 and president of Phillips’ Alumni Hall of Fame; Richard Rolark, class of 1968; choir coordinator Joyce Atkins Darling, Earlene Williams and Charlene Guss, all class of 1972; her sister Emily Guss; and Franklin Glenn, class of 1973.

They were invited after the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ reported in December on the choir’s storied past. The invitation was meant in part to honor the singers. More than that, it was to shine a spotlight on the school's living history for its current students.

“I would hope that, with what we try to do and what they hear and see, that they will be compelled to follow in our footsteps,"Smith said.

Phillips’ history hangs in its hallways. Hundreds of portraits from its alumni Hall of Fame adorn the walls, including many of former a capella choir members.

Lillee Ingram, a current student, offered her takeaway — that the school is “very important to Chicago and in Bronzeville and stuff. A whole bunch of historically Black people went here and paved the way for us.” A sophomore, she discovered her own musical side earlier this year in a piano class she loves. For the assemby, she played Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” on stage.

Charleston Rice, another sophomore, said:,“I didn’t even know we had a choir, so that was kind of new to me.”

He had only recently taught himself enough trombone to join the marching band’s performance through the auditorium and onto the stage.

Kashay Smith, 16, a third-generation Phillips student, wondered, “So why don’t we have choir here" today?

She said general music is her favorite class at Phillips — thanks to the teacher.

That’s Toni Elliott Bell, Phillips’ one-woman music department, who sings, plays trumpet, leads the marching band and teaches piano. She said she has asked to add a choir class to her roster next year: “I do have hope.”

Kashay said she’d join it “if they teach you how to sing ‘cause I don’t know how to sing. But if they teach you. . .”