Singer, Festival of Sacred Music, 1963

Singer, Festival of Sacred Music, 1963

Attendee Pearl Benson at Birmingham’s Festival of Sacred Music, press photo, 1963. Birmingham’s third annual Festival of Sacred Music opened on November 26, 1963, with an emotional “farewell” to President John F. Kennedy, who had been killed just a few days before. Festival-goer Pearl Benson of Birmingham, “visibly sorrowful over the death,” appeared in this front-page photo in the Birmingham News. “Just let me sit here and sing my heart out,” she told a reporter, “and I’d sing till daylight.”

Photograph