Jessye Norman Quotes
There has never been a time when I was not committed to, involved in, or caring of, the social and political issues of my world.
Norman, Jessye. Stand Up Straight and Sing! Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014.
He was urging American entry into WW I. The phrase was a slogan of pro-war Americans until 1917 when America entered the war.
He was following the lead of Colin Kaepernick—Quote 643305. Instead of standing and saluting as professional athletes have done for decades before games, Kaepernick had kneeled and refused to stand as a protest about the large number of unarmed Black young men who had been killed by police. . This caused great public criticism but also some initial support. Athletes who did this were potentially risking their multimillion dollar salary as this technically violated their contract to avoid anything embarrassing to the team. He also donated $1 million to programs in the area that were working to enhance Black/white understanding. Even those who disagreed with his choice of protest defended his right to do so, and after the initial furor, public opinion, while not in agreement about his method, tended to support him for having the courage of his convictions and using his celebrity for a worthy cause. McCourty and other players also followed Kaepernick’s lead. Soon it became a movement in professional and college athletics.
Jessye Norman was an American opera singer and recitalist. She was able to perform dramatic soprano roles, but refused to be limited to that voice type. She was a commanding presence on operatic, concert and recital stages, associated with roles including Beethoven's Leonore, Wagner's Sieglinde and Kundry, Cassandre and Didon by Berlioz and Bartók's Judith. The New York Times music critic Edward Rothstein described her voice as a "grand mansion of sound", and wrote that "it has enormous dimensions, reaching backward and upward. It opens onto unexpected vistas. It contains sunlit rooms, narrow passageways, cavernous halls."
