Photo courtesy of Betsy Calvert Tennessee folk singer and social activist Sparky Rucker and his wife Rhonda will make an appearance at the Old Brick Playhouse on Tuesday, Jan. 14 at 6:30 p.m. The event is being co-sponsored by The Augusta Heritage Center and Appalachian Forest National Heritage Area.

ELKINS — The Augusta Heritage Center and Appalachian Forest National Heritage Area will host Tennessee folk singer and social activist Sparky Rucker for a special discussion at the Old Brick Playhouse on Tuesday.

Rucker will be joined onstage by his wife Rhonda at the event, which is titled “An Evening With Sparky Rucker: Music’s Role in Appalachian Social Movements.” The session will begin at 6:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

The discussion and performance from Rucker will have a unique twist, as Augusta will be using a 1985 archive recording from the Augusta library of a seminar titled “Black Appalachian Issues,” in which Sparky Rucker spearheaded a discussion. Those in attendance will be able to hear his perspective from 40 years ago, and from today.

“I had been asked to do an event that served the community somewhere around Martin Luther King Day, so I found a recording of Sparky and two other activists from 1985,” Madeline Ricks, an AmeriCorps worker at the Augusta Heritage Center, told The Inter-Mountain. “I thought that recording was really impactful and it would be a really neat experience to hear Sparky’s voice 40 years ago and then 40 years later today.”

Augusta Heritage Center Executive Director Seth Young told The Inter-Mountain the event will be part discussion and part music. He added that the session will be interactive, with audience members encouraged to ask and participate in the dialogue. 

“There will be examples of songs the Ruckers have either written or played surrounding both labor activism and civil rights activism,” Young said. “Madeline (Ricks) is going to moderate the event and she will be asking Sparky questions surrounding the 40-year period since he was first interviewed by the organization. She will be asking what has changed, what has stayed the same, and where the movement is right now.”

Sparky Rucker has played an important part in the Civil Rights movement since the 1950s and has been involved in an array of social justice initiatives, officials said. He has taught across the Appalachian Region and authored several books and anthologies.

The duo will employ blues guitars, harmonicas, banjos, spoons and finger-style picking to communicate and preserve the sounds of the past in supporting a message of equality.

The presentation will feature clips supported by discussion surrounding Augusta’s 1985 recording “Black Appalachian Issues” in which Sparky Rucker, John Hancock, and Hollis Watkins took the audience on a journey through old slave songs, civil rights songs and labor protest music.

For more information about the event or to optionally RSVP, visit the Augusta Heritage Center’s website at augustaartsandculture.org.