“A Night of Song” raises more than $2K for the Mariah Brown House

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The Friends and Family of Mariah Brown’s House and Museum, in partnership with the Coconut Grove Ministerial Alliance, raised more than $2,000 during “A Night of Song” – the first fundraiser geared toward earning donations to make the historic house into a museum.

The event was organized by Renita Ross Samuels-Dixon, director and founder of Friends of Mariah Brown. The preservation of the Mariah Brown House is near and dear to the community’s heart, she said.

The house, built by Brown in 1889, was the first house to be built by Bahamian settlers in Coconut Grove.

“It feels like it’s important to everyone…like it’s a part of our souls,” said Barbara Jordan, mistress of ceremony for the event.

Many people with close ties to the house came out to show their support. Special guests included Alfonso Gardener and his niece Cerietta Wilder, who grew up in the house, and Jjovana Bethel, Robin Gore and Charles Bethel, descendants of Mariah Brown. They said they were pleased with the fundraiser.

“I think it’s a part of something that’s very well needed,” Wilder said.

To Gore, the museum means preserving the memory of her great-great-grandmother for Coconut Grove.

“It would be a place where neighborhoods around can visit…so that 60 years from now my grandchildren can come and see it. We all need something to look back to and to hold on to,” she said.

The night primarily featured male gospel choruses from the Coconut Grove area. Performing were the male choruses of the Beulah Missionary Baptist Church, the Mt. Tabor Missionary Baptist Church, the Greater St. Paul AME Church, the St. Mary First Missionary Baptist Church, the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church and the New Beginnings Chorus.

The lively music had much of the crowd standing, singing and clapping along together in support of the cause. Each new chorus was met with as much enthusiasm as the last, and kept the room animated during the two-hour event.

“I was really happy with the night,” said Samuels-Dixon.

As an interlude from the music, Laverne Lewis-Cuzzocrea performed a scene from Mariah Brown, one of the plays from the Bahamas trilogy. The author of the play, Sandra Riley, also attended the event and is a long-time supporter of the movement to preserve the historic house. The scene performed featured a young Brown acquiring her land and building her home, ending with a rendition of “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah.”

This was Lewis-Cuzzocrea’s fifth time performing the role and she feels a connection to the story because “it is a history worth preserving.”

The organization raised more than $2,000 that night. While this a long way away from their ultimate goal of $200,000, organizers remain optimistic.

“I was very pleased…this was turned around short-term and was done mostly by word of mouth and emails,” said Jordan. “We had people from all walks of life…in Coconut Grove, people come together.”