HOUSTON — For one show only, Unearthed, a unique concert designed to shed light on a form of slavery allowed in Texas long after emancipation, will be at the Wortham Center on Friday night.
At 8 p.m., Dacamera will present the world-premiere jazz performance, but it won't be an ordinary concert.
Editor's note: Dacamera said a previous link in this story to buy tickets was incorrect and that tickets are only available through them. The link has been updated.
The music was dedicated and inspired by the Sugar Land 95 -- the 95 remains of African-American convict laborers found in Fort Bend County. Their unmarked graves were found at a construction site in Sugar Land in 2018.
A year after the discovery, Grammy-nominated musician and Houston native Kendrick Scott decided to create music to honor them.
"I thought -- if those people were buried there and nobody knew about them, could some of those people have been my people?" Scott said.
Scott grew up in Missouri City, just 16 miles away from the burial site. He wrote five songs for the concert to entertain and educate people about the convicts, some of whom were arrested on questionable charges, and were forced into hard labor.
The performance is simply called "Unearthed."
"The beautiful thing for me is, this project is about providing a conversation for other people to talk about them as well," Scott said. "I think about the drum set as a vehicle for a message for my emotions. And the band is a vehicle for the larger message."
The music is moving and thought-provoking. Houston poet Deborah Deep Mouton also has a role in the show.
It's a concert that speaks for the forgotten -- about a form of slavery that lasted until about 1912 in Texas, 47 years after emancipation.
"If knowledge is of the past, and wisdom is of the future, the more we learn, the better we can move forward," Scott said.
Read more about the Sugar Land 95 in the links below: