CULTURAL PRESERVATION AND THE EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA ROOTS OF FUNK MUSIC  

The Sonja Haynes Stone Center, in collaboration with the Kinston, NC-based 1901 Building Group, which promotes cultural education and heritage preservation, will host the Chitlin Circuit re-enactment on September 13th at 6:00PM.  

Please RSVP

This showcase features a live performance, an historical exhibition, and food and fellowship that will bring to life the founding and evolution of funk music.  

For years prior to the outbreak of the COVID19 pandemic, Choci Gray helped organize and host the Chitlin Circuit re-enactment in Kinston, NC. The annual event celebrated the town’s prominent Black musicians and harkened to segregation-era marginalization of Black performers who were excluded from white clubs and forced instead to perform at Black-owned venues.  

Billed The Chitlin Circuit, these venues provided important community-building and networking sanctuaries of support for Black entertainers. With artists and performers such as the legendary Ella Fitzgerald, B.B. King, and Duke Ellington starting regularly on the Circuit scene, a new genre, Funk Music, emerged.  

Several of the venues that contributed immensely to shaping American music during that era were in North Carolina.  

Choci Gray is an eastern North Carolina native, who grew up listening to prominent black Musicians of the time, including James Brown. Upon learning that Brown’s funk style emanated from enormous contributions by several Kinston-connected musicians such as Nat Jones, Maceo Parker, Melvin Parker, and Dick Knight, Gray was spurred to action. She returned to her hometown after a period of living overseas, with a renewed urge to preserve, promote and celebrate her community’s rich musical and cultural heritage.  

Gray’s community-building work is best exemplified by her initiatives as proprietor of the 1901 Building Group in Kinston. Through this collective, she hosts cultural and arts events and performances, and serves on the county’s recreation committee.  

Gray has worked tirelessly to preserve the legacy of, and garner recognition for, the rich heritage of cultural production and artists in her community. She nominated Maceo Parker and Dick Knight for the North Carolina Heritage Award, which they received in 2016 and 2018, respectively.  

Gray also helped secure a Pomeroy Foundation Historic Marker to honor Nat Jones, who co-wrote many of James Brown’s songs and served as the band’s musical director. This marker will be the first in Kinston to honor an African American. 

The Exhibition 

An accompanying historical exhibition, entitled Hey America!: Eastern North Carolina and the Birth of Funk, will feature items associated with James Brown and some Tar Heel musicians who worked with Brown to shed light on emergence of the funk music genre during the mid- to late 1960s. With nods to the musical genius of Nathaniel “Nat” Jones of Kinston and other African American musical pioneers from eastern North Carolina, the exhibition focuses on a community of artists who helped to create funk when they joined up with James Brown in 1964 and helped transform Brown into the icon known worldwide as the “Godfather of Funk Music.” The exhibition is curated by Earl Ijames from the North Carolina Museum of History.  

This event, like most of the Stone Center’s programming, is free and open to the public.