Wingate University’s Unity House Multicultural Center will host a live stage performance of “Breach of Peace: Stories of the 1961 Freedom Riders” Sunday at 2 p.m. The show is free and open to the public.
Based on true accounts of surviving participants of the Freedom Rides, the one-man show will star award-winning North Carolina-based actor Mike Wiley, who is known for documentary theater works that spotlight American history through turning points and milestones. In this play, he’ll portray civil rights activists who, in the early 1960s, took interstate buses into segregated southern states to demonstrate the lack of enforcement of the Supreme Court’s ruling that segregated buses were unconstitutional.
The 80-minute show will be followed by a question-and-answer session.
“The arts give us hope, that united we are greater than the sum of our problems, greater than the sum of our differences,” Wiley says. One of his goals with the show is to raise cultural awareness among people of all ages as he portrays defining moments in African American history.
Wiley earned his master of fine arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has more than 15 years of experience in the fields of documentary, television, film and regional theater. Through the North Carolina Arts Council, he has had the opportunity to conduct educational residencies and perform throughout the U.S. and Canada. He is also a 2017 recipient of the University of North Carolina’s Distinguished Alumni Award.
Part of Wingate University’s observance of Black History Month, “Breach of Peace: Stories of the 1961 Freedom Riders” will be held in McGee Theatre inside the George A. Batte Jr. Fine Arts Center at 403 N. Camden Road. For more information, email Antonio Jefferson, Wingate’s assistant vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion, at a.jefferson@wingate.edu.
