Center Union Baptist Church, Cumberland, VA, March 1991 | Call & Response Gospel

This video was filmed at Center Union Baptist Church in Cumberland, Virginia on March 13, 1991, and features call-and-response a cappella gospel singing. It features eight congregations from the region, and was filmed by Garry Barrow and Michelle Branagan, as part of Virginia Folklife Program efforts to document Piedmont traditional religious music.
Dorros Evans, who appears at the very end of the video (lower right side, 1:28:33), was six years old at the time, and in 2023 helped identify several people in the video, including her father and mother: Betty Scales (speaking at 0:33), Mattie Banks (white hat, close up at 1:11), Joe Brown, deacon of Bethlehem Baptist Church, wearing a tan sport coat (1:47), Roscoe Evans, wearing a USPS uniform (1:47), Lillian Montague (black hat, gray coat, singing at 1:05:50), Dorothy Evans (in green sweater with white collar, 1:16:07). Virginia Folklife staff are continuing to connect with Center Union Baptist congregation members to identify more people, if you have more names to add, please contact us at [e-mail].
Audio remastered in August 2023 by Jamal Millner.