Way below street level, at the Cityplace/Uptown DART platform, students from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts made lunch hour commuters stop for a minute ... and listen.
"The first piece is called 'My Language,'" said senior Terrance Dean as he stepped up to the microphone that was positioned between inbound and outbound trains. "I heard the drum beat, and beat, and beat," he said reading his spoken word poem.
Commuters took out their phones to record, and did double takes as they walked past the Black History Month sign next to the performers.
"I think this is a wonderful highway of people to touch," Booker T. Washington High School's Director of Artistic Programs Fern Tresvan said. "If we can't get 'em into our concert halls, we will meet them at the DART station!"
"It's the right thing to do, to get African-American people inspired in this kind of art," said Messiah Ahmed, a violinist and senior at Booker T. Washington.
As Ahmed played the weeping notes on his instrument, a homeless man stopped to watch, and wept.
"A young man like that playing like that, it's amazing," said Win Brooks with tears running down his cheeks. Brooks said he'd never cried listening to music before he heard Ahmed play. "I don't understand it myself, but I appreciate it brought something out of me that I needed to come out."
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"I'm really, really happy that what I could move someone like that, because sometimes you really need a good cry," Ahmed said. "Music has the power to really touch people in ways that they didn't know they could be touched."
