Confetti Park Children's Workshop

Tag: ms. chocolate

  • A childhood music memory from Ms. Chocolate about spirituals

    A childhood music memory from Ms. Chocolate about spirituals

    Ms. Chocolate, also known as Gwen Williams, is a storyteller and a singer who grew up in Louisiana. Many of her favorite stories and songs she shares with children today are the true memories and gathered songs from her own childhood in rural parts of central Louisiana. Church, family, school, and life in the country are recurrent themes.

    In this episode Ms. Chocolate shares about the music she sang as a little girl:

    “The music I remember as a child were called spirituals. Now you don’t have too much of that today…  I do a monologue of Harriet Tubman and spirituals of the Underground Railroad. So I teach children how slaves used music to communicate…….. ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot,’ ‘He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands,’ ‘This Little Light of Mine’—these are spirituals. These are simple songs that have a really big meaning,” says Ms. Chocolate.

    Ms. Chocolate lives in Picayune, Mississippi today. She left New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. She tells stories all around the Gulf area. http://chocolatestoryteller.blogspot.com/

  • Storytime: The Lord’s Supper by Ms. Chocolate

    Storytime: The Lord’s Supper by Ms. Chocolate

    communionIn this episode of Confetti Park, we hear a wonderful and true childhood story from the Louisiana-born storyteller Ms. Chocolate.

    This is a story about when she attended her first Lord’s Supper at the Galilee Baptist Church in Alexandria, Louisiana. Ms. Chocolate was only four years old, but she was looking forward to the supper at the little country church.

    “Now, I didn’t know who the Lord was, but I knew what supper was! Supper meant fried chicken and cornbread and collard greens and pound cake! Well, I wanted to go to that supper.

    When I walked inside the door, they had a table sitting up front, and it had a white sheet over it, and I’m trying to figure out, what could be under that sheet? Must be a whole ham or a turkey or something!

    Ms. Chocolate
    Ms. Chocolate

    I sat on the front pew and I kept watching… I was wondering when are we going to eat? When are we gonna eat?”

    The story continues in Ms. Chocolate’s wonderful voice. When she and the other children are left alone in the church house, they go up front to investigate what’s under the sheet.

    Ms. Chocolate, also known as Gwen Williams, lives in Picayune, Mississippi today. She left New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. She tells stories all around the Gulf area. http://chocolatestoryteller.blogspot.com/