Port Arthur Public Library to host acclaimed opera singer Richard Perkins’s “Here I Stand” program
Published 3:58 pm Tuesday, February 18, 2025
- Port Arthur native and professional opera singer Richard Perkins performs during the Zachary Breaux Jazz Festival at the Port Arthur Public Library in 2015. Perkins, who 50 years ago sang for MLK along with fellow Prairie View A&M choir students, was invited back to Memphis for an anniversary event.
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Nationally known Opera Singer and Port Arthur native Richard Perkins is hosting his fourth Black History Month program “Here I Stand” at the Port Arthur Library Saturday, Feb. 22.
Perkins will focus this educational program on the past, local and black musicians from the West side of Port Arthur during the era of segregation and the time after.
“That’s what my program is about, what it was like during integration, during Jim Crow, some of the positive aspects of that particular kind of life,” said Perkins. “I’m sure that if those black people around my age could speak we would have our own individual stories about what life was like on the West side of Houston Avenue.”
Perkins began his career in Port Arthur’s Lincoln High School before graduating and joining the Praire View A&M where he was one the last people to sing before Dr. Martin Luther King before he was assassinated.
Perkin’s career after would take him around the country and into Europe to be classically trained in opera singing. Eventually, he found his way back to Southeast Texas where he continued to teach the new generation what growing up in the era of integration was like.
The two-hour event begins at 3:00 p.m. at the Port Arthur Library located at 4615 9th Avenue.
