Durham Committee’s Annual Banquet Back This Summer As A Hybrid Event

DURHAM, NC – The Durham Committee of the Affairs of Black People (DCABP) will host its renowned annual event, celebrating 86 years of service to the Durham community, next month. Last year, due to COVID, DCABP was not able to celebrate its 85th anniversary in person. The DCABP Annual Banquet, a hybrid event offering in-person and online options, will take place on Saturday, August 14, at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel. This year’s honorees are Congressman G.K. Butterfield and Pastor Shirley Caesar, two individuals who exemplify what it means to take care of the community, not just in Durham but also across the nation.  

Although this celebration will be in person, DCABP is still making sure to be very cautious.  To promote a safer environment, only tables of 10 are being sold for the annual banquet.  This way, individuals at each table will know the people they are sitting with at dinner.

There is an online option for guests who are not comfortable attending in person. Some tables have already sold and are moving fast. Get your tables now! Click here for DCABP Annual Banquet ticket information.

Congressman G. K. Butterfield is a life-long resident of eastern North Carolina. Raised in Wilson, he worked tirelessly in the Civil Rights Movement as a young adult. His father, Dr. G. K. Butterfield, Sr. practiced dentistry for 50 years and served as one of North Carolina’s first black elected officials since Reconstruction.

Butterfield graduated from college and law school at North Carolina Central University in Durham, NC. After earning his law degree, he founded a law practice in Wilson and served the community in that capacity for 13 years. He is best known for his successful litigation of voting rights cases that resulted in the election of African-American elected officials throughout eastern North Carolina.

In 1988, Congressman Butterfield was elected as Resident Superior Court judge. In this role, he presided over civil and criminal court in 46 NC counties. For two years, he served on the North Carolina Supreme Court by appointment of the governor. Butterfield retired from the judiciary after 15 years of service and successfully ran for Congress. He was elected to serve the First District of North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives in a special election on July 20, 2004, where he continues to serve today.

In Congress, Butterfield is a champion of affordable health care, education, investments in rural communities, veterans, renewable energies, and federal programs that support low-income and middle-class Americans. He serves in the Democratic leadership as Senior Chief Deputy Whip and is a past Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (114th Congress). Butterfield sits on the influential Committee on Energy & Commerce where he serves as the Vice-Chair of the Subcommittee on Health. In addition, he serves as a member of the Subcommittees of Communications and Technology and Energy. Since the 116th Congress, Congressman Butterfield sits on the Committee on House Administration, and as of the 117th Congress, he was appointed to serve as Chair of the Subcommittee on Elections.

A giant in the world of spiritual music, Pastor Shirley Caesar has been called “the First Lady of Gospel Music” thanks to a career that has spanned seven decades and brought her 11 Grammy Awards, as well as 15 Dove Awards. Shirley Caesar was born in Durham, North Carolina on October 13, 1938. Young Shirley began singing at local churches to help bring in money for the household after her father died and her mother was handicapped.

Caesar soon advanced to performing with a traveling evangelist and in 1951 she cut her first record. In 1956, Caesar enrolled at North Carolina State College, where she majored in business education with hopes of becoming an evangelist. Caesar was still singing, however, and in 1958, when the celebrated female gospel group the Caravans appeared in Durham, she asked to sing a solo in place of a member of the group who was unable to appear. Caravans leader Albertina Walker was impressed with Caesar’s voice, and with her family’s blessing, Shirley left college to join the Caravans full-time. In 1961 Caesar released a solo single, “Hallelujah, It’s Done,” which incorporated a sermon along with the music, and she began touring as a singing evangelist during downtime from the Caravans.

Shirley’s work on her own helped her develop a dynamic performing style, and when creative differences led her to leave the Caravans in 1966, she was ready to launch a solo career. She soon formed her own gospel group, the Shirley Caesar Singers, and by 1969 they had landed a record deal with HOB Records. In 1971, Caesar won her first Grammy Award for Best Soul Gospel Performance for her version of “Put Your Hand in the Hand of the Man from Galilee,” and in 1975 her cover of Melba Montgomery’s “No Charge” became a crossover hit that appeared on the R&B and pop charts. From the late ’70s onward, Caesar was a dominant figure on the gospel charts, and in 1981 she won her first Gospel Music Association Dove Award for her album Rejoice (she would receive 14 more Dove honors by 2002, as well as 13 Stellar Awards, another major honor in gospel music).

While Caesar’s career was more than enough to keep most people busy, in 1969 she launched the Shirley Caesar Outreach Ministries to help serve the needs of the people of Durham, and the organization became a registered nonprofit in 1981, funded in part by Caesar’s performance fees. Also in 1981, Caesar enrolled at Shaw University to complete her business degree, and in 1987 she was elected to the Durham City Council. Caesar became a pastor at the Mount Calvary Word of Faith Church in Durham, where her husband, Bishop Harold Ivory Williams, also served until his passing in 2008.

In addition to her recording career, Caesar appeared on-stage in the gospel musical Mama, I Want to Sing and its two sequels and the movies The Fighting Temptations and Why Do Fools Fall in Love and the TV show The Parkers. In 2016, Caesar got an unexpected boost in visibility when a clip from her performance of the song “Hold My Mule,” in which she reels off a holiday menu that includes “greens, beans, potatoes, tomatoes,” was used in an online video that went viral. Thanks to the video, “Hold My Mule” rocketed to the top of Billboard’s Hot Gospel Songs chart, giving Caesar her first number one in the survey. As if to confirm that Caesar was no novelty act, near the end of 2016 Shirley received two Grammy nominations, for the album Fill This House and for her performance with Anthony Hamilton on the song “It’s Alright, It’s OK.” In addition to these two nominations, the Recording Academy also honored her with a Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to the art of recorded music.

In 2019, with keynote speaker Vice President Kamala Harris, the DCABP’s annual banquet was a rousing success. As this is DCABP’s biggest fundraiser of the year, they are looking forward to continued support from the community. Sponsorship opportunities are also available.  

For DDCABP Annual Banquet tickets or more information, click here.