In case you might have missed it, Jubilee was last weekend.

As a reporter for this newspaper, I was there for many of the festivities that took place.

I was at the parade on Saturday morning and then the street festival that afternoon.

I was at Brown Chapel on Sunday morning and then stood on the fire escape of the Times-Journal building to cover the bridge crossing.

I saw a lot of amazing things over the weekend. I saw young children with grilled turkey legs almost as large as their tiny arms. I saw men in their golden years dancing in the street without abandon. I saw a mass of people cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge to celebrate the march that changed the world 54 years ago.

I’ll remember the things I saw last weekend for the rest of my life, but the most impactful thing about Jubilee wasn’t what I saw but what I heard at Brown Chapel on Sunday morning.

I’m not referring to the politicians that spoke, though they all did a fine job.

I’m referring to The University of Alabama Afro-American Gospel Choir, who served as the special musical guests for Sunday’s service.

As those voices and the sounds of the pipe organ reverberated from those walls of that sacred place, I wished I wasn’t there to work, but just to listen.

To hear those songs, the same songs sung by those who marched 54 years ago, sung with just as much urgency now as they were then moved me in a way I’m not able to articulate.

While I can’t explain quite what I felt, I think this quote from Dr. King will help.

“Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down.”

As I saw my fellow members of the press scrambling for the perfect photo, I thought they could also benefit from a listen. It would do some of them good to be calmed by the harmonies.