Step Into the Past with Uncle Cecil at First Night

New Year’s Eve is a time to look forward to what the coming year will bring, but Haddonfield’s First Night also gives the opportunity to look back on the past.

Your storyteller for a journey into African American history is Uncle Cecil, an elderly griot who will recount the tales of his family as they escaped from a plantation in South Carolina using the Underground Railroad, survived the Civil War and lived their lives post-slavery to the present.

Uncle Cecil will pass on his stories in both song and word, weaving spirituals and personal reflections into his tale.

The man speaking through Uncle Cecil is Camden actor Keith Henley, who created Uncle Cecil in part based on Henley’s own research into his family’s past.

“The family is a composite. I use an actual family member to tell the story of how we survived, but I don’t use a lot of actual accounts from my family because we took a different path from the story I’m telling,” Henley explains.

He sees Uncle Cecil’s account as wider than any single family’s history, which is why he uses composite details. “I’m telling the story of the African American during our time period in this land.”

Henley is a student of African American history, slowly discovering as an adult his love of the past and connecting his findings to the present.

“The main thing that threw me toward telling the story of the African American is that these stories aren’t told in the books. They weren’t when I was in school,” Henley says. “There are very few accounts of our story because of the way history is. And it needs to be told. This is American history, not just African American history.

“Anyone who has survived on this land, no matter who they are, is part of this land’s history. Unfortunately, we don’t want to tell the history of the African American here in America. But it’s slowly coming to fruition.”

The history buff contributes to spreading that history as a re-enactor of historical figures in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall park system, Cherry Hill’s Folkloric Heritage and at local appearances around South Jersey. His characters range from George Washington Carver to an Egyptian pharaoh to Matthew A. Henson, who discovered the North Pole.

Henley appeared at last year's First Night as well, portraying a slave . 

For this year's performance, Henley’s Uncle Cecil will center the story around the Underground Railroad. Haddonfield is thought to have hosted stops on the Underground Railroad, thanks to the borough’s Quaker roots.

“I’ll talk about what some of the spirituals meant and the secret signs that you saw in quilts and other items,” Henley explains.

Even people with a good working knowledge of the Underground Railroad are often surprised to learn that quilts had encoded messages for escaping slaves about safe routes and times to travel, who could be trusted and who to avoid.

The performances—two at the and one at the Masonic Lodge—hold special meaning for Jane Mathers, First Night’s entertainment director and a founding organizer of the New Year’s Eve tradition.

Mathers’ Haddonfield home has a tunnel from the carriage house to the main house and it’s thought that her home could have been used to shield escaping slaves.

“I like the fact that Keith Henley brings historic storytelling to Haddonfield and helps people understand a piece of Haddonfield’s past,” Mathers says. “I’ve seen him perform and he’s extremely dynamic. I know people will love it.”

Henley is the only actor slated to perform at among a group of musicians, singers, magicians, puppeteers, acrobats and flamenco dancers who will stage 50 performances during First Night. The annual event is a family-friendly, alcohol free way to ring in the new year with performances and activities for all age groups.

Visit Haddonfield’s First Night website or the event’s Facebook page for more details.

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