Touting “You’re never too old to raise a little hell,” the 90-year-old Doris "Granny D" Haddock in 2000 blazed a 3200-mile trail across America for campaign finance reform, precipitating the passage of the McCain-Feingold Act. 

She continued her bipartisan reform efforts in countrywide voter registration drives, issuing her final challenge in 2010 at age 100: "Democracy is a running game.  You huddle and you go back in.  You keep going." 

Recently returning from a West Coast tour, actress Barbara Bates Smith and musician Jeff Sebens will present: "Go, Granny D! " -- A Benefit Performance for Moral Monday at Eno River UU Monday evening, January 27th.  This event is co-sponsored by the Durham Friends Meeting and the Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.

Touting “You’re never too old to raise a little hell,” the 90-year-old Doris "Granny D" Haddock in 2000 blazed a 3200-mile trail across America for campaign finance reform, precipitating the passage of the McCain-Feingold Act.  She continued her bipartisan reform efforts in countrywide voter registration drives, issuing her final challenge in 2010 at age 100: "Democracy is a running game.  You huddle and you go back in.  You keep going." 

"This show totally rocks!" said Quaker Pastor Philip Raines of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  Blog reviewer Michelle Grasty wrote, "This show will make you laugh and think and beg for more."  Sponsor Felecia Shelor said, "A full house of Liberals and Conservatives all loved the play."  "This fabulous show based on Granny D's memoirs brings her to life!" proclaimed her press secretary Maude Salinger.  From the Daily Kos,"You will laugh and you will cheer," was penned by Palo Alto's Elizabeth Kasensky.

Barbara Bates Smith, noted for her Off-Broadway adaptation and performance of “Ivy Rowe” from Lee Smith’s Fair and Tender Ladies, has toured for over twenty years with the works of Lee Smith.  She has been active in the NAACP's Moral Monday reform movement, even as an arrestee, in the spirit ofGranny D's efforts to reclaim our democracy.  For a decade, Jeff Sebens has accompanied her shows with a variety of hammered dulcimer, lap dulcimer, guitar, and banjo music.  More information is on her website: www.barbarabatessmith.com.

"In the Spirit of Protest" by Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan appeared 22 January in The Durham Herald-Sun:

www.heraldsun.com/lifestyles/faith/x402899195/In-the-spirit-of-protest.