(soft piano music) (soft music) (upbeat music) - In a place not so far away at a time not so long ago, the people danced.

Though many miles from that which was sacred, they rejoiced, because they knew their souls would come home.

It's time to come home.

(Eartha purring) (audience applauds) - [Narrator] It was Tom Wolf who said, "You can't go home again."

But legendary performer Eartha Kitt, recently disproved that adage with a triumphant return to her native South Carolina.

- Ladies and Gentlemen, the incomparable, Ms. Eartha Kitt.

(audience applauds) (audience cheering) - I do appreciate very much, this day.

I had no idea how I would feel coming home.

I left in tears, but it seems I have come home to love.

(audience applauds) - [Speaker] Oh yes.

- I want to thank all of you for the gifts that you have given me.

(Eartha sniffles) And I can now say, that is I have been in over 108 countries of this world.

I can very honestly say, that today above all days, you have made me inextricably proud to say I'm a South Carolinian.

(audience applauds) (audience cheering) - [Narrator] Although born in North, Ms. Kitt left South Carolina some 60 odd years ago when she was just a child.

Impoverished, taunted by relatives, and separated from her mother, her memories of her home state are less than fond.

- I'd like to know what door this key opens?

- Everything.

Everything.

(all laughing) - Yes I do have mixed emotions, because I was always very afraid of coming back to the South because of the way I was treated as a kid.

And as I say I left in tears more or less.

Also, as a kid I left very happily because I didn't want to be constantly in that position of which I was as a child.

Being called a yellow gal.

Not being accepted by anybody.

Not having a knowledge of whom I was.

And I've gone through life wondering whom I am.

It's tearful and it's laughable at the same time.

But then that's been my whole life I've laughed and cried at the same time because I've always thought, since I don't know who I am I might as well pretend I am somebody.

So I did and made somebody.

(all laughing) - [Reporter] Are you pleased with your invention?

- Oh of course I am darling.

(Eartha Purring) - [Narrator] But during the visit, Kitt also took the time to learn something about her true identity.

She returned to North, the town of her birth, and the source of sad an unsettled memories.

- Yup, I remember that a little.

- [Speaker] Yeah this used to be the school.

Used to be the school when she got out of her car and she came out over this.

- [Speaker] Yeah.

She remember the famous school.

(indistinct) - Yeah this was a school.

- [Speaker] This is all new.

- Well it might have been, (indistinct) (engine rumbling) - This was a school?

- That's what she remembers this as being, a school.

- Did you go to school here?

- What?

One day.

(all laughing) - [Speaker] Ghosts.

- Here's another erica.

- Is it really?

- Its a reaper.

- Oh its a reaper.

Its very emotional, because before I came, I was very concerned about how I would feel once I got here because of the way I was treated when I was a child in this area of my country.

But from the emotional side remembering the hurts that penetrated my little heart when I was a kid and my inner self, very hurting, yes.

But I think the coming and I think this is one of the main reasons why I also accepted this invitation.

And thanks to the Benedict College that they have invited me to do this.

But I'm able now to eradicate, not forget.

But I think to a greater extent, forgive.

And now that I'm feeling the touches and getting the touches of the people.

The black and the white, I'm beginning to feel very comfortable with myself, as well as my feeling and relations with other people.

Because when you are, well I can only say I, I feel that being a rejected person, you don't understand why you are being rejected.

All you know is that you are a different color and you are called a yellow gal.

So you are not wanted by anybody, particularly if you're on top of all of that, illegitimate.

You don't know who your father is.

And you have some doubts really as to whom your mother was 'cause there is no proof of a name that I can identify with except the one the public has made me realize is mine.

And knowing something of my past gives me the feeling that I'm beginning to find myself.

Knowing whom I am.

- [Narrator] The vehicle for Kitt's return, was a one night only performance of "Souls The Calah."

A dance theater work written and directed by Walter Rutledge.

Artistic Director of the Benedict College Dance Company the Harold Odom Dance Theater.

It is set on Wadmalaw Island and it's the folklore and traditional rituals of the sea islanders.

(upbeat drum music) Featured in the tile role of The Calah, the most powerful of Mambo priestesses, Kitt narrates this tale.

(soft music) - And when the gates of paradise were closed the man and the woman and those of the man and the woman became the first to walk the land.

(upbeat music) To take dominion over the seas.

To till the soil.

Build the cities.

Study the heavens.

Write the laws.

Those of the man and the woman became the first scholars, doctors, astronomers, philosophers, warriors, kings and queens.

(audience applauds) When I received the script I liked it very much because I liked the idea of exchanging cultures.

Because I think through the exchangement of cultures we understand each other and therefore we have an ability to be able to get along better through communication.

And since it is a college, I think education is probably the most important thing that we can give our children because like the saying says "don't waste the mind."

And I like, now that I'm here, I like very much Benedict College, because it seem to stand for values between the races and different cultures.

What we call civilization, well the civil side of it is yet to be achieved.

(Eartha giggles) And the lization about it, is exactly what it is, lies.

We are not realizing what the word actually means.

Civil, whose civil?

You're civil or am I civil?

My culture or your culture?

And if there is a difference in our culture, let's be civilized about it and not lie anymore about yours being wrong and mine being right.

Let's share it, learn from it, educate each other from it, which is what I think this piece is doing.

(upbeat music) (Eartha singing in foreign language) The song says every time I walk into a church I always see Angels that are painted white.

And I'm a black child.

If I am a good child and black, would I not too go to heaven?

Or are we not allowed.

So now you see why I sing "Angelitos Negros" in Spanish.

It's never been translated into English as well as I would like it to have been.

But the Spanish word says it exactly.

(Eartha singing in foreign language) - [Interviewer] Are you at peace?

- When I think that I'm at peace, I really don't know.

Because once in a while if you, that anger coming up.

Not being allowed to have education, not being allowed to even keep my own name.

Even that was stolen from us.

Who was my tribe?

(soft music) - A lot of thing were influenced by their environment, which include rap and a lot of other things.

Country and western, folk and a lot of other stuff.

And they wanna do it all.

They wanna make money.

So it's not, when you wanna make money quick, then you better back up off jazz, if you wanna make it fast.

If you have patience and you think that you love it enough to make some sacrifices for it, then it'll come a different way.

Don't expect for jazz to be on the same level as pop music.

Pop is in and out.

Jazz stays, it's been cheered on, survived and made all kinds of money, regardless of a hit record.

Duke Ellington's music will be played forever and ever and ever and ever.

Billie Holiday, forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.

So don't expect for it to be like pop music 'cause it ain't pop music.

It is jazz.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] She's Betty Carter, a Jazz legend.

And she makes no apologies for it.

In a career that spends a half century, Betty Carter has wedded the ups and downs of her chosen field.

Along the way not only has she established her own career and proved her staying power, but she's also reached back, offering the hands of experience to assist young and inspiring jazz musicians.

In her view that's just paying her dues.

- Well someone did hire me when I was, had just got out of high school and I was Lionel Hampton.

I went on the road with him for 2 and a half years.

And that's when I made my decision.

That's who I really wanted to become, was a good jazz singer.

The same rules apply for most young people.

It's just that today, the environment is different.

There are not a lot of places for them to work.

To get some training, on the job training.

Because in jazz it is that, on the job training.

You can go to school and get your education and learn about your instrument or learn about how to play it.

How to use your fingers and stuff like that, but in order to become a creative artist, to make your own print, or to find out how you wanna sound, you have to really do it, and get out there and do it.

And today, unfortunately there are not a lot of places for these young musicians to do that.

And I am just one of the people that can hire them long enough for them to help, make decisions about their lives.

- [Interviewer] Do you think of your voice then, when you're standing up there, you think of yourself as more one of the instruments?

- No, I think of myself as a singer.

But I know that because I am flexible, I take some risk with the music.

That's what musicians do, horn-players do.

That most people think that my voice is like an instrument.

But I don't think that way, I don't get on the stage and think well I'm a saxophone tonight or whatever.

No, I think of myself as a singer.

But I just happen to, whose able to do a lot of things that maybe horn-players can do.

But I'm a singer.

I sing words.

I sing lyrics and stuff.

So I'm a singer.

(soft music) - Yup.

You like a lot of you own music and you, I guess interpret or rearrange a lot of the others so that it sounds as though it's new music.

Is that really the joy for you?

- Well you know that came as I evolved.

If you go back and listen to my early records, you'll find that I did not change the melody that it was pretty much, I did it pretty much the same.

But as I grew in the business and as I educated myself and my years, I realized that I could do a whole lot of other things.

Not only that, I refused to change the keys, that I sang them in years ago, same songs rather.

And because as you age your voice changes.

And most singers maybe dropped their pitches down a couple steps and stuff like that to accommodate their voice because of the age process.

Well I refused to change my keys.

My ego got in the way.

(Betty giggling) Then I didn't want to get deeper 'cause I'm already deep anyway.

My throat is deeper and it's getting deeper as I age anyway.

So I just put myself through, I challenged myself by dealing with the songs in the same key.

So I would have to change the melody a little bit.

But it also, because I changed the melody, it educated me.

- [Interviewer] When you look back over this very long and illustrious career, what do you see is the greatest period of growth for you?

- Now.

- [Narrator] Really?

Would you expand on that?

- Yeah.

- Why now?

- 'Cause I know I'm more now.

And I like me better now than I did a long time ago.

I'm confident now.

I'm secure in what I do now musically, so I'm gonna do, I mean, I'm in love with me now.

(soft music) ♪ You go to my head (soft music)