Since their formation, Blind Boys of Alabama (BBA) have made it their goal to “spiritually uplift audiences”. The gospel group has been inspirational to those with disabilities. In the words of one of the group’s blind members, Ricky McKinnie, “Our disabilities don’t have to be a handicap. It’s not about what you can’t do. It’s about what you do."
The group first sang together in glee club at the Alabama Institute for the Blind in Talledega, Alabama in 1944. They were all about age 9-10 then, and originally performed for WW2 soldiers at training camps in the south. The band joined the civil rights movement during the 1960s, performing at many benefits for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, but by the 1970s, soul music eclipsed gospel, and their popularity waned.
BBA started a resurgence at the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville. In 1983, they appeared in the musical theater production “The Gospel at Colonus”, which eventually won Tony and Pulitzer Prize awards. That changed everything for BBA, and they now perform alongside more popular and secular artists.