The Roanoke River Regional Collaborative will host its fifth Cultural Awareness And Arts Performances on Saturday.

The performances will be held at the Tillery Community Center, 321 Community Center Road in Tillery.

The program begins at 10 a.m. with Katherine Mellen Charron,associate professor of History at North Carolina State University conducting a workshop on the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Bills passed 50 years ago and now being celebrated.

Charron is a North Carolina native and earned her BA in literature at the University of North Carolina-Asheville, her MA. in Afro-American studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her Ph.D. in history at Yale University.

Her teaching and research expertise includes 20th century U.S., African American, southern, and women's history. She is the author of the award winning Freedom's Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark (2009) and the co-editor of William Henry Singleton's Recollections of My Slavery Days (1999).

Following the workshop, Ted Fitzgerald, a Voter Outreach Specialist with the North Carolina State Board of Elections will present information on the proposed 2016 Voter ID Requirements.

Information will include what will be acceptable forms of ID and how voters can receive free Voter ID.

At 1 p.m. there will be a cultural arts program featuring some of the Roanoke River Region's talents. Headlining the performers is guitarist Sparkie Watts of Roanoke Rapids and 90-year-old jazz and former vaudeville performer Theresa Harvey of Tillery, known as “Tillery’s own Lady Day.”

Both performers are making their fifth appearance; and there will be newcomers to the show including gospel singers The Gospel Five from Oak City; Robert Price of Northampton County; and the Springfield MBC Praise Minister; Keyboardist Charlie Hill Jr. of Rocky Mount, and Lauryn Jones of Roanoke Rapids.

The gospel hour will be from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. and the jazz, dance and country western performances will be from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.

There is no charge.