{"id":7325,"date":"2025-07-07T20:23:47","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T20:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=7325"},"modified":"2025-09-07T20:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T20:25:07","slug":"we-need-the-joy-of-black-music-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=7325","title":{"rendered":"We Need the Joy of Black Music Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Julianne Malveaux<\/a><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Dyana Williams, Kenny Gamble and Ed Wright founded Black Music Month in June 1979. Also known as African American Music Appreciation Month, it was first officially celebrated by President Jimmy Carter with a White House reception. Carter created a platform to recognize and celebrate music, and many Black music executives held celebrations over the years to recognize the month. President Bill Clinton issued a presidential proclamation recognizing Black Music Month. His proclamation was \u201crecognizing the importance of African American music to global culture and calling on the people of the United States to study, reflect on, and celebrate African American Music.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2009, President Barack Obama renamed it African American Music Appreciation Month. The Obama proclamation, elegantly written, talked about spirituals lifting voices into the heavens during enslavement, and talked about the various genres of Black music including blues, jazz, soul, rock and roll, gospel and symphony. In the 2016 proclamation, one of Obama\u2019s last, the nation\u2019s first Black president said, \u201cAfrican American music helps us imagine a better world and offers hope that we will get there together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now in this Black Music Month 2025, we have lost a musical icon, one whose music was a soundtrack to my teen life. Sly Stone, the frontman for the band Sly and the Family Stone, made his transition this month, and all I could do was reflect on the music, the lyrics and the meaning of the unifying messages. Who could sit when the DJ was playing \u201cDance to the Music,\u201d or \u201cI Want to Take You Higher,\u201d or \u201cThank You Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again\u201d? Who could not think about unity and acceptance when they heard \u201cEveryday People?\u201d Who could not fail to feel affirmed when they heard \u201cEverybody is A Star,\u201d with the powerful line \u2014 \u201cI love you for who you are, not for who you feel a need to be\u201d?<\/p>\n

Sly Stone mixed genres \u2014 funk, soul, rock, gospel and psychedelia. He was ahead of the curve with his multiracial band, something not often seen in the late sixties and early seventies. Some of his music became anthems, while others remain summertime\/family picnic staples \u2014 like \u201cFamily Affair,\u201d \u201cHot Fun in the Summertime\u201d or \u201cDance to the Music.\u201d What a joy and inspiration Sly Stone was. Indeed, I can\u2019t think about Sly Stone\u2019s music without humming or getting out of my desk chair to shake my stuff, if only for a minute.<\/p>\n

It is unlikely that the current president will issue a proclamation to celebrate African American Music Appreciation Month. It would likely violate his anti-DEI edicts. We don\u2019t need presidential approval, or anyone else\u2019s for that matter, to appreciate the richness of Black music. The election of this president ought to inspire us to excavate our history, to celebrate the genius of James Weldon and his brother J. Rosamond Johnson. It ought to remind us of those early musicians who took spoons to pots to create a beat, or those gospel singers who invoked the sweet chariot coming forth to carry me home. It ought to lift subterfuge, how we used hidden meaning in songs to communicate.<\/p>\n

Our nation is under siege. The man who lives in the House that Enslaved People Built has deployed 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines to Los Angeles against the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass. His clueless defense secretary can\u2019t say what military operations will be affected by these deployments. We are in for a fight for our democracy, and the World Bank has said that the world economy will be in worse shape than it has been since the 1960s. And yet I write about music because we need the joy. Enslaved people sang. Incarcerated people sang. Civil rights workers and protesters sang. Because, as President Obama said, \u201cmusic helps us imagine a better world, and offers us hope that we can get there together.\u201d Let\u2019s celebrate Black Music and Sly Stone this month. Let us savor our music and revel in our rich history.<\/p>\n

Source: Published without changes from Washington Informer Newspaper<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Julianne Malveaux Dyana Williams, Kenny Gamble and Ed Wright founded Black Music Month in June 1979. Also<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-regular-column"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7326,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7325\/revisions\/7326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}