Celebrating 400-plus years of African American music
Many of us know that June includes the celebration of Juneteenth, (Sunday) which was legally established as a federal holiday in 2021 and is formally known as Juneteenth National Independence Day.
The holiday commemorates the official end of slavery in the U.S., which occurred when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order that did not take effect until January 1863.
June also marks LGBTQ Pride Month, which was inspired by the activism of Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman, and Sylvia Rivera, a trans Latina woman, at what is now known as the Stonewall National Monument in New York City.
But how many know that
June is African American Music Month? Initiated in 1979 by former President Jimmy Carter, African American Music Month celebrates the many contributions African Americans have made in writing, producing, and performing music in the United States. Some popular sayings about music in our lives are that “music is the soundtrack of your life” and “music is the universal language of mankind.” The late singer, guitarist and songwriter Jimi Hendrix once said, “Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.”
Songs and music were central to the survival of enslaved African people who were kidnapped and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean. The first documented arrival of enslaved Africans on American soil dates to 1619, marking the beginning of the most successful economy the world has ever known. Those slaves created “Negro spirituals” to communicate with each other on slave trade ships and in the fields, often through coded messages. They sang in response to the brutal oppression of their white masters, in a system where Black people were literally treated like regular cargo from the ships and forced into labor based on their gender, skin tone, and body type.
While it was the job of slave masters to break the spirits of the enslaved, those Negro spirituals served as a way to uplift each other and included rich histories, stories, customs, and traditions that were passed down from generation to generation. The sacred music they created was often influenced by African music styles, unshakable faith, and the belief in God.
With African traditions at the core, generations of African American music is deeply embedded into music across genres in the U.S. and internationally. Rock ’n’ roll was born out of the rhythm and blues genre, created by African Americans. Even Elvis Presley, the “king of rock ’n’ roll,” who used his ability to appeal to a white audience, developed his sound from many already established Black artists. Those African American musicians included folks such as Little Richard, Ike Turner, and Chuck Berry, all of whom were not as fortunate or privileged to sell their music into white households.
There is a renewed appreciation and call for enhancing college curricula to be more inclusive of society at colleges and universities across the country. This demand, most notably from students, is not a new phenomenon; in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Black students especially called for more classes in what was then known as Black studies. In every level of education, from kindergarten through college, we have to ask the question: is the curriculum inclusive in ways that enable teaching of this sort of music history and education? Since we know music plays such a prominent role in our lives, can our common love of music be the through line that brings people together across differences? It would be enlightening and profound for the general public to understand how influential Black people have been on the very tunes that people hum, including country music, which originally fused together hillbilly country, gospel, jazz, and blues.
Similar to Juneteenth and LGBTQ Pride Month, African American Music Month offers our society one more opportunity to share a more comprehensive and honest narrative about our complex history. Perhaps in doing so, we can be a more informed and interconnected citizenry in the 21st century.