2011 African-American Music Appreciation Month

A few days ago I posted President Obama's proclamation declaring June to be African American Music Appreciation Month in the States.

The practice started under President Jimmy Carter on June 7, 1979 at the urging of legendary music producer Kenny Gamble.   Since then all US presidents have issued proclamations celebrating Black Music Month which is now referred to since 2009 as African American Music Appreciation Month.

I've posted more than a few articles here about my favorite artists, forms of music and making the case that certain decades were better than others in terms of the quality of music.   One thing that will never change is my love for our music in all its forms.   

Be it gospel, jazz, hip hop, funk, soul, divas like Denyse Graves and Kathleen Battle singing arias,  the great Charley Pride and now Miko Marks singing country, it's not just the music of our people.   It connects us with the rest of the Diaspora through the music traditions that came with us from the African continent.

So happy African American Music Appreciation month!

The Black Wall Street In Tulsa

This is a documentary about Black Wall Street In Tulsa, Oklahoma.    The 90th anniversary of the race riot that destroyed it is happening May 30-June 1.  Here's a fascinating look at that history.

Mothership Landing At The Smithsonian

Funkateers, raise your hands and give a P-Funk salute in the direction of Chocolate City, because the Mothership is about to land in DC.

The Smithsonian is setting up a National Museum of African American History and Culture, and when it opens its doors in 2015 will have The Mothership anchoring a permanent exhibit of African American music.

“I’m about to cry!” Parliament-Funkadelic's George Clinton told the AP from his home in Tallahassee recently. “They’re taking the Mothership! They’re shipping it out! . . . But I’m glad it’s going to have a nice home there.”

It's not the original one I and legions of Funkateers who attended their shows got to see in concert when it first took flight in 1976, it's a 1200 pound replica built in the mid 90's.   The original one got sold by Parliament-Funkadelic's Washington based tour management company to a Prince George's County scrap yard in 1982 to satisfy the mounting debts piled up by those extravagant P-Funk Earth Tours and the Funk Mob legally fighting each other.


What happened to the original Mothership is urban legend territory now, but if it's intact, it's worth a lot of money.


The replica Mothership was donated by Clinton and is now safely ensconced in storage until the 2015 opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. 

Also slated for display in the museum's collection are Louis Armstrong's trumpet, James Brown's stage costumes and Lena Horne's gowns.

The museum will be located and built on a five acre site adjacent to the Washington Monument that is bounded by Constitution Avenue, Madison Drive, and 14th and 15th streets N.W., with construction to begin in 2012.


But don't be surprised people when you see a long line of P-Funk fans like myself waiting for the opening of the museum and some of us are chanting P-funk slogans as we do so.

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Happy Birthday Malcolm X-Rest In Peace

Today is the birthday of El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, better known to the rest of the world as Malcolm X.  He was born on this date in Omaha, NE in 1925, lived a very interesting life in which he evolved numerous times  and was assassinated on February 21, 1965.

You were taken away from us far too soon.  Our country and African Americans would be in a much better place had you been around to continue your thoughtful evolution as a spokesman and leader for our people.

While we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and root of the problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems that we face as a race

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.   February 26, 1965 telegram to Betty Shabazz

Actor Ossie Davis' eulogy at Malcolm's funeral in Harlem.



Rest in power and peace our shining Black prince.    You are missed.

The Freedom Rides 50th Anniversary

This was something that got past me on the day it happened (and it shouldn't have) but thanks to the upcoming PBS special being broadcast later tonight, it bears mentioning in light of the fact that some overprivileged people in the trans community think they (or the trans community in general) don't need public accommodations language in any trans civil rights laws.  

That thought is repugnant to me since the 50th anniversary of the start of the Freedom Rides was on my just passed May 4 birthday.  I also remember what people had to go through just to get that coverage for African Americans. 

The Freedom Rides were CORE's (Congress of Racial Equality) and SNCC's (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) tactic for desegregating public transportation in the South modeled on Bayard Rustin and George Houser's 1947 Journey of Reconciliation.  

On May 4, 1961 in order to test the Boynton v Virgina Supreme Court ruling that declared discrimination in interstate bus and rail transportation unconstitutional, a group of seven Blacks and six Whites departed on a Greyhound and a Trailways bus from Washington DC bound for the Deep South.   One of the members of that initial group was Fisk University student and future congressman John Lewis.   

It was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans for a planned May 17 rally and in the first few days of travel through Virginia and North Carolina the group encountered mild hostility.   But at the Rock Hill, South Carolina Greyhound station a mob of twenty people attacked John Lewis and the other riders as they approached the White waiting room.   The police intervened and the group was allowed to continue their trip to Atlanta

The violence got ramped up as they crossed the border into Alabama no thanks to as we later discovered Birmingham's infamous Commissioner of Public Safety Theophilus Eugene 'Bull' Connor and the Ku Klux Klan.   The Axis of Civil Rights Evil conspired to ensure that this Freedom Ride ended in Alabama.  

Just after crossing the Georgia-Alabama border outside Anniston, AL on May 14 (Mother's Day) the Greyhound bus was surrounded by a mob, had its tires slashed and was attacked and burned.  

The Trailways bus arrived in Anniston an hour later, but the driver refused to move until everyone sat in a segregated manner.   The bus was then boarded by a group of Klan thugs who beat the Riders and left them semi conscious in the back rows. 

When the Freedom Riders arrived in Birmingham they were violently attacked by several dozen Klansmen  brandishing pipes at the bus terminal.   Connor had already cut a deal with the Klan in which they would be allowed 15 minutes of mayhem before the police arrived and attrbuted the slow response of his offices as 'them vising their mothers on Mother's Day'.   When the bloodied and battered group gamely showed up the next day to continue the journey to Montgomery, no Greyhound bus showed up at the Birmingham terminal because drivers refused to to take them.    With reports of protesters massing in Montgomery and the May 17 rally date looming, the group reluctantly flew to New Orleans.

SNCC leader Diane Nash did not want the Freedom Rides to be ended on that violent note because she felt it would send a negative message to the country and set back the cause so she quickly assembled another group of Freedom Riders to continue the mission.  .

The group assembled by Nash was composed of eight African Americans (John Lewis was on this one as well) and two Whites departed Nashville on May 17.   They were arrested by Birmingham police upon their arrival and after spending the night in jail were driven back to the Tennessee border by Bull Connor and left there, ostensibly because Connor was tired of hearing them sing freedom songs.   The Riders returned to the Birmingham terminal anyway and sang those freedom songs that got on Connor's last nerves.  

The brutality of the assaults on the Freedom Riders combined with police indifference and glacial reaction to the attacks caused a public opinion firestorm that compelled the nascent Kennedy Administration to take action to end the violence.  

A bus was sent to Birmingham with a state police and helicopter escort that rode from Birmingham to Montgomery, AL without incident.    When they arrived in Montgomery the state police escort vanished and the Riders were greeted by a mob of 300  people.   Twenty five Whites armed with clubs and sticks began beating the cameramen and photographers in attendance, then turned their attention the the Riders.  The mob swelled to 1000 people before it was broken up with tear gas  
   

The Riders then continued to Jackson, MS where they were met by more hostility, arrests and jail terms for using the white waiting areas.  

But far from the events in Alabama and Mississippi killing the movement as the Axis of Intolerance had hoped, the summer of 1961 would see more Freedom Rides occur, and the protests were expanded to include airports and train stations across the Southern United States. 

In the meantime Attorney General Robert Kennedy bowed to demands from Dr. King, other civil rights leaders, and public and international condemnation of the violence.  On May 29 he sent a petition to the Interstate Commerce Commission ordering it to comply with a 1955 bus desegregation ruling it had issued in the Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company case but was ignoring due to being chaired by South Carolina Dixiecrat  J. Monroe Johnson.

The Freedom Rides successfully ended when on November 1, 1961 the Interstate Commerce Commission  rules that banned segregated transportation facilities took effect.   Passengers were permitted to sit wherever they pleased on interstate buses and trains, "white" and "colored" signs came down in the terminals, separate drinking fountains, toilets, and waiting rooms were consolidated, and the lunch counters began serving people regardless of race.. 

The surviving Freedom Riders were on a recent May 4 Oprah broadcast, and other memorials and commemorations are taking place as we hit anniversaries of these key dates in the various cities involved in the campaigns .

The Freedom Riders struck mighty blows for public accommodations coverage in federal law and also showed that non violent direct action campaigns could be successful.  

I'm damned sure not going to let anyone forget what it cost us in blood 50 years ago just to get our public accommodations rights affirmed.   

I'm sure Christy Polis and other transpeople who are increasingly being denied our public accomodations rights would agree.  .