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
“recognizing 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”. Then, 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’s last, the
nation’s first Black president said, “African
American music helps us imagine a better world
and offers hope that we will get there
together.”
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 front man 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 Dance to the
Music, or I Want to Take
You Higher, or Thank You for
Letting Me Be Myself Again. Who could not think about unity
and acceptance when they heard Everyday
People? Who could not fail to feal
affirmed when they heard Everybody is a
Star, with the powerful line. “I love
you for who you are, not for who you feel a
need to be.”
Sly Stone mixed genres – funk,
soul, rock, gospel, and psychodelia. 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 like Family Affair,
Hot Fun in the Summertime, or Dance to the
Music. What a joy and inspiration
Sly Stone was. Indeed, I can’t think
about Sly Stone’s music without humming or
getting out of my desk chair to shake my
stuff, if only for a minute.
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’t
need Presidential approval, or anyone else’s
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.
Our
nation is under siege. The man who lives in
the House that Enslaved People Built has
deployed 4000 National Guard members and 700
Marines to Los Angeles against the wishes of
Governor Gavin Newsome and Mayor Karen Bass.
His clueless Defenses Secretary can’t 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 the worse shape
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 protestors sang. Because,
as President Obama said, “music helps us of a
better world, and offers us hope that we can
get there together. Let’s celebrate Black
Music and Sly Stone this month. Let us savor
our music and revel in our rich history.
