February was “Black History Month.” Who are we trying to fool? Every month of every year and every day of every month of our lives is a celebration of black history in the United States of America. I underscore the word “celebration.” The cultural gifts African-Americans have given to the world are so ubiquitous and so immense they could easily be taken for granted. What we do with this beautiful endowment is up to us. Here at the JUNCTON it is something of great value which we enjoy daily. We do not take these gifts for granted. How these gifts are purveyed to future generations is something we take very seriously.

Of course, American history is like many of our relationship statuses…complicated. We may not want to admit it, but it is in fact, very complicated and so painful that much of this history is at best glossed over in schools or ignored all together.

It is how you can get white supremist groups to believe anything they're told to the point they would briefly interrupt the workings of our government and storm the capital of the United States. While Trump’s supporters went on that murderous rampage at the Capitol, which included pillaging offices, as well as urinating and defecating in that shrine to our Democracy, the Democrats actually took control of the Senate with two runoff election victories in Georgia.

It will be interesting to see how future generations view the events of this past year or so and integrate these items into our historical narrative moving forward?  How will we remember George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, both victims of police brutality, and the systemic racism that we have tolerated for centuries now. In the wake of those murders, and many others like them, our country witnessed a long overdue backlash against these law enforcement practices. What is referred to as the Black Lives Matter movement became the center piece of the largest civil rights protest since the 1960’s.

Then there is the story of a true American hero. Her name is Stacey Abrams. She served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017. From 2011 to 2017 she served as that body’s Minority Leader. She was a natural to become the state’s Governor. She ran in the 2018 mid-term seeking that position against the Georgia Attorney General, Brian Kemp who was in a position to affect the outcome of that race, which he narrowly won.  

However, with all of Abrams many accomplishments, awards and accommodations that have been bestowed on her, what would come next may be her career defining achievement. In 2019, she started an organization called Fair Fight, which addresses voter suppression. This one single issue has kept the Republican Party in the game for decades now. Our Democracy owes a great debt to Stacey Abrams. Voter suppression has always been part of the American experience for African-Americans in this country, but now we can see how it affects everybody.  

I think American history, by its very definition, is also the history of African-Americans. Black history should, in my view, be an integrated part of every school’s American history curriculum and not something taught off to the side as a separate item.

For what it’s worth, the co-owner of the Ground Zero blues nightclub in Clarksdale, Mississippi, agrees with me on this. His name is Morgan Freeman, he has also appeared in films. He said, “I don't want a Black History Month. Black history is American history." 

Since its inception in 1976, Black History Month has always struck me as being a bit patronizing. I also thought being patronized sure beats the heck out of most of the indignities thrust upon black people here in America.

As a 19-year-old at the time, I assumed Black History Month was something invented by white folks. I figured that’s why they chose the shortest month of the year.

Naturally these assumptions were born out of ignorance. Black History Month didn’t get a lot of play in 1976 as America was obsessed with its Bicentennial. Looking back on that year, it was just what one would expect, a red, white and blue orgy of star-spangled bull shit that didn’t shed any light on our history except to remind us just how wonderful it is to be the “greatest nation in the history of the world.”

As it turns out, the precursor of Black History Month was Black History Week which started in 1926. It was the brain child of Carter G. Woodson, a historian, journalist, author and founder of The Journal of Negro History in 1916. He is widely regarded as the Father of African-American history. Woodson naturally chose February as both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass were born on the second week of this month. The 12th and 14th of February had been days of celebration for some time when Woodson and a group of five other historians, who started up the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History, decided to expand these remembrances to include an entire week.

Woodson was born in Virginia in 1875, was the son of former slaves and became the second African-American to get a PHD from Harvard. He wrote in 1926:

“If a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated. The American Indian left no continuous record. He did not appreciate the value of tradition; and where is he today? The Hebrew keenly appreciated the value of tradition, as is attested by the Bible itself. In spite of worldwide persecution, therefore, he is a great factor in our civilization.”

To what degree Woodson had knowledge and an understanding of the genocide of the Indigenous peoples and their multi-cultural worlds, which they had established before they were mostly extinguished at the hands of the white man, is not known. However, his point is well taken in that, when faced with adversity of this nature, an oral history is not enough. You want to have something written down for future generations to be able to examine, study and interpret.

Since all of the world has become the beneficiary of the spectacular African-American culture that could have only happened here in these United States, it might do us all some good to know more about these origins.

I discussed these subjects some time ago with Tony “TC” Coleman. TC, as many of our readers know, had been the drummer in the B.B. King band for 35 year. He has also worked with Bobby Bland, Etta James, Albert King, Junior Wells, Katie Webster, Buddy Guy, Otis Clay and others.

In the course of our discussion I said, “In my view the subject of race in America is one that should be discussed with a great deal of sensitivity, respect and intelligence, but it should be discussed.”

Tony responded by saying, “THANK YOU!  You know we have cultural differences. That is a fact and nobody, well almost nobody Dave, is willing to even talk about it. People are afraid to talk about it. People are afraid they might offend someone. These cultural differences are a beautiful thing.” 

I then asked him, “What is it about this music based in African-American culture that has had such a universal appeal for so long?”

He said, “It is because it is based on the rhythm of your soul. Here in America, black people had the church where people are clapping their hands and singing. In America, you always had certain people who didn’t like you just because you were black. You were getting put away, beaten, strung up and pushed to the side. We had to deal with all of this and we dealt with it by making a joyful noise. We have to pray to God to save us, we have a paranoia and we have a kiss my ass attitude…all at the same time. That’s black culture in America.

We never had a sense of entitlement. We always felt we had to be twice as good just for a chance of survival and a chance we wouldn’t be pushed to the side. All of that comes out of our music. It is pure raw emotion. You just have to let it go. It all comes through our music. If you just give me a chance, I will make you dance and shout.”

It's hard to understand how anybody can make blues music without at least some respect and appreciation of what came before. I wonder if this is why the blues music coming from overseas these days seems to be of such a high quality. We rank 58th in the world on education spending as a percentage of our GNP. Three Scandinavian countries, Finland, Norway and Sweden are ranked in the top ten in terms of educational quality. In this study the United States didn’t make the top twenty. It is how you can have so many Americans fall under the spell of QAnon.  I think it is safe to say that these countries, who put a higher value on education in general, also just might have superior music programs as well, compared to the United States. 

It has been my experience that not everybody, regardless of their country of origin, has the talent to be a great or even good blues musician. However, the International musicians with whom I’m familiar seem to have a deep-rooted appreciation of the history of the blues which is, of course, deeply ensconced in African-American history. Those European practitioners of the form take their gifts very seriously and wouldn’t dream of trampling on these historical traditions the way so many Americans have done with blues-rock.

It is why blues-rock is such a grotesque form of music. It indicates to me a complete disregard for these cultural traditions and historical narratives. I put the question directly to Coleman, why anybody should give a damn one way or another about these lousy blues-rockers who are getting over out there by taking advantage of people’s ignorance. Why should anybody care?

He said, “Because these things represent the wholesale destruction of our culture. I think there are people out there who have no idea what this music means to our culture. When people take a dump on this music it is not only an embarrassment, it is an insult.”

How this joyful noise came to be is a history lesson which is worth exploring, in February or anytime of the year. I urge you to give this narrative more thought, more reflection and more contemplation. Eventually, it will make you want to dance and shout. That sounds like it will go nicely with America’s second major reconstruction period in our history, which is happening right now.

- David Mac