Black Liberation: A Celebration of Juneteenth and Black Music Month

Jazz Williams
Jun 19
7 min read

Today is a special day in American history. A day known as Juneteenth. Because I’m silly, I call it National Black Folks’ Day. But I couldn’t talk about Juneteenth without acknowledging what month we are currently in. Pride Month? Yes. Very important. But, for today’s article, I’m actually referring to Black Music Month. Being a massive foodie, I’ve dedicated a whole section to soul food because you can’t talk about black culture without talking about food. Before I dive into any of those things, I’d like to give a brief summary on black liberation as it pertains to Black Music Month and Juneteenth.

Black Liberation

Black liberation is a theology aimed to promote the freedom of black Americans from historical and ongoing oppression. It counters white supremacy and demands better quality of life for all black Americans. The theology has fueled numerous movements throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Two prominent ones being the Black Panther Party and Black Lives Matter. The Black Panther Party was a notable black liberation movement created by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in 1966. They promoted armed self-defense in the wake of increasing violence from police. Black Lives Matter is a current worldwide movement that started as a hashtag on social media in 2013. It was created by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi to protest police brutality and systemic racism. One of the good things that has come from black liberation is the celebration of black music.

Origin of Black Music Month

It all started in 1979 when President Jimmy Carter declared June as Black Music Month to recognize and celebrate the contributions of African Americans to music in the United States. However, the absence of a presidential proclamation pushed the official declaration of Black Music Month to the year 2000. President Obama renamed it to African American Music Appreciation Month in 2009. This month is meant to highlight the various genres of music that black people created and/or influenced. These genres include, but are not limited to, gospel, blues, R&B, rock and roll, hip hop, and rap.

Influence Heard Around The World

Black people’s impact on modern music is astronomic. Blues is the foundation of rock and roll, modern rock, and subsequent sub-genres including punk, alternative, grunge, and heavy metal. Rock music peaked in popularity in the 70s and 80s, but fell out of mainstream appeal by the early 2000s. Traditional country music has diverse roots including folk, blues, gospel, R&B, and jazz. Modern country music incorporates pop, R&B, rock, and hip hop. Traditional country music was extremely popular in the 50s and 60s. Today, modern country music has taken over and defined the 2020s so far. House and techno, electronic dance music genres, were birthed primarily by the black queer community in Chicago and Detroit, respectively. EDM was popular in Europe starting in the 90s, but it really took off worldwide in the 2010s.

You can see black people’s influence very early on with world renowned artists like Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, so on and so forth. Outside of American and British singers, the influence is spread far and wide. One notable genre influenced by black culture is Latin trap became popular in the mid-2010s with artists like Bad Bunny and Ozuna leading the pack. Another notable genre that became popular around the same time is K-pop. BTS and Blackpink are two of the most successful groups to come out of Korea. From the music to the dancing to the fashion, black culture has become ingrained in other cultures.

Highlighting Major Achievements For Black Musicians

While I can’t highlight every single black artist or achievement by a black artist, I can choose some siginifcant moments that have broken barriers and helped pave the way for black musicians.

1890 - George W. Johnson, former slave and NYC street singer, was the first black person to make commercial recordings
1921 - Black Swan Records was the first black owned and operated record label
1921 - J. Mayo “Ink” Williams was the first black producer at a major record label
1955 - Chuck Berry was the first black artist to gain national success with his music specifically “Maybelliene” and “Johnny B. Goode”
1958 - Tommy Edwards became the first black artist to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 with “It’s All In The Game”
1959 - Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie became the first black woman and man, respectively, to win a Grammy
1967 - Charley Pride became the first black singer to perform at the Grand Ole Opry
1972 - Ella Fitzgerald was the first black person to perform at the Super Bowl
1974 - Stevie Wonder became the first black artist to win the Album of the Year award at the Grammys
1983 - Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” became the first music video by a black artist to appear on MTV
1987 - Aretha Franklin becomes the first woman inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
1999 - Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill became the first hip hop album to win the Grammy for Album of the Year
2016 - Beyonce became the first female to headline an all-stadium tour
2018 - Kendrick Lamar became the first pop musician to win the Pulitzer Prize for his album, DAMN
2019 - Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” became the first rap song to win Song and Record of the Year at the Grammys
2020 - Whitney Houston is the first black artist to receive three RIAA diamond-certified albums. This was achieved posthumously.
2023 - Tracy Chapman became the first black woman to score a number one on Country Airplay and the first black woman and black songwriter to win a Country Music Award for Luke Combs’ cover of her 1988 hit song, “Fast Car”
2024 - Mariah Carey is the first black female artist to surpass 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify
2025 - Beyonce is the first black woman to win Best Country Album for “Cowboy Carter” at the Grammys

Origin of Juneteenth

The arrival of the first African slaves in Jamestown, Virginia occurred in 1619. Over the year, more and more Africans were taken and forced into slavery. Slaves suffered the worst kinds of torture and punishment imaginable for centuries. It wasn’t until 1861 when the American Civil War was successfully fought to abolish slavery. Union vs Confederacy. North vs South. The South as we know it today is the confederacy from this time period. 11 states. Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas.

The Emancipation Proclamation, a document that freed all enslaved people in Confederate States, was issued by President Abraham Lincoln and made effective on January 1, 1863. Union troops moved South to ensure that slaves were being freed with Texas being the very last state to abide by the new law. Texas kept slaves in the dark until June 19, 1865. On this day, union troops arrived in Galveston and over 250,000 enslaved black people in Texas were finally free. Short for “June Nineteenth”. Longest running African American holiday. Declared a federal holiday by President Biden in 2021. Celebrated every year to honor the end of slavery. Juneteenth.

Picture From Society For Public Health Education

40 Acres And A Mule

Special Field Order No. 15. After the Civil War, the Reconstruction Era started. This was a brief period of social, political, and economic change to help formerly enslaved African Americans integrate into society and rebuild the South. One of the ways to help formerly enslaved African Americans was to give out reparations. In 1865, Union General William T. Sherman met with black leaders and made a plan to give land along the Atlantic coast to former slaves. President Lincoln approved and land (specifically South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida) was quickly redistributed. A few months later, President Lincoln was assassinated and Andrew Johnson took over as president. He was a sympathizer of the South so he reversed the order and returned the land to the slave owners. (Fun fact: Slave owners were given $300 for each person freed in 1862 as reparations for what they had lost.) There have been numerous other initiatives to give black people land and/or money since 1865, but none of them have come into fruition.

How It Is Celebrated

Celebrations started in Texas, but spread to other states as black people went to live in other places. Historically, celebrations included religious services, storytelling, singing and dancing, discarding old garments into the river, and putting on nice clothes. Today, Juneteenth has a wide variety of festivities including cookouts, picnics, concerts, carnivals, and fashion shows. Volunteering opportunities are available for everyone to learn more about the history of Juneteenth or to advocate for reparations. Eating red and white foods is also to common and meant to symbolize bloodshed enslaved people endured. Just like the holiday, these traditions symbolize resilience, freedom, prosperity, and the like. There is also a staple cuisine eaten on this day.

Soul Food

Soul food (originally known as low-class food) originated in the South by enslaved people who were trying to preserve their African culture. They were only given the cheapest cuts of meats and ingredients so they had to make to do. During the Transatlantic Slave Trade, they brought foreign rations to America. These rations included rice, okra, black eyed peas and other legumes, sorghum, watermelon, yams, and peppers like red cayenne. They combined European and Native American ingredients with their own to create what we know as southern food.

Soul food consists of biscuits, cornbread, fried chicken, Mac and cheese, greens, grits, barbecue, banana pudding, peach cobbler, sweet potato pie, pecan pie, and dozens of other dishes. There used to be a distinction between soul food and southern food, but they are used interchangeably now. Also, Cajun and Creole cuisine is a subset of Southern food. Some notable dishes from this cuisine are gumbo, shrimp/crawfish étouffée, boudin, rice and gravy, jambalaya, dirty rice, and red beans. In addition to that, each southern state has their own unique take on these foods so it truly is a never ending cuisine. Without the cooking traditions and techniques brought forth by African Americans, Southern food, a fundamental aspect of American cuisine, would not be what it is today.

I know I could’ve written more, but I wanted it to be around a 10 minute read. If you want to learn more, I encourage you to do research as there is no shortage of articles and videos about black culture. As with everything, be careful of misinformation and whitewashing. I also encourage non-black folk to celebrate Juneteenth and the black people in your life today. To all my black brothers and sisters: Happy Juneteenth and Happy Black Music Month. Eat as much soul food as you can stomach and continue the fight to end oppression!

Written By Jazz