Originally called Decoration Day, Congress established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May in 1968. The undertold history of Memorial Day dates back to the Civil War.
First observed in Charleston, South Carolina on May 1, 1865, thousands of African Americans, including the formerly enslaved, 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, and 34th and 104th United States Colored Troops, were led by children as they gathered to honor 257 Union soldiers who were buried in a mass grave on Washington Race Course which was used as a Confederate prison camp.
The ancestors exhumed the mass grave, reburied the bodies and decorated their graves; hence, Decoration Day.
The Association for the Study of African American Life and History designated “African Americans and the Arts” as the theme for Black History Month 2024. African Americans used art to both survive and escape enslavement:
The suffering of those in bondage gave birth to the spirituals, the nation’s first contribution to music. Blues musicians such as Robert Johnson, McKinley ‘Muddy Waters’ Morganfield and Riley “BB” B. King created and nurtured a style of music that became the bedrock for gospel, soul, and other still popular (and evolving) forms of music.
In his address to the 1964 Berlin Jazz festival, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about the importance of jazz in paving the way for the Civil Rights Movement:
Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph.
This is triumphant music.
[…]
Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from this music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down.
Lee Morgan personified the power of art. Lee grew up in Tioga, a neighborhood in North Philly, surrounded by railroad tracks, factories belching smoke and warehouses. Art empowered him to see beyond his immediate environment and imagine a future as a jazz musician. Within months of graduating from Jules E. Mastbaum Area Vocational/Technical School, Lee joined the Dizzy Gillespie Band and recorded his first album for Blue Note Records.
An organizer of the Jazz and People’s Movement, Lee secured his place in history with “The Sidewinder,” a rare crossover hit that was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000.
The Nicetown-Tioga Library and All That Philly Jazz are cohosting a community celebration of Lee Morgan and Tioga’s cultural heritage on Friday, February 9, 2024.
The event is free and open to the public. To reserve a spot, go here.
Black sacred places matter. From Bishop Richard Allen preaching at Mother Bethel, Denmark Vesey planning a slave rebellion at Mother Emanuel, and Minister Malcolm X teaching at Muhammad’s Temple of Islam No. 12, Black sacred places have been the heart and soul of the African American community.
Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., an advisor to the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, observed: “No pillar of the African American community has been more central to its history, identity, and social justice vision than the ‘Black Church.’”
Preserving Black Churches is a project of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund which is led by National Trust for Historic Preservation Senior Vice President Brent Leggs. In an interview with Robin Givhan of the Washington Post, Leggs said:
It’s critically important that we preserve the physical evidence of our past, that we preserve the historic buildings that are imbued with legacy and memory, that we preserve the profound stories that are embodied in the walls, landscapes, and cemeteries stewarded by African American churches.
Rooted in the Black experience, jazz both has been a sanctuary and found sanctuary in the church. Now a jazz standard, Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday” is a celebration of the African American religious tradition.
The Ku Klux Klan’s bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church which killed four Black children moved John Coltrane, the grandson of a prominent African Methodist Episcopal minister, to compose “Alabama.”
Partners for Sacred Places and the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia recently launched the Philadelphia Fund for Black Sacred Places (PFBSP). The three-year project will expand public access to purpose-built religious properties of architectural, historical or cultural significance, regardless of denomination, that are operated and owned by an active community of faith. PFBSP will provide planning and programming grants, as well as capital grants to support Black congregations’ efforts to maintain their properties.
Rev. Betsy Ivey, director of PFBSP, said:
The public’s response to the murder of George Floyd in June 2020 gave focus to the unanswered needs of our city’s Black communities. Religious properties have space that can be developed to respond to these needs in creative and innovative ways after worship. The houses of worship that are selected to participate in this grant program will provide welcoming and affirming space to the public that will benefit all of our communities.
PFBSP will provide up to $10,000 in planning grants and up to $250,000 in 1:2 matching grants ($2 granted for each $1 raised) for the planning and execution of projects that expand equitable access to Black-led historic sacred places. Eligibility guidelines are available here. The application deadline is January 31, 2024.
Register here for the November 17 info session on completing the application. If you have any questions, contact PFBSP Director Betsy Ivey by email or by phone at (215) 567-3234 x29.
In March 2022, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney announced plans to give Wesley Wofford, a white artist who has never won a public commission for a Harriet Tubman statue, a $500,000 “direct commission”; in other words, a no-bid commission. In a city that is 40 percent African American, Black artists were not given an opportunity to compete for a public commission for the Black icon.
Black women did what we do and made some noise. In August 2022, the Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy (OACCE) announced the City was taking a “new direction” and issued an open Call for Artists. Fifty artists, including Wofford, responded to the call. Wofford didn’t make the cut. The five semifinalists, all of whom are Black, were announced in March 2023.
Mayor Kenney and OACCE will announce the winning artist on October 30, 2023.
Great God Almighty, it’s been a long time coming.
September is International Underground Railroad Month. September was chosen because it was the month that Frederick Douglass (September 3, 1838) and Harriet Tubman (September 17, 1849) made their escape from bondage.
On September 17, 2023, the Navy announced it will name the ninth John Lewis-class oiler after Harriet Tubman. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said:
It’s an honor to maintain the naming tradition for our John Lewis-class oilers and Harriet Tubman is more than deserving of this recognition. She was born into unimaginable circumstances, but she dedicated her life to facing great danger and adversity, becoming a “conductor of freedom,” helping others escape slavery. In addition, during the Civil War, Tubman was the first African American woman to serve formally in the military. Her legacy deserves our nation’s continued recognition, and our fleet benefits from having her name emblazoned on the hull of one of our great ships.
The USNS Harriet Tubman is the ninth ship of this class of oilers. The class and lead ship is named in honor of civil rights icon John Lewis. This will be the second vessel named after Tubman. The first was a Liberty Ship, SS Harriet Tubman, built during World War II.
The USNS Harriet Tubman will give new meaning to “wade in the water.”
