By
Linda Parker Pennington

Special
to The Post

Last
Saturday morning, the cloudy skies cleared just as the highly anticipated
ribbon-cutting ceremony began, marking the reopening of the Fillmore Heritage
Center at 1330 Fillmore and Eddy.

 The complex – which had once included Yoshi’s
Jazz Club, the Lush Life Art Gallery, the Koret Heritage Lobby, a 54-seat
microcinema, and the Black-owned 1300 On Fillmore restaurant – shuttered in
2015.

After
serving as the economic and cultural hub of the Fillmore’s historically Black
community for more than a decade, the center’s closure ended what was
called the “Rebirth of the Cool,” referring to the neighborhood’s role during
the height of Black Jazz in the United States. 

“The
Fillmore is the most important neighborhood in San Francisco’s history for
centering Black culture, music, business, and community, and has shaped this
City and influenced the entire country,” said San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie
to the gathering of more than 100 community leaders, business owners, and public
officials. “This building reflects the deep roots of the Fillmore. Urban
renewal left deep scars that are still felt today. This Center celebrates a
strong Black community that continues to shape San Francisco. I am proud to
join the community as we reopen the Fillmore Heritage Center.”

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Although
the previous stakeholders will not be returning to the center, spaces are available for nonprofit organizations and ventures, such as Fillmore native Ericka Johnson’s Honey Art Studio.

“This
Center will be an economic engine and a thriving venue that shines a light on
the Black-owned businesses in this neighborhood and lifts the entire district,”
Lurie continued. “Our City is committed to this community for the long term.”

“We’re
excited to collaborate with the City to finally reopen these doors,” said Ken
Johnson, a videographer and community leader who’d been lobbying for the
reopening of the center. “It’s an opportunity to showcase the entrepreneurship
and creative spirit of this ‘Harlem of the West’ and the ‘Rebirth of the Cool,’
grounded in our uniquely gifted Fillmore community.”

Through its Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the city will begin this month renting the building’s noncommercial spaces for pop-up events that celebrate local talent, arts, and entertainment primarily centered in the Fillmore.

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By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

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‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith.  Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold.  No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.

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