Opinion

OP-ED: Amazing Gracefulness of Emanuel AME Church

Published

11 years ago

July 15, 2015

The horrific, senseless racist attack that took the lives of nine innocent souls while they were praying in the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., points to what can happen when we don’t adequately address race relations –especially in a country that prides itself on democracy and progressive forward thinking.

However, in the midst of this tragedy, courageous souls of that congregation displayed an amazing gracefulness by offering forgiveness and reconciliation.

We have heard many who point to guns, flags, fringe hate groups as the culprit, while missing the root causes that give strength to the perceived need for guns, confederate flags and hateful groups to shield their insecurities.

There’s an underlying cause that prevents people from acknowledging the reality of race relations around the world.

Richard Johnson

It seems most people cling to a belief that we are living in better and different times.

I wholeheartedly disagree with this assertion. The indisputably evidence of the hate mongering and belief in racial superiority is for form a staple of eminent prestige and a path for some to progress off the backs, sorrow and pain of minorities.

We’re taught to learn forgiveness, patience and understanding while the beneficiaries of social tyranny and racial hostilities prosper from the suffering of others.

Obviously everyone should employ forgiveness and reconciliation. The question is: at what cost?

I fervently believe that if change is to be effective, forgiveness and reconciliation has to be mutually employed by all.

Praying for mercy can always be a proper course of action. Yet if those who promote a discourse of change refuse to do all that is required to make meaningful progress, then ultimately it will be a wasted effort that serves only the interest of racist elements and evildoers that inspires discontent among all righteous people.

What transpired in Charleston will continue to happen until this nation steps forward to engage the real problems head on.

The only medium for corrective change has to begin in each and everyone’s own heart to heal the wounds of division and dismay, stemming from embedded racism in our society.

Prayer without action limits change and forestalls progress.

The fact that the hideous crime was done at the perceived soft underbelly of society – in a church, at a time of prayer – says a lot about our failings in regard to the need to empower our churches.

Don’t be misled into believing that the person who chose this place of worship did it randomly. No! He selected this site because he felt that it was a weak unguarded spot, in more ways than one.

We need to be more cautious in all our dealings. If not, all is lost.

Now that the South Carolina legislature has voted to remove the confederate flags, when will they move to remove barriers preventing Blacks and Browns from voting?

The struggle for reconciliation continues.

Oakland Post

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Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

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.

Published

3 days ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

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.

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.

‘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.