Opinion

OP-ED The Struggle for Equality Goes On

Published

13 years ago

August 21, 2013

It has been 150 years since the Emancipation Proclamation and 50 yearsÖ since my friend and mentor, Medgar Evers, was assassinated. My whole life has been entwined with the civil rights struggle.

One of the major turning points was meeting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in San Francisco in 1956Ö when Evers brought me here as president of the Mississippi Youth Conference and a youth delegate to the 47th annual convention of the NAACP. This week, I am traveling to Washington to participate in the 50th anniversary of the Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington. The president is honoring me and other civil rights pioneers at a reception at the White House.

< p>While segregation lasted for but a moment in history, the struggle for racial equality continues from one generation to the next. We should honor that struggle by looking at the stark reality of where we stand today. Fresh in my mind is the murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman.

Many view the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case as a blatant statement of injustice. President Obama said a few weeks ago local communities should do more to fight injustice. How can we do more?

To begin, we should take as our slogan, “Jobs, Justice and Jubilee.”

Jobs, because the unemployment rate nationwide for African Americans is in double digits, 12.6 percent. We must realize that many people cannot get jobs because they are not educated and they do not receive skills training. This breeds hopelessness.

Justice, because Blacks make up the majority of our state’s prison population. It is up to us, beginning in San Francisco, to devise measures to train our police department about racial sensitivity so that they will not profile African Americans. We need to rehabilitation programs that will bolster African Americans who are returning to the community after being released from prison.

A jubilee, because this commemoration of the March on Washington will ring hollow if we do not see it as a time to realize a jubilee in the spirit of Judeo-Christian hope of setting people free who are captives to oppression, bigotry and discrimination. This means releasing immigrants who are deserving of a just and fair immigration policy, which America must establish if she is to be true to the symbolism and meaning of the Statue of Liberty. And there must be jubilee for gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual people, who have lived in states of fear, hate and the denial of equal protection under the law.

When we do this, we shall move away from our battlegrounds, from “standing your ground,” to common ground.

The March on Washington was not just a gathering, a picnic or a field day. It was born out of a motivation to empower people economically so that they could build their communities — take care of their families, get an education and own a house. That was the vision of 1963. It must continue to be our vision until we create that “beloved community” my teacher Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life fighting for.

Amos C. Brown is the pastor of the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco and president of the San Francisco NAACP.

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.