by Julianne Malveaux

Triceedneywire.com — Dyana Williams, Kenny Gamble, and Ed Wright founded Black Music Month in June 1979. Also known as African American Music Appreciation Month, it was first officially celebrated by President Jimmy Carter with a White House reception. Carter created a platform to recognize and celebrate music, and many Black music executives held celebrations over the years to recognize the month. President Bill Clinton issued a presidential proclamation recognizing Black Music Month. His proclamation was “recognizing the importance of African American music to global culture and calling on the people of the United States to study, reflect on, and celebrate African American Music.”

In 2009, President Barack Obama renamed it African American Music Appreciation Month. The Obama proclamation, elegantly written, talked about spirituals lifting voices into the heavens during enslavement, and talked about the various genres of Black music including blues, jazz, soul, rock and roll, gospel, and symphony. In the 2016 proclamation, one of Obama’s last, the nation’s first Black president said: “African American music helps us imagine a better world and offers hope that we will get there together.”

Now in this Black Music Month 2025, we have lost a musical icon, one whose music was a soundtrack to my teen life: Sly Stone, the front man for the band Sly and the Family Stone, made is transition this month, and all I could do was reflect on the music, the lyrics, and the meaning of the unifying messages. Who could sit when the DJ was playing ‘Dance to the Music,’ or ‘I Want to Take You Higher,’ or ‘Thank You, Falettinme, Be Mice Elf Again’? Who could not think about unity and acceptance when they heard ‘Everyday People’?  Who could not fail to feel affirmed when they heard ‘Everybody is A Star,’ with the powerful line “I love you for who you are, not for who you feel a need to be”?

Sly Stone mixed genres: funi, soul, rock, gospel, and psychodelia. He was ahead of the curve with his multiracial band, something not often seen in the late sixties and early seventies. Some of his music became anthems, while others remain summertime/family picnic staples, like: ‘Family Affair,’ ‘Hot Fun in the Summertime,’ or ‘Dance to the Music.’ What a joy and inspiration Sly Stone was. Indeed, I can’t think about Sly Stone’s music without humming or getting out of my desk chair to shake my stuff, if only for a minute.

It is unlikely that the current president will issue a proclamation to celebrate African American Music Appreciation Month. It would likely violate his anti-DEI edicts. We don’t need presidential approval, or anyone else’s for that matter, to appreciate the richness of Black music. The election of this president ought to inspire us to excavate our history, to celebrate the genius of James Weldon and his brother J. Rosamond Johnson. It ought to remind us of those early musicians who took spoons to pots to create a beat, or those gospel singers who invoked the sweet chariot coming forth to carry me home. It ought to lift subterfuge, how we used hidden meaning in songs to communicate.

Our nation is under siege. The man who lives in the House that Enslaved People Built has deployed 4000 National Guard members and 700 Marines to Los Angeles against the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsome and Mayor Karen Bass. His clueless Defenses Secretary can’t say what military operations will be affected by these deployments.  We are in for a fight for our democracy, and the World Bank has said that the world economy will be in worse shape than it has been since the 1960s.  And yet I write about music because we need the joy. Enslaved people sang. Incarcerated people sang. Civil rights workers and protestors sang.  They sang because, as President Obama said, “music helps us create a better world, and offer us hope that we can get there together. Let’s celebrate Black Music and Sly Stone this month. Let us savor our music and revel in our rich history.

(Dr. Julianne Malveaux is an economist and author based in Washington D.C. Visit: Juliannemalveaux.com).