By Halford H. Fairchild, Ph.D.

February is celebrated as “Black History Month.”  It was expanded from a week to month in 1970. During this month, people are encouraged to explore the many facets of Black History.  That exploration reveals the achievements of civic leaders, freedom fighters, inventors, athletes, artists, musicians and others.  

Deep study of Black history reveals that every human on Earth has African ancestry.  Black history is African history is Human history.

Our Black ancestors created language, community organization, art, music, dance, mathematics, cosmology, horticulture, the domestication of animals, architecture and indoor plumbing.  The pyramids are lasting testimony to the heights of ancient Black civilizations.

We celebrate Black History because it has been given short shrift in public, private and higher education.  An African proverb states, “If the lion wrote history, the hunter would not be a hero.”  

By Tom Prasada-Rao

(Editor's note: Click on $20 Bill (for George Floyd) if you'd like to hear Tom performing his song. Several other versions of the song are available at the end of the essay.)

“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture” (Zappa, Costello, or Martin Mull - take your pick).

I can’t dance, this will be short.  Late spring 2020 I was in the middle of chemotherapy trying to recover from stage 4 cancer.  I couldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep.  I had a trembling hand, a quivering voice, a scar running from the end of my shoulder to the top of my head, and I hadn’t played my guitar in months. 

So, I watched a lot of CNN which is where I first heard the news about George Floyd.  Horrified/ mesmerized and contemplating the absurdity of a human being losing his life over a $20 bill, these lines started to come to me.  I thought to myself, “Man, now is not the time!”  But the muse has her ways, pleading with my inner chemo buddy to give it a freaking hour.

The lyrics tumbled over themselves as I struggled to keep up, writing them down as fast as I could.  I knew I didn’t have the stamina to quibble, so I followed my songwriting mantras: 1) keep it simple stupid, and 2) when in doubt repeat.

By JaRon Eames

I was there. At the legendary Village Gate on the corner of Thompson and Bleecker Streets in Greenwich Village, New York. It was 1985 and I’d come to see The High Priestess of Soul, Nina Simone. I’ve never forgotten that year; I still remember it to this day. It was the year I got sober. Drinking a half gallon of vodka - for many years, no less - put me in a strait jacket in the nut house. Getting sober has thus always been on my mind.  

The Gate, as it was called back in the day, boasted some of the most important names in the history of music. In the 1960s one could listen to Miles, Monk, Coltrane, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy, Errol Garner, every single one of them, for only $2.50. Even Aretha Franklin and Jimi Hendrix eventually came to The Gate.

Art D’Lugoff was the owner and I got to know him well. He told me so many wonderful stories when I interviewed him for my book Historical Jazz Conversations. (Nat Hentoff, by the way, a syndicated columnist for The Village Voice, wrote the introduction to that book). Art had, in fact, managed Nina Simone for about a year, but he said it was primarily for his own self-defense. She was a great talent, but a bit mashuga; crazy, that is. We both laughed at that one. 

By  Narayan Rajan

Cry, Beloved Nation, weep bitter tears

White voices lament evil deeds

Brown voices sing of paradise lost

Black voices mourn generations doomed.

On white ships fleeing oppression we came

To a land of beauty and bounty,

We tilled, we killed, we took and we built

Churches to God, our gracious Lord.

By Lion BlessUp

How do I love?

I am a black man in America, 

and I don’t know the first thing about love.

I know how to say it, Make eye contact,

I love you I LOVE you I LOVE YOU

My actions, say otherwise.

Sure baby, I'll rub your feet, massage your hand, and hold you close after sexing as long as a life span,

When does the love start? At what point does it play a part? 

This shit is no longer a secret,

What I do with you, I do with the next,

Monogamy isn't in my strain, polyamorous is where I stand.

By James Quadra

Soy

Mi piel clara es prueba de un pasado cruel;

Pero aun así mi corazón late con el ritmo tropical de mis ancestros indigenas;

Mi sangre aunque roja contiene en sus células una multitud de colores;

Soy una mezcla que desafia al odio;

Una esperanza para un futuro donde lo único puro es la paz