{"id":372594,"date":"2026-06-24T05:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T05:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/372594\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T05:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T05:30:08","slug":"in-memoriam-oakland-dance-legend-reginald-ray-savage-67","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/372594\/","title":{"rendered":"IN MEMORIAM: Oakland Dance Legend Reginald Ray-Savage, 67"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Wanda Ravernell<\/p>\n

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked \u2013 Black music is the sound of our freedom.\n<\/p>\n

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans\u2019 \u2018sorrow songs,\u2019 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\u2019 innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated \u2019round the world.\n<\/p>\n

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.\n<\/p>\n

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.\n<\/p>\n

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

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.<\/p>\n

TrendingNew Poll Shows Opposition to Oakland Zoo Expansion<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us\u2026\u2019\n<\/p>\n

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.\n<\/p>\n

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn\u2019t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.\n<\/p>\n

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 \u2018colored peoples\u2019 Fourth of July.\u2019\n<\/p>\n

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.\n<\/p>\n

Yes, church.\n<\/p>\n

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee \u2013 the day of freedom \u2013 when they had chains on their feet and hands. They \u2018testified\u2019 about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.\n<\/p>\n

And they sang.\n<\/p>\n

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute\u2019s 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 \u201cMany Thousand Gone\u201d while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas \u2013 two months after the Civil War ended.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cMany Thousand Gone\u201d was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:\n<\/p>\n

\u201cNo more auction block for me,\n<\/p>\n

No more, no more\n<\/p>\n

No more auction black for me\n<\/p>\n

Many thousand gone.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Other verses refer to the \u2018pint of salt\u2019 and the \u2018driver\u2019s lash,\u2019 the realities of enslavement that they had survived.\n<\/p>\n

\u2018Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us\u2019\n<\/p>\n

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, \u201cthe joy inside our pain.\u201d So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.\n<\/p>\n

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs \u2013 based on spirituals \u2013 that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.\n<\/p>\n

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don\u2019t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.\n<\/p>\n

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.\n<\/p>\n

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. \u00a0Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.\n<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 No more. Never again.\n<\/p>\n

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland\u2019s 11th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.\n<\/p>\n

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