On 2/18/2018 Jazz on the JNote Celebrates the Excellent Story of Harriet Tubman

“We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence then is not an act, but a habit” 

(Aristotle)

I am always looking for a good topic to base each episode of my show on. I spend some time making a frantic effort to allow the blanket of the non-stop flow of music that you find on Jazz on the JNote, to have a concentration of focus so that as the show barrels ahead, the music can fuel the momentum of the topic at hand.

The main theme of every episode of Jazz on the JNote is jazz, identity and race, as was my college thesis, which was how this radio show started back in June of 2015. The show was a way to help me to conduct research as I sojourned to write 30 pages on jazz and how it helped to implement an identity and political tongue for people of color. 

And so, in trying to keep each episode as new as possible without too many repeats being aired, as each week progresses, not only do I do an extensive search of “today in jazz history,” but also one on “today in black history” and then narrow down my search to one particular area of focus from the information populated, which caused the most overflow of words to hit my blank page.

Here are a few of the things that I found:

Some of This Week’s Jazz Birthdays

Henry Threadgill – February 15, 1944

Randy Crawford – February 18, 1952

Nancy Wilson – February 20, 1937

Nina Simone – February 21, 1933

It Happened This Week in Jazz History

Mahalia Jackson recorded “Come Sunday” with Duke Ellington – February 12, 1958

Nat King Cole Died – February 15, 1965

Bessie Smith made her first recording “Downhearted Blues” -  February 16, 1923

Thelonious Monk Died – February 17, 1982

Billie Holiday recorded “Lady in Satin” – February 18, 1958

It Happened this week in Black History

February 12, 1793

The First Fugitive Slave Law was enacted by congress

February 12, 1900

First black secretary of the NAACP, James Weldon Johnson, wrote the lyrics to, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” for an Abraham Lincoln birthday celebration

February 12, 1908

NAACP founded in NYC following the race riot of 1908 in Springfield, IL, with a mission to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination. It was founded by bold and daring pioneers sociologist WEB DuBois, lawyer Archibald Grimke, civil rights activist Henry Moskowtiz, suffragists Mary White Ovington and Mary Church Terrell, labor reformer William English Walling, social and political reformer Florence Kelley, and journalists Charles Edward Russell, Oswald Garrington Villard and Ida B Wells all joining forces to eliminate race prejudice and to lead grassroots campaigns for social justice, equal protection of the law, equal opportunities and voter mobilization.

February 14, 1817

The man for whom Carter G Woodson based Black History Week around when it first became a notable time of celebration, Frederick Douglass, was born

February 17, 1891

A black inventor, A C Richardson, invented the patent for the churn

February 17, 1902

The first black person to ever be invited to sing in the White House, Marion Anderson, was born.

Focus for February 18, 2018

It didn’t happen this week in black history but rather this month . . . On February 1, 1978, Harriet Tubman became the first black woman to be honored with a US Postal stamp, and after a more extensive acquaintance with this heroine’s brilliant history, the topic of discussion based on the Fugitive Slave Law and the US Postal Stamp, became my focal point.

Harriet Tubman

“A woman does not run among thorns for no reason;

either she is chasing a snake

or a snake is chasing her.”

– (African Proverb)

This week, we celebrate the unwavering faith of Aramanta Ross, better known to the world as Harriett Tubman. She was also coined by many as Black Moses because she risked her own life out of stern necessity to rescue her people from their place of struggle, judgment and no justice in which they dwelt at the risk of harsh punishment, lashings to the skin or even assassination by lynching or beheading.  She was more than just a noble and brave, dedicated humanitarian but a respected leader in her own right.

This week’s episode is dedicated to Harriet Tubman's fugitive steps in her endeavor to help her people to pilot away from the south, guided by the steady light of the north star to freedom. Please join us as we celebrate her life and incredible story. 

Here is How You Can Listen

Tune in Sunday February 18, 2018

7:00 PM EST http://www.theenglishconnectionmedia.com  (worldwide)

7:30PM EST WNYE 91.5FM (NY, NJ, CT)

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