From the self-emancipated march to freedom to the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, music has been vital to the Black experience.

As Black Music Month comes to a close, I want to highlight Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins.

From Blackpast.org:

Thomas Greene Wiggins was born May 25, 1849 to Mungo and Charity Wiggins, slaves on a Georgia plantation. He was blind and autistic but a musical genius with a phenomenal memory. In 1850 Tom, his parents, and two brothers were sold to James Neil Bethune, a lawyer and newspaper editor in Columbus, Georgia. Young Tom was fascinated by music and other sounds, and could pick out tunes on the piano by the age of four. He made his concert debut at eight, performing in Atlanta. In 1858 Tom was hired out as a slave-musician, at a price of $15,000.

In 1859, at the age of 10, he became the first African American performer to play at the White House when he gave a concert before President James Buchanan.

The musical phenomenon is memorialized in Elton John’s “The Ballad of Blind Tom.”