The Association for the Study of African American Life and History designated “African Americans and the Arts” as the theme for Black History Month 2024. African Americans used art to both survive and escape enslavement:

The suffering of those in bondage gave birth to the spirituals, the nation’s first contribution to music. Blues musicians such as Robert Johnson, McKinley ‘Muddy Waters’ Morganfield and Riley “BB” B. King created and nurtured a style of music that became the bedrock for gospel, soul, and other still popular (and evolving) forms of music.

In his address to the 1964 Berlin Jazz festival, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about the importance of jazz in paving the way for the Civil Rights Movement:

Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life’s difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph.

This is triumphant music.

[…]

Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from this music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down.

Lee Morgan personified the power of art. Lee grew up in Tioga, a neighborhood in North Philly, surrounded by a coal yard, railroad tracks, factories belching smoke and warehouses. Art empowered him to see beyond his immediate environment and imagine a future as a jazz musician. Within months of graduating from Jules E. Mastbaum Area Vocational/Technical School, Lee joined the Dizzy Gillespie Band and recorded his first album for Blue Note Records.

An organizer of the Jazz and People’s Movement, Lee secured his place in history with “The Sidewinder,” a rare crossover hit that was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000.

The Nicetown-Tioga Library and All That Philly Jazz are cohosting a community celebration of Lee Morgan and Tioga’s cultural heritage on Friday, February 9, 2024.

The event is free and open to the public. To reserve a spot, go here.