Dr. King on the Meaning of Blues & Jazz

On the day in which we celebrate the birth of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we ask you to read and contemplate two quotes of his on the significance and meaning of the blues and jazz. We projected both of these quotes from the stage at our second Omni-American Future Project annual event in late November 2022.

Striking is the resonance and correlation of these quotes from an address that King wrote, as program notes for the Berlin Jazz Festival in 1964, and the perspectives of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray on the blues and jazz. But perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise, as the phrase '“great minds think alike” is most certainly apt in this case.


We’ll Be Back in a Week

If by chance you’d like to read or hear more of Dr. King’s genius of eloquence and prophetic insight, click the immediately preceding hyperlinks for his remarks commemorating the centennial of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

Jewel and I are taking the remainder of this week as a vacation break, so we’ll return with our next post on Monday, Jan. 23rd. See you then.

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