It's Good to Be Free

WMNF volunteer Julia Jones spearheaded this Sunday's Juneteenth/Father's Day effort, adding flair to already-scheduled programs (Scott Elliott told the Sunday Simcha's Kevin Frye: "Today I get to be Jewish and you can be black."), and inviting the community into the radio station for film, food and shout outs to dads near and far on live air. 


In case you're a little rusty on American history, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, freeing the slaves in most rebel states. But Texas didn't recognize that law until the war ended over two years later, according to the Smithsonian:

On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger arrived at Galveston, Texas, bringing news to the town that the Civil War had ended and that all slaves were free.

Ronny Elliott & Baye Kouyate 

Ronny Elliott played a new song, Message to Texas. 

You may work me 'til you break my body/But you can't touch my soul

You can't give me freedom/I'm already free

I told him that as far as I knew, he's the only hillbilly songwriter with a song celebrating Juneteenth. Then he said hello to his dad, even though they've never met and he's only spoken to the man once by phone. 

I caught up with Robert Cunningham in the music library, wearing his dad's hat. Host of the Sunday Evening Jazz Clinic since 2003, Robert said "I lost him on June 23rd, eight years ago."


I saw a few minutes of two different documentaries, Blacks and Jews and The Night James Brown Saved Boston, as I took breaks from reporting - an interview with writer Adrienne Maree Brown on the upcoming Allied Media Conference in Detroit. Listen to the WMNF Drive-Times News this week for more info. 

Coincidentally (or not), Adrienne's Twitter account carries this quote by Camus: 

The only way to deal w/an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

In case you missed anything, all WMNF music shows are archived online for one week.