Deep bluesy pronounced notes punctuate the beginning of a vibing instrumental number that turns into a melodic jam of jazzy notes colliding together.
Drums, bass, keys, and later a trumpet blows — all coming together with a purposefully [sometimes] chaotic blend for several minutes on January 18.
The group, Black Lives Matter Jazz Quartet performed during an 18th Annual Detroit MLK Day Virtual Rally & Cultural Program, a roughly hour-and-a-half-long event put on by the Detroit MLK Day Committee.
The Detroit MLK Day Committee inspires the mobilization of the largest social justice gathering in the whole of southeastern Michigan, according to its website.
Today was a celebration of Dr. King’s 92nd birthday. The Detroit MLK Day Committee is staffed by a small group of volunteers.
Local trumpeter Allen Dennard, also part of the jazz quartet, said that the group played a composition by John Coltrane’s song called “Alabama.” The song is in honor of the four little girls who lost their lives in an Alabama church bombing in 1963.
Local trumpeter Allen Dennard, foreground, is part of the Black Lives Matter Jazz Quartet.
“We are here for the celebration of Martin Luther King and he says, ‘I Have a Dream,’ but we see today with the brutality and ongoing racism this is not his dream,” Dennard said. “We have the opportunity to continue his fight and make his dream come alive.”
Local community organizer Abayomi Azikiwe also spoke during the event and said that while the community is commemorating Dr. King’s legacy, it is important to remember the ongoing struggle that people are dealing with daily in the United States.
“This is the 92nd anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — this event comes at a time of great historical conjecture at the United States and around the globe,” Azikiwe said. “For the last 10 months in the US, we have been in peril with the worst health crisis in a century where … people have perished.”
He added that the failure of President Donald Trump has been evident with him trying to downplay the pandemic among other issues plaguing in particular Black Americans among other groups.
“COVID-19 and its concomitant social ills have not for one minute eased the level of institutional racism, economic exploitation and state repression, which has been the hallmark of US capitalism and imperialism for several centuries,” he said, adding that brutal police and vigilante executions of many now household Black American names are causing many to mobilize.
“In response to this renewed mass uprising of the people, thousands have been arrested and dozens have people been killed since last summer,” he said.
Detroit activist Blair Anderson said that during the event, “No weapon formed against us will prosper.”
“The cure cannot come external to Detroit, it has to come from the center of Detroit… we call the solidarity squashing the beef,” he said.
Nakia Wallace, a co-founder of Detroit Will Breathe, said that at the time that Dr. King died he was one of the most hated people in this country.
“While we have this memory and celebration of Dr. King sometimes we can romanticize not only Dr. King but the Civil Rights movement and we can participate in the whitewashing and revisionist history,” she said adding that is not sustainable. “Where we are right now is a turning point. It is going to be really important for us to be able to … try to apply those lessons to today.”
Wallace added that after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, Dr. King wrote his last book in 1967, “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community.” He touched on how it is the responsibility of those in the movement to ensure the passages of those acts are enforced.
“He is talking about a continuation of the movement,” Wallace said. “We have more in common with that moment in history than I think we realize. We have to really learn our lessons from their victories and losses.”
For more information, visit www.mlkdetroit.org.
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