MAX ROACH 100

Dear Friend,

A year ago, when I first told the story you're about to read, our family was privately celebrating what would have been Max' 99th birthday.? Now, it's official: tomorrow, January 8, 2024 marks his centennial year.? More on that below.? On January 10, 1924, a Black woman, sixty-ish, travels by mule cart from her Newland, North Carolina family farm on the rim of the Great Dismal Swamp to the Pasquotank County seat in Elizabeth City.

The twenty-mile trip will take her from total obscurity and relative safety along rural routes to that place, beyond sanctuary, where White family picnics serve up the “strange fruit” of oppression just often enough to keep colored folk in their place.?

She is on a mission. She is grandmother to the newborn child whose birth she travels to record.? Entering the county clerk’s office, she gives his name, Maxwell Lemuel Roach, and date of birth, January 8, 1924.? She gets, in return, a birth notice for Maxwell Leonard Roach born January 10.? ?

But, the child’s middle name, Lemuel, is a family name dating back a century and she herself is the midwife who “pulled him out” two days earlier.? That is what she tells the clerk, muting her protest into prayer.? In response, the clerk gives a look that adds volumes in the record of those Jim Crow days when the town lynched two Black men within days of each other, and that place where terror is daily fare.?

The woman is of that first post-Emancipation generation born during Reconstruction when promise was on the rise.? Now, though a taxpayer, she stands helpless and mute.? This despite—or, perhaps, because of—her having lived to see her generation elect its first (and soon enough, last) Black officials.

Those who lost the war for their “Lost Cause,” have won the peace between North and South. UnReconstructed, they now exact vengeance on justice, conscience, simple decency; on her and her kin. ?

Her grandson will grow up to be the internationally renowned master

percussionist-composer, MacArthur Foundation “genius” fellow, Max Roach, whose papers have been acquired by the Library of Congress and preserved for posterity.? In the months before his death in 2007, he will live to hear the future first African American president announce his candidacy.?In 2024, his centennial year, concerts will take place worldwide; celebrating his life and work. ?

I know the story of Max' birth and racism's rejection because Max was my husband.? He made sure I knew the story; made sure his children knew it.? His mother and father confirmed it for me.? ?

I also know the story as symbolic and symptomatic of an American experience that likes its “progress” doled out in measured drips across the 404 years since the first Africans were dragged to these shores—and . . . still . . . counting . . .? ? Because of the barriers to correcting?state records―however wrong, malingering and malicious―like his grandmother before him, Max let stand his “official” birth date.? But, much the way immigrant families speak one language in public while keeping their original language and customs alive at home, Max’ family and friends sang “Happy Birthday” on one day only: January 8th.?? ?

Despite efforts to oppress him—just one among millions of people of color—when Max died, for his music and his international human rights stand, he received international applause.? His funeral at New York’s Riverside Church was attended by thousands and viewed on television by millions worldwide. ?

"I am an American and the drum set is one of the few instruments native to this country,” said Max, in my favorite quote.?

“This is a democratic nation and jazz is a democratic music in which we all express ourselves as individuals and cooperate for the overall good. That's good enough for the bandstand and it is good enough for the world. In music, you can make a dream come to life as a reality of design and feeling. Democracy is a dream of being able to do it better someday. I have never stopped dreaming."

#MaxRoach100 THIS MONTH ABOUT MAX ROACH Official website: MaxRoach.com Library of Congress: A Celebration of Max Roach?|?Max Roach Collection LOC blog:?Courage and Improvisation: The Max Roach Papers,?Ingrid Monson, Harvard University NYTimes: 5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Max Roach PBS: American Masters: The Drum Also Waltzes EVENTS? Blue Note Jazz Club (NYC): Monday, 1/8/24 WKCR: 30 hour marathon livestream?(starts: 6pm 1/9/24 ET-midnight 1/10/24) Jazz and Lincoln Center 1/19-1/20/24 ?

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ON THE SHOW & PODCAST

January 13?? DANCING IN THE DARKNESS, PART TWO

Guest: Otis Moss III It’s not often I get to feature one guest across two episodes, but my interview with Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III is one of those rare times.? Author of the new book, DANCING IN THE DARKNESS: Spiritual Lessons for Thriving in Turbulent Times, he is Senior Pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ—the congregation once pastored by the Obama family’s minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. ?

In Part 2, Moss shares the story of “this wonderful young man who was deeply a part of our church community.? He was this popular kid in high school. And his younger brother was always trying to be like him.” ?

Joseph Graves, a 19-year-old college student, was murdered as he drove his mother’s car. ?It’s a story we think we’ve heard before: gangs, guns, turf, police indifference, lives stolen and strayed.? ?

In Moss’ telling, it’s the story we haven’t heard: what happens to peers left to grieve.?

“Our young people were broken,” he says. “We had to sit down with them, walk through that pain, and recognize their rage without judgment.” ? ?

In a moment of healing so needed in these “turbulent times,” he guides us through the pain each of us—regardless of age—is feeling.?

How can we change our direction, expand our reach, and “harness our power for transformation”?

THE JANUS ADAMS SHOW airs and streams live Saturdays at 11:00AM eastern time on WJFF Radio Catskill, www.WJFFRadio.org.? For the podcast, LISTEN and SUBSCRIBE on?Apple?or your favorite channel.?

For show notes and transcripts, visit my website:?JanusAdams.com/show.

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