'I hope on this Juneteenth and beyond, you are moved by our song; both feeling the intensity of the trauma of the past and also the incredible healing power of music,' writes JessedHagopian
Before there was a vaccination, the only Covid-19 medicine I had for the isolation of the lockdown periods was making music with my oldest friend, Daniel Rapport. We have been friends since we were born, formed a band in high school, and now have an acoustic blues duo, The Blue Tide. We have long drawn our inspiration from the Mississippi Delta blues, with Daniel playing acoustic and slide guitar and me on harmonica.
Then, a few weeks later, I had an unnerving experience that made it too real. My dad sent an email to me and told me to open the attachment to see a photo he had found of the enslaver’s mansion on the Lenoir Plantation . I clicked open the attachment and a sepia tone image with an over-exposed edge popped up that revealed the two-story big house with French windows that opened onto an impressive oval balcony, supported by columns, all sounded by a picket fence.
When the information finally arrived at my visual cortex, I could understand that standing there, on the second-floor balcony, peering back at me were five people with white skin; the family that had bought, owned, used, and abused, my family. When my bewilderment subsided enough for me to regain awareness of where I was and what I was looking at, I zoomed in to try to see the faces of these people who had demanded to be called master.
Seeing the enslavers who stole my family’s—and J.B.’s family’s—freedom reified enslavement for me in a way, I realized only then, had been abstract. At that point, I struggled to process my emotions, but I knew I had to create something to tell the story of my family and our connection to J.B.
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