The Biden administration said Friday that the lineup for a Juneteenth concert on the White House’s South Lawn will include actor and singer Patti LaBelle, Grammy-winning singer Gladys Knight, and comedian Roy Wood Jr.
The performance, scheduled for Monday, will feature award-winning black musicians from several music genres, including rap and gospel. Other performers include actor and singer Patina Miller, country singer Brittney Spencer, singer-songwriters Raheem DeVaughn and Anthony Hamilton, rapper Doug E. Fresh, musician Trombone Shorty, singer Charlie Wilson, Grammy-winning gospel singer and choirmaster Kirk Franklin, and “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band.
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The concert comes just days after more than 40 Democratic lawmakers, led by Rep. Shontel Brown (Ohio), sponsored a resolution designating June as Black Music Month.
The resolution asserted that black music has informed and shaped all American music, as well as music around the world, in ways that “transcend genres and styles,” ranging from Negro spirituals to heavy metal.
“Black music has formed my life, shaped America, and affected other musical genres. Brown, co-chair of the Congressional Rock and Roll Caucus, said in a statement that black music serves as the soundtrack to our struggles and joys.
“During Black Music Month, we celebrate the black artists and creatives whose work has so often been a tidal wave of change,” President Biden remarked in his proclamation for June 2024.
Biden signed bipartisan legislation that made Juneteenth, observed on June 19, the nation’s latest federal holiday in 2021. The festival celebrates the day in 1865 when enslaved Americans in Galveston, Texas, learned they were free from slavery, more than two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
The Juneteenth concert is sponsored by the President’s Committee on Arts and the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, television network STARZ’s #TakeTheLead initiative, Adobe, LVMH North America’s Moët & Chandon, and Hennessy USA.
