African-American Music Appreciation Month, 2019

Proclamation 9897 of May 31, 2019

African-American Music Appreciation Month, 2019

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Throughout American history, African-American music has
reflected our Nation's challenges and triumphs and has
always enriched our Nation's culture. During African-
American Music Appreciation Month, we pay tribute to
the talented and inspiring African-American artists who
have given sound and voice to the full range of human
emotions through the blues, jazz, gospel, rock and
roll, rap, hip hop, and other genres.

Last year, we lost one of our Nation's most beloved
African-American musicians, songwriters, and singers,
Aretha Franklin, the ``Queen of Soul.'' She was an 18-
time Grammy Award winner and the first female artist
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. During
her extraordinary career, Franklin infused her talent
and unmistakable style into gospel, rhythm and blues,
rock and roll, jazz, and even opera. Her songs are
treasures of the American music canon. A recipient of
the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National
Medal of Arts, Franklin's imprint on America's
soundscape is timeless. She will forever reign as a
luminary of African-American music.

This month, we celebrate the countless contributions of
African-American singers, composers, and musicians, who
have influenced and shaped every genre and style of
music. They have turned universally shared emotions and
experiences of suffering, joy, passion, pain, faith,
injustice, and love into art that speaks to the heart
and spirit of any American. African-American music has
the power to encourage, inspire, and affect social
change. It transcends time, compelling generation after
generation to sing, dance, think, and feel, and it
endures in our culture, our history, our spirit, and
our collective national soul.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the
United States of America, by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the
United States, do hereby proclaim June 2019 as African-
American Music Appreciation Month. I call upon public
officials, educators, and all the people of the United
States to observe this month with appropriate
activities and programs that raise awareness and
appreciation of African-American music.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
thirty-first day of May, in the year of our Lord two
thousand nineteen, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the two hundred and forty-
third.