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06/04/2025

Nicholas Grier's Junteenth Concert: Coffeeshop Conversations (Not) @ Artichoke Music #438

By TOM D'ANTONI  // Pianist, counselor, scholar and professor, Nicholas Grier brings a musical celebration of Juneteenth the the 1905 club on June 19th..

Glad you found us after a couple of weeks off, OMN’s Coffeeshop Conversations is back. Paul K Ward is at the control in his Studio Blue Productions headquarters, I am still at my desk on NW Lovejoy Stret because I’m not quitte ready to return to the world.

With Paul is today’s guest Nichollas Grier,  pianist, a mental health therapist, professor of Practical Theology and counselling at Claremont School of Theology and a councelor at the Bishop Wellness center at Wilamette University.

He has a presentation at the 1905 club, it’s called Juneteenth Emancipation Jazz Concert on Thursday, Jun 19^th and Professor Grier is with Paul in the studio to tell us all about it.

Editor's note. 

From Nicholas:

“I should have given credit to Dr. Carroll Watkins Ali when I gave credit to Dr. Marsha Foster for the work we are doing with the Above Ground Emancipation Movement project. It is important that I underscore Watkins Ali’s contribution. Here is why.

“Dr. Watkins Ali first came up with the analogy that the work of emotional and psychological healing for black people in the United States is as important as the work of freeing enslaved black people through the Underground Railroad. Then, Dr. Foster added that we should call ourselves the “Above Ground” group to honor the history of the Underground Railroad and create resonance with this current moment in US history. We later adopted the name “Above Ground Emancipation Movement.”

A note from Paul: “Mark Twain once said that history does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. The naming of the Above Ground Emancipation Movement seems to us a conscious effort to create a rhyme that can build awareness and motion towards a deeper and more healing understanding of our collective history in the United States, a history that must be told with stories of all the souls who have dwelled here.”

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