For as long as I can remember, in every Black family that I was ever connected with, including my own, I witnessed this sense of freedom and liberated expression that came out most prominently during a birthday celebration. Like so many aspects of Black life in America, birthdays are often an opportunity to celebrate not only the individual milestones in a person’s life, but also the collective joy, love, and victories experienced by the family and even the entire community. Children clothed in untamed innocence, dignified and decorated members of the community, and elders worn with wisdom all took center stage on their birthday.
The birthday celebration, no matter the length of time or the location, becomes this transformative moment where you can transcend your vocation, rise above your station, live larger and broader than your title allows, and totally immerse yourself in the full embodiment of freedom. Through the centuries of celebrations, Black people have always found a way to celebrate each other, collectively, under the backdrop of a world, a society, a community not willing to acknowledge the whole beauty of our identity.
There are two experiences that have always been important to the history and legacy of struggle and perseverance in the lives of Black people. Sunday morning in the Black church represents a coming together once a week, under song and sermon, to express the pain of the past, the possibilities of the moment, and the hopes of dreams deferred. We come together, under the watchful eye of God, to seek what the world could not offer us-the divine validation to keep living.
Stevie Wonder and the "Black Happy Birthday"
Now I grew up in the eighties, and by that time, the birthday celebration in Black life had shifted to take on an even greater meaning. Since the 1970s, many Americans had been campaigning for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday to become a national holiday. Several states enacted holidays on his birthday in the 70’s, including Illinois, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, but Congress stopped short of passing a national day into law. In November 1979, despite the endorsement of President Carter, the King Holiday Bill was defeated by five votes.
But then something incredible happened that changed everything. The superstar Stevie Wonder stepped in and changed the national consciousness about the importance of Dr. Martin Luther King! Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo. After the 1979 defeat of the bill, Wonder wrote “Happy Birthday” and included it on his “Hotter Than July” album of 1980. He held the Rally for Peace press conference in 1981, when the song was released as a single. His song became the anthem for the movement to make Dr. King’s birthday a national holiday and, in late 1983, President Ronald Reagan approved the holiday, to be observed on the third Monday in January each year.
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The campaign to get the holiday federally acknowledged seemed to be doomed as the decade changed. It looked as if the American sense of justice and freedom was too bruised and tattered from the riots and uprisings in American cities following the assassination of Dr. King on April 4, 1968. Stevie Wonder gave us an anthem to celebrate, not only Dr. King’s beauty and his spirit, but the singer/songwriter gave Black America another conduit to collectively celebrate ourselves each year on our own birthdays. We had permission to fully clothe ourselves in the dignity of Dr. King’s dream.
It’s tradition to sing “Happy Birthday” when celebrating a friend or family member’s entrance into the world. But for many black people, the familiar birthday song alone just won’t do. When serenading the guest of honor, they sing something completely different, a birthday song with a groove, while clapping and swaying side to side rapturously. Yes, the black “Happy Birthday” is real. Black people (me and my entire family, for instance) have been singing it at birthday parties for decades. Like the black Wizard of Oz, the black American national anthem, and the black Clark Gable, it’s infinitely cooler and more soulful than the white thing that may have inspired it.
A bit of background: The synth-heavy track closed Wonder’s 1981 album Hotter Than July, but its origins lie more than a decade earlier, as detailed in a fascinating history of the song from Mark Baram at Medium. Within days of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968, black Congressman John Conyers introduced a bill to make the slain activist’s birthday a national holiday. He also composed a new version of “Happy Birthday” in MLK’s honor.
Thanks in large part to the tireless efforts of Wonder, Conyers, and many others, King is now commemorated nationwide every third Monday in January. Yet the origins of Wonder’s ode have faded from memory. I grew up in a household where Wonder’s music was in constant rotation, but “Happy Birthday” was, for me, not Stevie’s thing but our family’s thing and then, later, a black thing. A poll I sent to friends and co-workers confirmed I’m not the only one. Most of the white people who responded had never heard of Stevie’s “Happy Birthday,” but even the black respondents were mostly in the dark about the song’s origins.
Many of the white people I polled who were familiar with the song had encountered it not in a party setting but in an educational one: as a middle-schooler with a black principal; using it to warm up with a college a cappella group; while teaching at Chicago public schools. Respondents mentioned having witnessed impromptu singing in Harlem, South Africa, and Seychelles. Regardless of their race, a good portion of respondents who were familiar with the song agreed that it’s the better birthday song. This is clearly true, since the traditional “Happy Birthday” isn’t even celebratory; it’s a staid musical obligation in the bleak face of aging. Stevie’s “Happy Birthday,” on the other hand, is joyful and raucous. It’s also incredibly corny. Nevertheless, I’m glad that Stevie wrote it and that its chorus is still a signifier of kinship for so many black people. “No matter where the song is started,” one respondent to my poll wrote, “if someone else starts singing it, all black people in the vicinity join-whether they know the birthday boy/girl or not. It’s wonderful.” The fact that there are some nonblack folks who have been exposed to it is also great.
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And so as the ritual goes, ever since I was a boy, the normal American birthday tradition would start at some point during the birthday celebration-seated or standing, with close family and friends, someone would come from behind the veil of a kitchen with a birthday cake lit and ready to be presented to the birthday celebrant. Everyone would gather around huddled closely, quietly singing the traditional Happy Birthday tune in unison. But at some point in the ritual, whether towards the end of the traditional song or after the candled wishes are made, everyone would break out in an explosive roar of Stevie Wonder’s tune, singing: “Happy Birthday to Ya! Happy Birthday to Ya!
You could fully recognize a shift in the energy and a shift between the two moods, and the two songs. The shift is always purposely done, as if to say that we as Black people live in two worlds and shift between consciousness-one consciousness that we’ve learned to understand and another higher consciousness where we are understood. And it is in that higher consciousness, at the height of song and dance, love and laughter, redemption and reflection that we embody on our birthdays, the last words spoken by Dr. … for Martin Luther King!
Cathy Hughes Explains Significance Of Stevie Wonder's 'Happy Birthday' + Urban One Honors On TV One
Other Unique Traditions
Birthday celebrations in the Black community are as unique as its people. Some opt to celebrate in an informal and intimate way with family and friends, while others prefer something more grand and spectacular. Author and former Kentucky poet laureate Crystal Wilkinson wrote an essay about the importance of African Americans birthday celebrations. She writes, “How important it was to mark another trip around the sun.
In her essay, Wilkinson also notes that Frederick Douglass chose a birthdate (Feb. 14), because he had no knowledge of his own birthdate, referencing his 1845 autobiography, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.” He said, “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday.
Given the plausibility of Douglass’s observations, it’s little wonder that birthday celebrations for many Blacks have become an imperative over time. Generations of African Americans were conditioned to sing the traditional “Happy Birthday to You” song, which is a song that can be personalized. “Happy birthday dear___!” But a new tradition was born in 1981 when Stevie Wonder released his musical petition for the MLK Jr. holiday, “Happy Birthday.” Without mentioning a name, including Martin’s, the upbeat, rhythmic chorus continues to make a celebration quite personal and complete. Most recently, a social media trend has emerged that involves a harmonic gospel infused singing of the traditional birthday song.
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One of the most glorious Black birthday traditions involves pinning money over the heart of an honoree. It begins with someone other than the recipient pinning a paper bill onto the clothing that indirectly encourages others to follow suit. Depending on the givers, the celebrant could look like they’re wearing a money corsage.
The Celebratory Meal
No birthday celebration is complete without the celebratory meal. Whether it’s cooked at home or enjoyed in a restaurant, the celebrant gets to eat their favorite dish and enjoy a delicious dessert. The dessert can be a traditional birthday cake or pie. Maybe they’ll receive a special treat such as candy.
Singing, pinning and eating are three essentials to a festive and memorable Black birthday celebration.
| Tradition | Description |
|---|---|
| Singing | Both the traditional "Happy Birthday" and Stevie Wonder's version are sung, often with a shift in energy and mood. |
| Pinning Money | Paper bills are pinned to the honoree's clothing, creating a "money corsage." |
| Celebratory Meal | The celebrant enjoys their favorite dish and a delicious dessert, such as cake or pie. |
Robin Caldwell is the blogger behind freshandfriedhard.com and academic researcher focusing on Black history, heritage and culture.
