When the Shriver Hall Concert Series, Carnegie Hall and others asked Morgan State Professor James Lee III to compose a new work, he thought of the 19th-century African-American writer Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, who struggled for racial and gender equity; he chose her poem, A Double Standard.

On Juneteenth, soprano Karen Slack will sing Lee’s new music in its Baltimore premiere. She says of the poem, “With all of the various movements, and, you know, MeToo, and all of these things, we’re in this time right now. The poem is not outdated whatsoever in how women are always trying to push the boundaries of sexism.”

Plus, Clay Washington, the president of the Kennard Alumni Association, recounts the roots of the Kennard African-American Cultural Heritage Center in Queen Anne’s County, and its Juneteenth festival on Saturday, June 11th. Additionally, on Sunday, June 19th, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African-American History and Culture will celebrate traditional Juneteenth and Father’s Day with free admission and special events.

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