I lost my voice the day Barbara Dane died. Call it irony. Call it serendipity. Call it symbolic. It is my truth.

When I came across the name Barbara Dane I had no idea who she was. Someone told me I needed to know her. Probably because I voiced my frustration over many years of white people taking Black music. Specifically white women singing Black songs because it has always felt like somebody’s taken something away from me that I never really had to begin with. As soon as I started finding my Black roots, it felt like they were being ripped from me. I want to hold onto that for myself and keep the one thread tying me to my Black side, connecting me, grounding me in my lineage.

Frustrated and slightly unhinged.

This is how I came to know Barbara Dane.

I was told I should get to know who she is and meet her if possible. This white woman who sang the blues. I needed to get to know her story. So I sought her out and I had about 1,000,000,001 questions I wanted to ask her, like what does she think about Black music? What drew her to this music and why did she think it was okay to make it her own? Something along those lines. My years of frustration bubbled to the surface knowing how Black musicians have been treated and how whitewashed this music has become.

When I got to meet her face-to-face, my heart melted. She reminded me of my white grandma. She was 97, spunky as all get out, and kind and inquisitive. She smiled at me and blurted, “You’re right. She is pretty,” to her caretaker nurse. During that visit Barbara told me of the time Woody Guthrie almost killed her, Pete Seeger (I think) and a couple other of the folkies back in the day, when Woody slammed the car in reverse down the highway because they missed the exit. Luckily, they survived. Barbara said the whole Folk movement would’ve been decimated in one fell swoop!

She shared with me how she worked in her dad’s shop when she was a young girl, and her first experience at Black people being treated poorly, inhumanely, and how she was confused by the whole situation. It was a hot day and the Black man, new to the area, just wanted to buy a cold coke. She did the best job she could possibly do but got in trouble for it, told not to serve “his kind.” That started her on her journey. Her revelation became her life’s mission to do right and fight for all the things she believed in and all that was good and true.

While yes, there are still some songs that white women should not be singing, Barbara Dane gave life to songs that needed to be heard. She wrote protest songs. She was an activist. She was amazing, and she also sang the blues. She shared stories with me. She asked me about myself: I shared secrets with her. It was two new friends getting to know each other. I got to watch her move through this world through her words, and when she closed her eyes, through her songs. I don’t want to share all my special secrets, my special moments with her, because those are mine for my heart, for my memory. I  want to keep her twinkle in her eye, her quick wit, in my back pocket for me to look at whenever I’m feeling lonely and sad. I didn’t get to know her well but I know she was a good secret keeper. I could trust her with my life. The last time I saw her I got to play and sing for her.  She held my hand and looked into my eyes and said all the things I needed to hear.

I woke up on Sunday October 20th 2024 speechless. Out of nowhere, my voice was gone. Barely an audible whisper.

I understand now. In a sea of people taking from Black music, Barbara Dane was a giver. She was the voice of so many and she healed my heart in more ways than one.

Azere Wilson unravels tangled herstory to find her identity as a mixed race Black American woman experiencing racism like her ancestors did.  Growing up without the Black side of her family, music helped her find her voice and use it. She shows herself coming out the other side raw, vulnerable, inspired, beautifully connected to her lineage.