In October 2017, the season 4 premiere of Black-ish aired. The episode, titled “Juneteenth,” had a musical spin, which noticed the Johnsons attend their twins’ college play that’s centered round Columbus Day. Nevertheless, Dre (Anthony Anderson) is greatly surprised by the wrong historic portrayal within the story and enlists Aloe Blacc to create a track to honor Juneteenth.
Black-ish creator Kenya Barris advised THR the following yr that former ABC exec Vicki Dummer had approached him with considerations in regards to the episode making the “white viewers uncomfortable.” Regardless of this, they went ahead with “Juneteenth,” and it grew to become a success.
“I used to be like, ‘Vicki, you imply the episode about how speaking about slavery makes white folks uncomfortable makes white folks uncomfortable?’ And we laughed on the fuckin’ irony of it,” he mentioned. “We finally confirmed it and it was a well-received episode, however she was doing her job and that’s a community battle.”
The episode was so fashionable — and forward of the curve — it was introduced in 2018 {that a} stage musical based mostly on the episode was within the works. Barris was set to write down alongside Peter Saji whereas Pharrell Williams was connected to write down, produce and compose the music, although the variation has but to see the sunshine of day.
In his 2018 story asserting the stage manufacturing, THR‘s David Rooney wrote of the episode, “The subversively humorous, sharply double-edged episode grew to become an prompt basic, cleverly linking Twenty first-century African-American middle-class actuality to the nation’s brutal previous of exploitation and struggling.”
Each he and Barris additionally famous that after the episode aired, Juneteenth confirmed up on Apple’s iCal, even earlier than it grew to become a federal vacation.