Post #1

...a movie review?

For my first post, I was just going to introduce myself, but something grabbed my attention in the last 24 hours that I feel like talking about. That something happened 52 years ago, in 1969. What comes to mind when you think of the summer of ‘69 (besides Bryan Adams)? As far as I knew until recently, there were two major cultural and societal events that summer - Woodstock, and the Moon landing. But there was another major event that, like Woodstock, involved a music festival. And like man taking a giant leap forward, this third created a new paradigm and represented a new vision of what it meant to be American.

Any ideas?

Here’s the last clue - this event took place in Harlem. If that doesn’t help, there’s a reason - you were never meant to know about it. At least, if you are white, that is. I’m talking about the Harlem Cultural Festival, or “Black Woodstock” as it is sometimes referred to. As I watched “Summer of Soul,” a film made by Questlove currently showing on Hulu), I was torn between feelings of joy and sadness. Joy from watching incredible musicians performing live for tens of thousands of people, and sadness from the realization that very little has changed in America in terms of race. Two music festivals took place the same summer and in the same state (about 100 miles separated Harlem from Bethel), had lineups of some of the biggest names in music, and were filmed professionally, but only one was ever celebrated and only one became a household word. And it is obvious that is because one was predominantly a celebration of rock’n’roll (never mind that rock is a direct descendant of the music of slaves and former slaves) and the other was a celebration of soul, R’n’B, blues, jazz, and latin music. And maybe because one was famous for celebrating sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll, while the other was a celebration of black culture and a rally for a change. And there were way more people scared of a racial reckoning than of sex and drugs. The film also made clear that the complaints, the hopes, and the expectations of people of color haven’t changed in the five plus decades since the festival, because if you only listened to the commentary of the people interviewed and couldn’t see the clothes or the hairstyles, you could be forgiven for thinking that people were being interviewed during the Black Live Matter protests of 2020.

One last little thought - just before writing this, I read something in a novel I just started that seemed to jump off the page. I’m reading a John Grisham novel, “A Time for Mercy,” which so far has nothing to do with race, but when Grisham is describing a local DA’s thoughts about capital punishment, he writes that when campaigning, the DA would say that, “…the problem with the gas chamber was that it was not being used enough. This had really pleased the crowds, or at least the white ones. In black churches, he had avoided the issue altogether.” A throwaway line, maybe, but such a clear statement about the reality and perception about systemic racism in our criminal justice system.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you come back for more. And if you can, watch “Summer of Soul” - if for nothing else, the music is phenomenal.