Jay Smooth: Ten OTHER Things Martin Luther King Said

Duke MLK Celebration Service 2012 with Donna Brazile

Sunday, January 15, at 3:00 p.m. in Duke Chapel, the University hosted the 2012 Service of Celebration in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Donna Brazile, Political Commentator and Vice Chair of Voter Registration and Participation of the Democratic National Committee is the keynote speaker. The service includes the 100 Men in Black Choir and the Collage Dance Company.

Hip-Hop Activism and the Arab Spring on a Special Martin Luther King Day Episode of Left of Black

Hip-Hop Activism and the Arab Spring on a Special Martin Luther King Day Episode of Left of Black

Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined in person by activist, hip-hop artist, and architect Omar Offendum, and jazz, hip-hop artist, and educator Pierce Freelon.  Taped in October as part John Hope Franklin Center Wednesdays at the Center programming, Offendum and Freelon discuss the role that hip-hop has played and continues to play in activism.  

Offendum, a Syrian American artist, and Freelon, whose parents are  Jazz artist Nnenna Freelon and architect Philip Freelon,  discuss the importance of authenticity, and reflecting one’s community and background in their work. 

***

Left of Black airs at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Mondays on the Ustream channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/left-of-black. Viewers are invited to participate in a Twitter conversation with Neal and featured guests while the show airs using hash tags #LeftofBlack or #dukelive. 

Left of Black is recorded and produced at the John Hope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University.

***

Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlack

Follow Mark Anthony Neal on Twitter: @NewBlackMan

Follow Omar Offendom on Twitter: @Offendum

Follow Pierce Freelon on Twitter: @durhamite

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“We Need Leaders Among The People, Not Leaders Of the People”

“We Need Leaders Among The People, Not Leaders Of  the People” 

by Mark Nasion | special to NewBlackMan

For those  on the left who don’t understand  my willingness to work with whites they regard as conservative or racist, let me tell you a little bit about my political mentor, Rev. Claude Williams. Rev. Williams, with whom  I spent four summers with during the early 1970s organizing his personal papers, was a Presbyterian minister brought up in the hills of Tennessee in an evangelical tradition ( a credo he described as “God said it, Jesus did it, I believe it, and that settles it) who  had a conversion experience in his late thirties and became an advocate of the social gospel and an opponent of southern segregation.

Williams had an opportunity to put these principles into action when he became a minister in a mining town called Paris Arkansas during the Depression, and devoted his ministry to strike support, moved to Commonwealth Labor College when he was forced out of  Paris and there became a supporter of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, an interracial organization that fought for the rights of sharecroppers and tenant farmers being forced off the land by Depression conditions and New Deal agricultural program.

"Race is an Economic Coding System": Walter Mosley @ BAM

The Mixtape “King”

The Mixtape “King”

by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan

Two of my favorite images of Martin Luther King Jr., are not of actual images of King at all.  They are of actor Jeffrey Wright in his performance of King from the HBO original film Boycott, directed by Clark Johnson.  The first scene occurs nights before the launch of the Montgomery bus boycott and King and Ralph Abernathy (portrayed by  Oscar nominated actor Terrance Howard)—the duo functioning more like running partners—dispatch themselves to local pool halls to get the word out about the bus boycott, on the premise that, “not everybody goes to church.” 

The gesture itself is not all that important, but the film presents an image of King that suggest how seamlessly he might have integrated himself into what many might have thought—at least at the time—as fairly disparate spaces; a point that was not lost on the film’s characters who were hustled into a games of pool by the otherwise devout servant of the Lord—and his people.

The second image occurs during the film’s closing credits. With the film’s version of King’s legacy assured, we see King in contemporary Montgomery, holding court with a bunch of corner boys—young African-American men—seemingly physically, and perhaps, rhetorically at home with the denizens of the Hip-Hop generation at the turn of the 21^st Century. 

In this scene it is not unimaginable to imagine this King doppelganger, rolling up on this group of would be thugs—legible in that way to far too many casual observers—and greeting them with the gesture “Lil Nigger, Just Where You Been?”.  This is, of course, part of the private King—the King that played the rhetorical dozens with his inner circle, the King who sought sexual release in the afterhours of public life, the King that has become most relatable to those generations, who’ve only known him as a dead icon and a ready made postage stamp. 

Private Prisons Pimp the People

Private Prisons Pimp the People

by Lamont Lilly | special to NewBlackMan

Here in America, our great “land of the free,” there are approximately 130,000 inmates now housed in privately owned prisons. It‘s a foul stench within a justice system that leads the world in number of persons incarcerated within a state, federal or private institution. Our latest tally of 2 million equates to 25% of the globe’s incarcerated population. This massive waste of human life is commonly known as the Prison Industrial Complex, an oppressive current now being led from the top down by the highly profitable Prison Privatization Movement. Its roots can be traced back to the 1980’s of Ronald Reagan, his “War on Drugs” and tougher sentencing platform. Due to policy makers’ concerns of prison overcrowding at the time, in 1984 the Corrections Corporation of America was contracted to oversee its first facility in Hamilton County, Tennessee. Such transition marked a new federal precedent of complete private control of a correctional institute. 

Though depicted as cost-saving efficient operations, independent studies suggest the contrary. A lack of regulation enables smaller staff and inadequate training, in turn, producing more violence and consistently unstable conditions among those who seek to “serve time” responsibly. Sustainable medical care has also come into question. Private prisons like the George W. Hill Center, Walnut Grove Youth Facility and New Castle Correctional Institute have garnered a barrage of recent scrutiny over the deaths of dozens of inmates. And though touted as inexpensively designed, private prisons have proven just as costly to construct as those categorized as public. Even more unnerving, such misguided control sounds eerily similar to the Black Belt’s Convict Lease System of the late 1800’s, a state-run practice throughout the south that forcibly extracted free labor from newly emancipated slaves deemed “criminal.”  

Gil Noble Talks "Like It Is"

from the National Visionary Leadership Project:

Gil Noble, producer and host of the public affairs program “Like It Is,” has interviewed famous African Americans like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer and Paul Robeson. During his career, he has worked to correct negative media representations of African Americans and has promoted ethics and objectivity in journalism. 

Noble was born in Harlem to Jamaican immigrants Gilbert and Iris Noble. As a teenager, Noble was inspired by pianist Erroll Garner and decided to pursue a career in music. He formed the Gil Noble Trio and played in clubs around New York City while attending City College. After graduating, he worked for Union Carbide and modeled on the side. He met his wife Jean, also a model, during this time. 

Noble attempted to break into broadcast by doing voiceovers and television commercials. He became a part-time announcer for WLIB, a Harlem radio station, in 1962. While at WLIB, he also reported, read newscasts, serviced the Associated Press teletype machine and tracked interview tapes. This experience gave him working knowledge of all aspects of a newsroom operation.

In 1967, Noble auditioned for a TV reporter position at WABC. On his second audition assignment, he was called to cover violence in Newark, New Jersey’s Central Ward. Blacks had been shut off by a National Guard barricade while white city officials and journalists stood at the perimeter. Noble was able to cross the barricade and get the story from the black community’s perspective. Because of his reports, he was hired. By 1968, he was anchoring weekend newscasts. At that time, WABC created a black-oriented program in response to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Actor Robert Hooks was the host and Noble was the interviewer. When Hooks accepted an acting job, Noble replaced him as host. In the beginning, “Like It Is” focused on mostly entertainers, however, when Noble became producer in 1975, he turned its focus to the more serious issues of the black experience.

Over the years, Noble saw the documentary as the central focus and most rewarding aspect of his career. “Like It Is” has produced the largest collection of programs and documentaries on the African-American experience in the last half of the 20th century. He says documentaries “remain a powerful weapon to change false values, correct historical error and cure the poison of prejudice in the minds of black and white Americans.”

Brother Oustider: The Life of Bayard Rustin

California Newsreel:

To watch the entire documentary, to read background information and to order DVDs, visit:
http://newsreel.org/video/BROTHER-OUTSIDER-BAYARD-RUSTIN
 

This is a definitive film biography of one of the most controversial figures of the Civil Rights Movement. Hew was one of the first "Freedom Riders," an advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King and A. Philip Randolph, organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, intelligent, gregarious and charismatic, Rustin was denied his place in the limelight for one reason - he was gay.

Obery Hendricks: Mitt Romney and the Curse of Blackness

Mitt Romney and the Curse of Blackness

Obery M. Hendricks | HuffPost Religion

When it comes to others' choice of religions, I'm pretty much a live-and-let-live guy. In fact, I don't believe in religious litmus tests of any kind. Frankly, I think they are self-righteous and insulting. Yet I must admit that there is something about Mitt Romney's religion that I find deeply troubling, particularly in light of the possibility that he could become the next president of this nation. What concerns me is this: the Book of Mormon, the book that Mitt Romney and all Mormons embrace as divinely revealed scripture that is more sacred, more true, and more inerrant than any other holy book on earth, declares that black people are cursed. That's right. Cursed. And not only accursed, but lazy and aesthetically ugly to boot.

I'm not talking about ascribed racism such as we see in Christianity, in which racist meanings are attributed to certain verses of the Bible that actually contain no such meanings, as with the Gen. 9:25 cursing of Canaan (not Ham!) which, though used as "proof" of black wickedness and inferiority, in actuality has nothing to do with race.

And no, I'm not talking about a single ambiguous, cherry-picked verse, either. I'd much rather that were the case. The sad truth is that the Book of Morman says it explicitly and in numerous passages: black people are cursed by God and our dark skin is the evidence of our accursedness. Here are a few examples:

"Freedom Rider," Etta Simpson Talks "Social Media"

From the Ella Baker Center:

In 1961, a group of young civil rights activists challenged segregation in the south by riding interstate buses. We had the pleasure of meeting one of the Freedom Riders.

'Now Dig' Kellie Jones Talking About Art and Black Los Angeles

Now Dig Kellie Jones Talking About Art and Black Los Angeles

by Tukufu Zuberi | HuffPost BlackVoices

I recently visited an art exhibit chronicling the legacy of art in Black Los Angeles. The show is at the UCLA Hammer Museum and is called "Now Dig This! Art & Black Los Angeles 1960-1980." I sat down to speak with the curator of the exhibit. Kellie Jones is associate professor in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University. Her writings have appeared in numerous exhibition catalogues and journals. Her critically acclaimed book EyeMinded: Living and Writing Contemporary Art (Duke University Press 2011) has been named one of the top art books of 2011 by Publishers Weekly. Her project "Taming the Freeway and Other Acts of Urban HIP-notism: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s" is forthcoming from The MIT Press. Stay tuned for the rest of my interview with Kellie Jones tomorrow in my next post.

 

Your latest show is at the UCLA Hammer Museum, "Now Dig This! Art & Black Los Angeles 1960-1980." Talk to me about the conceptual background of this show.

Well, the show came about because I was doing research on a book on African-American artists in Los Angeles. I was in Los Angeles and I ran into a friend who happened to be the chief curator of the Hammer Museum at the time, Gary Garrels. He said, "What are you working on?" I told him I was working on this book about L.A. And he said, "Oh, are you planning to do a show?" I told him, "One day, in the future." Two weeks later, he calls me and he says, "How about now?" So it turned out, there was this great opportunity with the Getty Foundation, the Getty Research Institute. They were offering seed money over a two to three-year period to do research on aspects of Southern California art. And would I like to put a proposal together to do a show based on my own research? I was already scheduled to go to the Getty to do an oral history for them with some of these artists, who ended up being in the show and are also in my book. So I said, "Great! Let's get going on this!" 

Several of the works that you highlight in "Now Dig This!" come from the storage rooms of some of the major museums of art in the United States. In what way is this exhibition a philosophical shift from the typical show we might see at a museum of art?

I don't think it's that far off the mark of typical shows. I think what's different is that people are kind of shocked about all these artists that we didn't know about. And they happen to be African-American. This type of research goes into shows, generally, at certain institutions. If you look at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or the Museum of Modern Art, these shows are based on a lot of research. The only difference then is that the focus is on African-American artists and what they were making at the time and how their work elucidates that time period. It's just another way to frame history.

Now, in your show, you've placed some of these artists in relation to the development of art in the United States more generally. For example, you placed David Hammons and Maren Hassinger and others in conversation with the experiments in multimedia and post-minimalism. Do you think the artists in your show were rebelling against the Western aesthetic tradition?

Yes and no. I mean, they're part of that tradition. They all went to art school, so they all have part of that. Minimalism was this kind of, more industrial, kind of cold, modernist thing. Generally in this kind of practice no sorts of extra meaning would come into the work outside the meaning of the materials themselves. But what post-minimalism did was that you could have materials that actually signified different things. So for David Hammons to use the greasy bag, for him, it meant places where people picked up chicken and the grease was running in the bag. And so, there you go. You know, for him, with hair, he thought he had found his perfect object. It was a black object. Yes, he thought this was a racial object. He used black hair, from black barbershops, and it was non-gendered. That's what he liked. So it didn't have to be about men or women. It could just be this black object. He also thought grease was a black object. Something that, you know, your mama tells you to grease your body up so you don't look ashy. So that these materials signified people's lives in history. For Senga Nengudi -- you didn't mention her, but she's also one of the people in that post-minimalist room -- she used pantyhose to talk about women's bodies. So we have a certain feminist idea. And then the sand. They're in L.A. You got a lot of sand at the beach. So you can get some sand. And that gave it a certain kind of volume, a certain kind of shape. Maren, now see Maren, she's interesting because she's using materials that are part of a minimalist canon -- that is steel, steel wire, rope -- but then she's making them into these kind of verdant forms. Of all the artists in the show, her work is not signifying something that would be "black," that would be considered "black art". But her performative practice does bring in African dance styles. They are working within a kind of canonical post-minimalism, but then at a certain point -- particularly Hammons -- they're bringing in things that are saying, this is about African-American life. This is about another side of life that you hadn't really considered, and that these kinds of materials allow us to think about.

Tukufu Zuberi is Chair and Professor of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania; host, PBS’ 'History Detectives'

What Angry Black Woman? FLOTUS Responds

Seven Minutes of 'Red Tails'

RT Clip from Tambay Obenson on Vimeo.

Sun Moon Child

Never tire of this; music by Imani Uzuri, video treatment by Pierre Bennu.

Trailer: Diary of a Single Mom | A Robert Townsend Film

From Image Entertainment:

In the center of a storm is Ocean (Monica Calhoun), a 27-year old highly-motivated mother who manages a neighborhood apartment building and all of the problems that come along with it. Managing the building is a dream come true for Ocean. Not only has she secured a job with a title, but also managed to escape her family's problems and the closet-sized bedroom she and her two children used to share in her mother's house. Now, Ocean is juggling a new job, a new home furnished with only cardboard boxes, a niece who hates everything, her own two children and the needs of all the other tenants. DIARY OF A SINGLE MOM illuminates the challenges and triumphs of three women struggling to create lives that not only sustain them and their families, but also inspire others toward more action and compassion in their own lives.

Serena Williams and the Politics of Hate(rs)

Serena Williams and the Politics of Hate(rs)

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

Following a first-round victory in the Brisbane International tournament, Serena Williams expressed her sentiments about tennis, sport, and her labor of unlove.   “I mean, I don't love tennis today, but I'm here, and I can't live without it … so I'm still here and I don't want to go anywhere any time soon," she explained. “It's not that I've fallen out of love; I've actually never liked sports, and I never understood how I became an athlete. I don't like working out; I don't like anything that has to do with working physically.”  Williams comments, not surprisingly, elicited widespread commentary, most of which used her confession as a source of criticism and demonization.

James Braxton Peterson Discusses New Hampshire Primary on Al Jazeera English

James Braxton Peterson is Director of Africana Studies and Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University and the author of the forthcoming Major Figures: Critical Essays on Hip Hop Music (Mississippi University Press). Follow him at @DrJamesPeterson.

New Video: Omar Offendum | Straight Street

Straight Street | Feat. Meryem Saci
Producer | Oddisee
Director | Jean-Laurent Ratel

Commemorating one of the most ancient urban spaces in the world ... The Street Called Straight: (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Called_Straight)
________________________

Chorus:
it's just what we call fate
llivin on a Street Called Straight
it's just what we call fate
llivin on a Street Called Straight

Verse 1:

i took a stroll down the straight called str8
met a medicine man about 1/3 of the way
predecessor to the pusherman
with somethin to say
about an apple a day
keepin the sickness away
i valued his advice at face
at first
till he enlightened me to how precise nature worked
givin us citrus fruits in winter time for vitamin c
just met each other but im already invited for tea
(sub7an allah)
as fate would have it
he & i turned out to be related
a small world's even smaller when you're arab - aint it?
made it a point to soak in all his information
bout regenerative meditations
& preventitive medication
like a modern Ibn Sina
with a pretty calm demeanor
& a remedy for everything
that plagued the arab nations
yet when asked of how to cope with our impossible fate
he just said follow the middle path
to a Street Called Straight

Chorus:

it's just what we call fate
llivin on a Street Called Straight
it's just what we call fate
llivin on a Street Called Straight
it's just what we call fate
llivin on a Street Called Straight
that's where we cease all hate
& pray to 3ish peace all day

Verse 2:

i took a stroll down the street called str8
met a spiritual teacher about 2/3 of the way
predecessor to the preacherman
with somethin to say
about a prayer a day
keepin the satan's at bey
he spoke of angels on our shoulders
and the angles of our solar
systematic self-destruction
metaphysical corruption
with a danger to our polar
ice caps
till it's out of our control
& in the hands of our beholder
we philosophized for over
20 minutes like that
taught me lessons
any questions he would
give em right back
said the answers were within us
& i didnt like that
but i realized later why he did it like that
i had so much more to learn
clock was ticking - couldnt stall
committed his words to my memory
his wisdom was enthrallin
yet when askin him what was the most important to recall
he just said follow the middle path
Straight Street & that is all

Chorus:

it's just what we call fate
llivin on a Street Called Straight
it's just what we call fate
llivin on a Street Called Straight
it's just what we call fate
llivin on a Street Called Straight
that's where we cease all hate
& pray to 3ish peace all day

Verse 3:

i took a stroll down the street called str8
met a carpenter hard at work at the end of the way
predecessor to the architect with somethin to say
about not doin tomorrow
what should be finished today
he manipulated wood & metal till it followed function
building all through Via Recta
& Cardo Maximus junction
somethin told me he was wise beyond his years
i had a feelin
from the way that he'd exposed the beams
& ornamented ceilings
with an ambidextrous half
nonchalantly jest & laugh
sayin that my western education
made it hard to grasp
his connection to the past
deep-rooted in his craft
but was more than willing to share with me
the tools he knew i lacked
and for that i would be grateful
learnin how to build the monumental for the playful
& the humble for the faithful
yet when asked of how we'd stack against our impossible odds
he just said follow the middle path
Straight Street to the Gods

Chorus:

it's just what we call fate
llivin on a Street Called Straight
it's just what we call fate
llivin on a Street Called Straight
it's just what we call fate
llivin on a Street Called Straight
that's where we cease all hate
& pray to 3ish peace all day
________________________

From 'SyrianamericanA' | Album Released 04 July 2010

Digital Download & Lyrics Available @ http://offendum.bandcamp.com/

CD Available @ http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/OmarOffendumcredits For more information on Omar Offendum, visit:

http://www.offendum.com
http://twitter.com/offendum
http://tumblr.com/offendum
http://offendum.blogspot.com
http://myspace.com/offendum
http://facebook.com/offendum

Copyright © Cosher Ink, LLC

Political Strategist Donna Brazile to Speak at Duke University's MLK Program

Political Strategist Donna Brazile to Speak at Duke University

by Camile Jackson | Duke Office of News & Communication

The annual event is free and open to the Durham community

Durham, NC - Veteran political strategist and commentator Donna Brazile will give the keynote address for Duke University's Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration on Sunday, Jan. 15, in Duke Chapel.

The 3 p.m. speech is part of a program that includes music and dancing in the chapel celebrating King's life. It is free and open to the public. Parking is available in the Bryan Center Parking Garage.

Brazile is the vice chair of voter registration and participation for the Democratic National Committee. She is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, a columnist for United Media, Ms. Magazine and O Magazine, and an on-air contributor to CNN, NPR and ABC, where she regularly appears on "This Week." She is also author of the best-selling memoir, "Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics."

Brazile has worked on every presidential campaign from 1976 to 2000, when she served as campaign manager for former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. She is the first African-American woman to manage a presidential campaign.

A native of New Orleans, she has served on the board of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, working for a full post-Katrina recovery for the city. Her other passion involves voting rights and encouraging young people to vote and run for public office. She is the founder and managing director of Brazile & Associates, a consulting, grassroots advocacy and training firm based in Washington, D.C.

Brazile has been named to numerous top lists, including the Washingtonian Magazine's 100 most powerful women, O Magazine's top 20 remarkable visionaries and Essence Magazine's top 50 women in America. The Congressional Black Caucus bestowed her with its highest award for political achievement.

The theme for this year's MLK commemoration is "Act to Honor."

Learn more about this year's commemoration, including an updated listing of events, at mlk.duke.edu.

From the Digital Crate: Bobby Womack—The Last Soul Man

From the Digital Crate:

Bobby Womack—The Last Soul Man

by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan

Mention the phrase “Soul Man,” and a litany of names are conjured such as Otis Redding, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Al Green, Isaac Hayes, Marvin Gaye, Jackie Wilson, Teddy Pendergrass and of course Sam Cooke.  Even newbies like Anthony Hamilton and Jaheim are likely to make the cut, particularly for those for who like their contemporary Soul, down home and gritty.  For far too many, Bobby Womack is unfortunately an afterthought.

At the height of Soul Music’s popularity in the 1960s and early 1970s, the male Soul singer’s status rivaled that of his “race man” peer. The Soul Man icons of that era congealed grand narratives of tragedy—shot dead in a motel; shot dead by your father; shot dead in a game of Russian Roulette; killed in an airplane crash; scorched by a pot of boiling grits—wedded to even more complicated personal demons—physical abuse of wives and girlfriends; sexual assault of younger female artists; sex with underage girls. 

These dynamics reflected the binary tensions of the foundational myth of the Soul Man tradition; namely that this was the price that these men were damned to pay for offering their Godly gifts of song for sale in the marketplace of the flesh.  Thus in an era when Martin Luther King, Jr. and others made the claim that African-Americans were the moral compass of American society, the Soul Man becomes the shifting locus for a noble struggle—decidedly secular—against good and evil.