from memphis to watts...black music and black struggle

Yesterday Taleisha recasted "Da Butt," a 1988 tune from E.U., a Washington DC-based go-go band, as a spoken word presentation. The song, like many songs across time, among them "Dancing in the Streets" and "Chocolate City," mentions the names of several U.S. cities, especially ones in which African Americans increasingly lived during the 20th century. Before her presentation, the students discussed the historiography on black urban life from W.E.B. Dubois' late nineteenth century study on Philadelphia and the Chicago school's look at African American life in Chicago to William Julius Wilson's "underclass" thesis. They generally understood that scholars have across time paid attention to race, ghettoes and class while trying to understand the particular trials and triumphs of African Americans in urban spaces.

Indianola, MS-born B.B. King

After Spring Break, we will look more closely at the postwar era as it relates to black life in the U.S. by reading - of all things - B.B. King's autobiography. This book, which was co-written by David Ritz, unveils how King's move from the Mississippi Delta to nearby Memphis, positioned him to expand his employment opportunities beyond rural work. In this way, he joins many African Americans who did something similar. As true of other blacks, King initially did not experience the promise of America's economic boom on the heels of the Second World War. But he eventually went on to become a famous guitarist and singer. His life's story offers us a chance to think deeply about the work of many scholars who drew various conclusions about black life including ones concerning the role of women and men in the black family.

We will take up these issues and more while also thinking about how the black freedom struggles during the 1940s through the early 1970s manifest musically. Wattstax, a  1973 documentary about the seeming black version of Woodstock, opens the door for that discussion. The movie focuses on a concert that took place in 1972 in the Watts section of Los Angeles.

Connections have been made between the high unemployment rates of African Americans and the race rebellion  that took place in Watts 1965. The concert was organized by Stax Records, a Memphis company known for its production of soul music beginning in the 1960s. Between interviews with many noted figures discussing black life in the America, the film presents performances by several artists including the Staple Singers, Isaac Hayes, Rufus Thomas and the BarKays.

dancing in funky streets...can you dig it

 
Today three more students did their spoken word presentations. Ann Marie recasted Martha and the Vandella's "Dancing in the Street" (She did as much with inspiration from Marvin Gaye's 1971 hit "What's Going On" because Gaye helped pen the Vandella's hit. I didn't know this. I am big fan of the album on which this song appears. As I told the students, it was the first album I listened to from beginning to end with tears in my eyes). Katarina Thompson recasted Wilson Pickett's 1967 hit "Funky Broadway" and  Trakayla recasted Parliament's 1975 hit "Chocolate City" (which is an alternately revolutionary and humorous nod to Washington D.C.) All this as we moved beyond discussing themes often associated with black urban life in America, among them resistance, identity, labor and housing.

We will now turn to how how scholars have historically written about African American life in the urban space. While W.E.B. Dubois certainly christened this subfield of African American history with his late nineteenth century study on the Philadelphia Negro, the students learned that in the opening decades of the twentieth century Chicago was the site to which many scholars often turned  to better understand black life in urban spaces. Stay tuned for excerpts from the students' reflections on what we discussed in class today.  Chicago figured greatly into our conversation.

Meanwhile, I look forward to next week's class and hearing their thoughts on two writings that have helped shaped black urban literature: St. Clair Drake and Horace Clayton's 1945 study Black Metropolis, which is indeed centered on Chicago, and Gilbert Osofsky's 1968 study which presents Harlem as an "enduring ghetto." The class will  do well to prepare by first starting with the introductory pages to a recently published edited collection of essays on black urban life by Joe W. Trotter with Earl Lewis and Tera Hunter.

the "impersonal and mechanical city"

Gilbert Osofsky's 1962 study of Harlem.

Since W.E.B. Du Bois’ 1899 study  “Philadelphia Negro,” an abundance of scholarship has been produced on the subject of  African Americans in cities.Unlike in previous weeks when  students taking this course typically learned via case studies by various scholars, last week they were introduced to three issues on which historians, sociologists and political scientists often focus when studying black urban life: race, ghettos and class. In doing so, the students discovered now-classic writings. Tiffany, one member of this class, was especially drawn to Richard Wright’s introductory essay in St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton’s classic 1945 ground-breaking study of the Chicago, the “Black Metropolis.” Wright, as she wrote, was well aware of the sociological issues affecting people of African descent in the "impersonal and mechanical city." By the 1960s, Gilbert Osofsky looked  at Harlem and observed a “tragic sameness” about black urban life. Osofsky's position was critiqued by later researchers who were more attentive to the ruptures and richness of black life in urban spaces. Their ideas and others, among them, William Julius Wilson's "underclass" arguments, or his generally greater concentration on class and not race,  were juxtaposed against clips from Spike Lee’s “Jungle Fever.” Most students saw the ways in which debates about race, ghetto and class figured into this 1991 American drama concerning Flipper (Wesley Snipes), a successful African American architect who commits adultery with Angie (Annabella Sciorra), his white administrative assistant. Their moments of indiscretion are placed alongside Flipper's life in Harlem, and Angie's  life in a white Italian Brooklyn community. Thinking of Osofsky's work, Lauria, one student, was struck by how white immigrants “participated in [racism] in [order to] ...become more ‘Americanized.'" Raven, another student, thought about how race figured into a white cop’s thoughtless behavior toward Flipper after responding to a 911 call about an "Afro"-American assaulting a white woman (Flipper and Angie were actually just play-fighting). Shariyah also thought about race when she observed that for many whites,  “a black man must be committing a crime when hanging [with] or communicating with [a] white woman.” Christin lamented how no matter their individual accomplishments, “black men were viewed [negatively] by society as a whole.” Also thinking of Osofsky, Roosevelt observed the more difficult aspects of black “ghetto” life in scenes of the Taj Majal, a crack den frequented by Gator (Samuel L. Jackson), Flipper’s older brother. Interestingly, after watching this film, Alexis,  recalling a not often evoked stance by Osofsky, observed how ghettoes were “not just a place filled with trouble, but a community.”