- One day, this will be
a world of brotherhood
where, hand in hand together,
Black and white,
we shall inherit the Earth,
but it'll come only
when you have set yourself free
through the power of God
in your mind and in your heart.
God hasten that day.
[French Montana, Skip Marley's
"Call Me Human"]
♪
- Blow up resistance
No, no
Go up in flames
♪
I'm loaded up in armor
Rise up mighty dread
Fighting for my honor
Not on an empty threat
You're gonna
feel this, my love ♪
Feel this danger
I am the realest, my love
So follow me
♪
[vocalizing]
♪
- I grew up, of course,
in a Baptist church,
and I really dig the church.
- I do too.
- I think it's a very cool--
- I do too.
- I can't dig the theology,
but the music
and the energies of the church.
- Yes.
- But then I went to--
the New York Community Choir
had its anniversary recently--
its first anniversary--
and I went up
to an AME Zion Church
as a matter of fact
and the lady was singing--
some lady was singing
"Yes, Jesus Loves Me."
And people started shouting.
You remember this--
- Yeah, yeah.
- People were shouting.
And it hit me
as I was sitting there.
My God,
as a so-called Black militant,
I have nothing stronger
to offer than Jesus.
- [laughs]
- It blew my mind.
- Baby, what we did
with Jesus was not--
no, was not supposed
to happen,
you know, at all.
- I can believe that.
- No.
We took
that cat over
and made
him ours.
He has nothing
whatever to do
with that
white Jesus
in Montgomery,
Alabama,
that white
church.
We did something
else with him.
We made him ours.
[gospel music]
- I don't know
what makes the rain fall ♪
- I don't know what
makes the raindrops fall ♪
- I don't know
what makes the grass grow ♪
- I don't know what makes
the grass grow tall ♪
- I know why
he loves me though ♪
- I know why he
loves me though ♪
- I know that I'm his
- I'm his
- Oh, yes, I'm his
- Oh, yes
And he's mine, true
- I don't know
what makes the grass grow ♪
- I don't know what makes
the grass grow tall ♪
- If you really wanted
to go hear praise music
and you really wanted
to be moved
into praise in your religion,
you would go to Harlem
because you would have
the experience of the Baptists
who were holy rollers
and would get up
and dance in the aisle
and jump up and down
and praise God.
- Daddy
- But that way of praise,
to me, is cathartic.
It's a way of releasing
the devil's hold on you.
- Everywhere I go
- Everywhere I go
- Everywhere I go
- Everywhere I go
- Everywhere I go
- Oh, we know!
Oh, we know that we are
the children of God!
And there is a God
who rules above
with a hand of power
and a heart of love,
and if I'm right--
thank God I'm right--
he'll fight my battle,
and I'll be free someday.
- I liked Adam Clayton Powell.
I met Adam Clayton Powell
and his daddy way back.
His daddy
was still alive then.
I was young.
My aunt was
an Eastern Star there
at Adam Clayton Powell's church,
so that was like a second home
for us on holidays.
The Eastern Stars
were the women who,
in church services,
somebody fainted
or somebody got sick,
they would take care of them.
Or if a sister
got to shouting too much,
you know, and fallin' out,
they'd go pick her up
off the ground and fan her,
you know, give her some ice
and take care of her.
They were like nurses.
Everybody was beautiful.
They treated us
like we weren't strangers.
My aunt was part of the church,
so we were part of the church.
Oh, come here, boy,
give me a hug.
It was like that.
People were touchy and feely,
and that's the kind of family
I came from, so I
really, really liked that.
[tender organ music]
- Abyssinian was a place
that I always felt,
when I went there
as a child with my mom,
that something
was gonna happen.
There was always
this great anticipation
that somehow I would
forever be changed.
Somehow,
someone would be saved.
- Is this one nation
indivisible under God?
[crowd replies]
No!
- Either let us practice
the democracy we are preaching
or shut up!
- The pulpit at Abyssinian
was the strongest
because that's where people
were apprised
of what was happening
politically
within the community.
He was the first to
be able to bring
politics and religion,
praising of God, together,
that it wasn't just enough
just to come
to church every Sunday,
that you had to become active
not only within the community
but within
the voting community
to change the way
the country was run.
- Abyssinian, he used
as the political instrument
where the congregation
became the army,
and everybody
from Haile Selassie,
the emperor of Ethiopia,
to Martin Luther King,
when they came
to New York and to Harlem,
they came to Abyssinian.
And there was this big mural
over the balcony
at Abyssinian,
and Adam pointed up and says,
"See that picture of Jesus?
Get it outta here!
Jesus was a Black man!"
And I sat there stunned.
- He was a very fiery speaker,
and he knew what he was
talking about politically.
- n*gro religion is no better
than the white folks' religion,
but it's just a little bit
closer to God
because of the fact
pain and suffering
make you more sensitive to God.
- I loved him.
I loved seeing him,
listening to him talk
because he always said
something that made me think,
plus he was
a pretty n*gga too.
He had wavy hair and all that,
and people loved him.
[laughs]
- What is there about
Congressman Powell
that you find attractive?
- I'm a female.
That's
a ridiculous question.
He's a very handsome man.
- And he was in the game deep.
They knew it.
They knew
that Adam Clayton Powell
wasn't somebody
that they could just come up
and roll over,
because he came from Harlem,
his daddy was a preacher,
and he took over the church.
He was a giant
of the community.
He'd walk down the street.
Everybody, they'd hug him
and talk to him.
- Adam Clayton Powell
has been identified
with Harlem for so long
that the two
are almost synonymous.
- No man can emancipate
his inner self.
Freedom of the inner man
- Freedom--spiritual,
political, and personal--
is a recurring theme
in Reverend Powell's sermons.
- That was
the whole story of Job.
God said to the devil,
"Do anything
you want to with him.
"Destroy his body,
his property, his family,
"strip him of everything,
but don't touch his inner soul.
That's mine."
And this is what belongs
to God, our inner man,
and there isn't
anything in this world
that can happen to Adam Powell
that will destroy
what I've got inside of me,
and that is I know I'm free.
["Woke Up This Morning
With My Mind on Freedom"]
- I woke up this morning
with my mind ♪
- My mind and body
- Stayed on freedom
When I woke up this mornin'
with my mind, Lord ♪
Stayed on freedom
- The Civil Rights Movement
was birthed
out of the Black church,
so a lot of those songs
were just repurposed.
So they would change a word
or two here and there.
For example,
when they would say,
"Woke up this morning
with my mind
stayed on Jesus,"
that became "woke up
this morning with my mind
stayed on freedom."
- Walking and talking
with my mind ♪
- I had made
a promise to my mom
who said never sing a song
unless I feel it
in my spirit.
'Cause I never had
a relationship
with anybody
that made me feel
like I had
a heat wave,
but when
I was baptized
and filled
with the Holy Spirit,
there was a heat that went
from the top of my head
to the tips of my toes.
- Stayed on freedom
- Gospel music is tied
to our hearts
and our worship,
but it's also tied
to our social consciousness.
You can't separate
one from the other.
They go hand in hand.
- Walk, walk
Come on and walk, walk
- I think freedom songs
joined people together
and were really important
'cause people
spent time together
marching and figuring out
how to politically
have their voices be heard.
It sounded like pleading.
It sounded like educating.
It sounded as if you were
really being told a story
that you could
really listen to.
- Talk, talk
- It impacted
the African American community
to move forward
and gave them courage
and gave them something
to really look forward to,
that there would be, one day,
a world
that would be different--
I think led the way for us
to feel as if,
"Oh, we could do that."
- Keep your mind
- Your mind, keep it
- Stayed on freedom
- You think it's necessary
to cause physical harm
in order to achieve
your objectives?
- Mr. Pressman,
being born Black
is a constant physical harm.
We are born with the harm.
We are born with injustice.
We are born
with all kinds of deeds
that no one
seems to understand.
We cannot take this any longer.
We are sorry
if two policemen got hurt,
but they must understand
that being born Black,
we were born hurt.
[tender dramatic music]
♪
- I was part of the organizing
for the March on Washington,
130th Street,
and I represented
SNCC there.
Organizing the March
on Washington was three months.
This was a dream
that A. Philip Randolph had
since 1941.
- Negros want the same things
that white citizens possess--
all of their rights.
They want no reservations.
They want complete equality,
social, economic,
and political,
and no force under the sun
can stamp and block and stop
this civil rights revolution
which is now underway.
[phone rings]
- March on Washington,
may I help you please?
- Every day,
there was a lot of pressure
and a lot of energy--
making calls
to the bus companies,
making calls to the people
in the South.
My responsibility
was to try to get people
from the South
to the March on Washington.
I was trying to organize
and trying to build
to try to get a freedom train
to come up there.
["Keep Your Eyes
on the Prize"]
Kennedy wanted
to come to speak
to the March on Washington,
and Bayard Rustin knew that
that would not be
a good idea because,
if the president spoke,
it would be his march.
- Hold on, hold on
Keep your eyes
on the prize ♪
Hold on, hold on
Well, we are all here
Black and white ♪
Trying to fight
for equal rights ♪
Keep your eyes
on the prize ♪
Hold on, hold on
Hold on,
hold on ♪
Keep your eyes
on the prize ♪
Hold on, hold on
- I think we left New York,
like, 6:00 in the morning
or something like that.
[upbeat jazz music]
Most people in Harlem,
they were very excited
about the March on Washington.
Most of the people on the bus
were talking
and laughing and joking.
They did not have that kind
of attitude that I had.
I had accepted
Brother Malcolm's position
that it was "the Farce
on Washington."
♪
- He had been critical
of the March on Washington.
Malcolm X, d*ck Gregory,
Stanley Branche,
and others wanted to hold
a different kind of march
that was much more disruptive,
blocking highways
and blocking airports,
and it never came off,
but that's
what they had in mind.
♪
The federal government,
Kennedy administration
was in a panic
because they thought
that this was gonna be
a riot coming to town.
The question of where would
the federal troops be--
were they gonna be
visible or invisible?
So one of the things
that people don't know
is that,
outside of Washington DC,
there were federal troops
just in case
it got out of hand.
♪
- I was 13 years old.
I went there for
the wrong reason.
Me and some of my boys
liked these girls,
and the NAACP
was taking busses
to march on Washington.
Only on the ride back
did I understand
why we went there--
right to vote,
housing, education.
♪
- Everybody wanted to go,
but a lot of people
couldn't go.
They didn't have
the money to go.
To hear Martin Luther King?
sh**t.
I went to
the March on Washington
with my wife and my aunt
and my mother and my brother,
and we thought
it was the greatest thing
we had ever seen
that that many people
came to hear
Martin Luther King,
but that many people
came together.
That joint was packed.
- The great part
of that whole thing to me
was just to see
that many Black people.
I was socializing.
I was meeting people
and talking to people
and having a good time.
- I have the pleasure
to present
to this great audience
young John Lewis,
National Chairman,
Student Nonviolent
Coordinating
Committee.
Brother John Lewis.
- John Lewis was 23.
I was 22.
President Kennedy's opposition
to John Lewis's speech,
I had to work
with John and Jim Forman
to help change it.
- John Lewis, they censored
what he was gonna have to say.
It was too radical,
so you had voices in SNCC
that were pushing back.
The youth voices are always
going to push much harder
than those of the more
established leadership.
- To those who have said,
"Be patient and wait,"
we have long said
that we cannot be patient.
We do not want
our freedom gradually,
but we want to be free now!
[cheers and applause]
[tender dramatic music]
♪
- I took a couple pictures,
but I wasn't interested
in taking--
you know,
there's some times in my life
I've been in situations
that, you know,
people would say,
"Oh, take a picture of this."
[sighs]
Sometimes I just wanna
experience something
without sticking
a camera in my face
and trying to capture
this great moment.
Sometimes I want it
just to live on in my memory.
♪
- King knew
he had hit a home run,
and as he finishes and says,
"free at last,"
he just says
"Thank God almighty,
we're free at last,"
and he does a move
like dropping the microphone.
Got it.
- And everybody
was waving their flag
or screaming or yelling.
It was like church.
It was like a huge church.
Everybody's, like,
screaming and yelling--
"Yes!"
We sang "We Shall Overcome."
We always sang that.
That was to sing everywhere.
That was the song of the day.
- We are not afraid
We are not afraid
We are not
Afraid today
Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome
- You had people, particularly
in the folk music community--
Joan Baez, and Odetta,
Belafonte,
Peter, Paul and Mary,
and Pete Seeger--
they weren't just there
as performers.
They were there as people
who were part of the movement,
and their music
was part of the movement.
♪
- I listened to it,
but I wasn't singing it
'cause I wasn't feeling it.
Though we had kind of
rejected the song as being,
you know, that
Civil Rights Movement song,
it still had a power
when you heard
that many people singing it.
It really did.
- I thought,
"With this many voices
"right here
in the devil's front yard,
"things are gonna change
for the better.
This is a change."
[expl*si*n]
[mournful music]
- On Sunday,
September 15, 1963
during services,
a b*mb exploded
in Birmingham's 16th Street
Baptist Church.
Four children were k*lled
and several adults injured.
People throughout the world
were outraged.
♪
- When I--
that, to me,
was the most devastating thing
that I had heard
since Emmett Till.
♪
- Complete disgust and sorrow
that four children had to die
because of white racism.
♪
It was a
horrible feeling
of no control
over what happened to us.
- I just wish somebody
had had something
that could have protected
those little girls.
I remember I cried.
- It was smack in our face
that people could do
whatever they wanted
to do to us,
and there was
no repercussions.
[mournful jazz music]
♪
- When it first came out,
if you didn't read
the album cover,
you would just think
it's a very sad, slow ballad.
John Coltrane,
he was really repeating,
note for note,
Martin Luther
King's speech.
That's what "Alabama" is.
- There are many more
white people of good will
right in this city,
and we are able to see,
on the surface,
many of them are silent today
because they are afraid.
They are afraid of political,
social, and economic reprisal.
God grant that something
will happen to them
so that they will rise up
with courage and say,
"This must never happen again
in Birmingham
or anywhere
in the state of Alabama,"
but they are here.
We must never forget that.
So don't allow our struggle
here in Birmingham
to degenerate
into a racial struggle.
This isn't a conflict between
Black folk and white folk
in the final analysis.
It is a tension between
justice and injustice.
It is a struggle
between the forces of light
and the forces of darkness,
and if that is a victory
in Birmingham,
it will not be a victory
merely for
the Black men and women,
Black boys and girls
of this city,
but it will be
a victory for justice,
a victory for democracy,
a victory
for all of God's children
in this city,
and this is what we must see.
♪
- If the government
can't defend us,
what should we do?
If the government doesn't
want us to pick up a r*fle,
then defend us.
Go find out
who bombed the church
in Birmingham, Alabama,
and if they can't find out
[applause]
If they can't find out,
then let us go find out.
♪
- That, to me, confirmed
Brother Malcolm's position
about self-defense.
Not violence but self-defense.
♪
- Culture is political,
and all of that is part of
what was coming out
of our political culture.
♪
Trane--
I'm not going to say
that I knew him well.
We infested their house,
and when I say "we,"
I'm talking about a group
of young guys
from the neighborhood
who were in love with Coltrane
and his music,
but I think he was
an extremely sensitive man.
His being in tune
to what was going on
and the pain of what
was happening to Black people,
you can hear it in his music.
I was moved by Trane's
much slower pieces--
not just the ballads,
but even things like "Alabama."
That's not really hard bop.
I remember
getting into an argument
with young guys
about Trane's music.
The guys, being sexist,
were telling me
I didn't know what I was
talking about, you know?
"Oh, you're a girl."
And Trane was in the room.
He was sitting in a chair.
He used to sit
and do finger exercises.
He didn't even have
his saxophone in his hands.
He'd just be sort of sitting,
doing it like this.
You kind of forgot
he was there,
and they were dismissing
what I had to say,
and, all of a sudden,
a voice came from the corner.
It was Trane.
He said, "She's right."
And of course they all went--
you know, Trane had spoken.
♪
And he said it again.
He said, "Ballads
are much more difficult.
"You have to hear
because it's about the space
between the notes."
♪
When you think about
how he was able
to take the feelings
of what
was happening politically
and translate that
not only into thenotes
but the spaces between them,
that's the incredible power
of John Coltrane.
♪
- When Trane first started
expressing himself
in that way,
a lot of musicians
didn't understand
or appreciate it.
I was not among them.
I was one of the fans.
But a lot of people
resisted the fact
that Coltrane was
moving the instrument
beyond its traditional
position,
and he was
putting emotions into it
that--we didn't know how.
I started playing
the drums like that.
I started trying to scream
on the drum set
like he was screaming
on the saxophone.
People started doing that
on other instruments.
You hear piano players,
instead of playing
nice chords,
all of a sudden rang, bang!
All kinds
of emotional outputs.
We couldn't find any other way
to express our anger,
and many of us--you know,
Mingus definitely
tried to elicit
that kind of expression
from his bandmates.
[post-bop jazz music]
♪
"Fables of Faubus"
by Charlie Mingus
was a reaction
to Governor Faubus
who was an avid r*cist
and white supremist.
♪
- Governor Faubus
who would sick the dogs
on young kids
just to try to go to school.
♪
Charlie Mingus,
he just came right out.
He called names.
[chuckles]
Called the people's names.
There was nothing coded there,
and so that opened it up.
That really
opened up everything.
- In view of
continuing resistance,
the president served notice
that the court decision
would be firmly upheld.
He ordered federal troops
to Arkansas
for the protection
of schoolchildren
and the maintenance
of law and order.
- Great thing,
we marched to Washington,
but Washington can't take care
of these slums.
City hall's gotta do it.
Let's march on city hall.
I said it before,
and I say it again.
New York City needs
a Birmingham expl*si*n
right here!
That's what we need!
[applause]
♪
I wanna see Harlem get back
into the picture again!
I want Harlem to be the leader
of the Black revolution!
I'm sick and tired of
politicians and their promises.
I'm sick and tired
of seeing 'em
only around election time.
I want some action now!
[people chanting]
Now!
Now!
Now!
Now!
Now!
Now!
- "'Tis the Old Ship of Zion,
Get on Board"
is as applicable now
as it was
prior to emancipation
because I think
that n*gro leaders now
as the n*gro tenor did
in sl*very, is crying out
to Negroes that 'tis
the old ship of freedom
and the old ship of Zion
was a sort of a symbolism.
[hard bop jazz music]
♪
- Oh, my God,
I love Max Roach.
He was my hero.
Remember, he's one
of the founders of bebop.
Him, Miles, and Dizzy.
♪
- In the piece,
"Freedom Now Suite,"
so what we attempted to do
was create a work
to say that, in 100 years
from 1860 to 1960,
that we had attained freedom.
I'd be on the road.
We'd work on it by telephone.
And we never could
finish the piece
because we knew
in our minds and hearts
that we had not
arrived at a place
where we could say
this is total freedom.
- Appetizing
Young love
For sale
- The first time I heard
Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln's
"Freedom Now Suite,"
it was so powerful to me.
It changed
my whole way of thinking
and what music can do.
♪
- Driver man,
he made a life ♪
♪
But the mammy
ain't his wife ♪
♪
Chopping cotton,
don't be slow ♪
♪
Better finish
out your row ♪
- They were our power couple,
especially in the music world.
They were like Michelle
and Barack Obama.
- Driver man'll
show you how ♪
♪
There is
no such thing as jazz.
There's only a song
and your spirit
and your ancestors.
♪
Better make
your hammer ring ♪
♪
Driver man'll
start to swing ♪
- And many
of the earlier spirituals
were loaded with messages
that taught you
much like
the church does today
how to survive out here.
These were not only songs
of inspiration,
but they were songs
of preparation
and songs of protection.
It has helped us to survive
to where we are today.
- Just to die
Run away,
and you'll be found ♪
♪
By his big old
red bone hound ♪
♪
Pateroller bring you back
♪
Make you sorry you is Black
- This was
a theatrical performance.
It wasn't just
a band going to play.
When Abbey Lincoln
was performing "Triptych"
which was the moans
and the cries of the sl*ves
being beaten,
that's why we couldn't smile
during the whole performance
because this was
serious business.
[drumming]
- [vocalizing powerfully]
♪
- If you look at the cover
of the "Freedom Jazz Suite,"
it was connected
to the sit-in demonstrations
in the Carolinas at that time,
this continuum,
picking up the things
that was going on
in the other parts
of the country,
and we kind of galvanized
you in Harlem.
[people chanting]
Jim Crow must go!
Jim Crow must go!
Jim Crow must go!
Jim Crow must go!
[people chanting and singing]
- Malcolm X,
what brings you here today?
- Well, I'm out here to see
the successful exposé
of the New York City
school system.
It proves that you don't
have to go to Mississippi
to find a segregated
school system.
We have it right here
in New York City.
- Are you supporting
this boycott?
- Yes, I did support it.
I came as an observer,
and I supported it
because it shows
that the problems
that the white liberals
have been pointing
the finger at
the Southern segregationists
and condemning them for
exist right here
in New York City.
- New York
had an education system--
and by the way, still does--
that's more segregated
than systems in the South.
[punchy electronic music]
Especially around '64
in Harlem
and in the country
at the time,
things were coming to a head.
There were rent strikes
in Harlem.
- I have to sit here
in my kitchen at night
and k*ll anywhere
from 20 to 25 rats
with that broomstick handle.
When I go to the landlord
and ask him,
"Do something about the rats,"
he do nothing at all.
- There were school protests
and strikes--
happened simultaneously.
Rent strikes
happened simultaneously.
All this was fueled
by the Civil Rights Movement.
[people chanting indistinctly]
[people chanting]
Now!
Now!
Must go! Must go!
- There's a new leadership
born here today--
new leadership
and a new mass following.
These are young people.
These are people on the march,
and they're not gonna let
ivory tower,
big name n*gro leaders
control them anymore.
- What's the next move?
- The next move?
More demonstrations.
Keep on the pressure.
Keep 'em squirming
until we make democracy work
as it should work.
- It seems like
they wanna punish people
in the United States
for being poor,
and I realize also
that I could be that way
if I did not have
exactly the family
and education that I had
or some small slip
had led me off
into some other direction
that had ruined my finances.
That could be me.
But these were things that
always made me uncomfortable,
and it took me a long time
to get comfortable in New York
because New York is really--
I won't say
it's more segregated,
but it's less comfortable
for a lot of Black people.
[upbeat music]
♪
- One question
about police activity.
What is your feeling
when extra police
reinforcements
are sent into Harlem?
- Well, sometimes we feel
that there seems to be
a kind of police invasion
of Harlem
in that you see
on almost every corner
two or three policemen,
and many of them are white.
♪
Sometimes the residents
sort of feel like,
"Well, we are occupied."
[upbeat pop music]
♪
- Nowhere to run to, baby
♪
- There's a song
in my gospel dictionary
called
"Nowhere to Run."
Went to the rock
to hide my face ♪
The rocks cried out
no hidin' place ♪
No hidin' place
down here ♪
It's a church song.
People wanna do whatever
they wanna do with lyrics.
I hope they heard
the gospel of the song.
- Nowhere to run to, baby
Nowhere to hide
- The first riots
of the 1960s,
a white cop had k*lled a kid
because he was playing
with a hydrant.
- It was one
of the bloodiest riots
Harlem had ever seen.
It's hard to say
why Powell was
the tipping point.
I think maybe
because he was a student.
That whole
student body reacted.
There's always
that saturation point
where people get enough.
- You can't stop
righteous indignation.
You can't stop it.
Flames shot up in the air,
and it rolled
through the streets.
Everything was on fire.
- There's nowhere to run.
Talk about
a bad, bad relationship.
It's gone awry.
It has its own reflection
from a*usive relationship
to the society itself
upon Black people
during that period in time.
- My mother used to work
at a theater
called the Loew's Victoria
on 125th Street,
two doors away
from the Apollo Theater.
I would have to bring her
her dinner every night,
and then I'd have to stay
at the theater
and watch the movie
until she finished work
because "I can't trust you
to be at home by yourself."
And on this particular day,
I had just come from school,
and when I got to 125th
and St. Nicholas Avenue,
I turned the corner,
and I see people running
and screaming and yelling--
people trying
to make me turn around
and go in the other direction,
and I'm, like,
hellbent for leather.
Hell no, because
my mother will k*ll me.
I have to take
my mother dinner.
I realized something
is happening.
They're breaking the windows
in the stores.
The police are out here.
There's fires.
It's just crazy.
I get to
the Loew's Victoria.
The manager,
unlocks the door.
My mother yanks me
into the theater,
and she hugs me and says,
"Do you know what's going on?"
"No, I don't know
what's going on."
"It's a riot."
[people shouting indistinctly]
- My brother was going
to pick up my sisters,
learning that they were
on 125th Street
when this riot broke out.
So my brother went
to 125th Street
and got my sister
and her friends in a cab,
and a wave comes
just like water
and took Tunde
into the riots,
moved him as people move,
and the police
started chasing them,
and he found himself
going into a building.
People that were
standing there
waiting for the wave to
subside--these were elders--
and a bunch of white police
came in there,
and they started
beating the older men.
My brother
pushed one of 'em down
and ran out of the building,
and the next thing he knew,
he heard "pow," and he was
flying through the air.
He was shot in the back,
and he was left to die.
He said an angel came,
pulled him to the side,
said that he would be okay.
He was paralyzed for a while.
They thought he was gonna die.
- You know, in New York,
there's a big
campaign going on
to humanize the policemen,
and they have billboards upstate
and they have a picture
of this big cop
bending over
this little blonde girl.
- Mm-hmm.
- And the signs say,
"And some people call him pig."
- Mm-hmm.
- And I wanted to
buy a billboard--
I told a friend of mine,
I want to buy a billboard
and show this big cop
and this 14-year-old kid
with 30 b*ll*ts in him and say,
"And some people call him
peacemaker."
- We have made up
our Black minds
for this Black revolution,
for Black leadership,
for Black men, for Black women
with Black goals!
And that's all.
[cheers and applause]
As well as the hardship,
let it come.
However rough the road,
however rocky,
however heavy the cross,
however huge the burden,
however deep the heartache,
however many the tears,
let's pay the sacrifice,
and let's say,
"Onward, onward,
onward, onward,
"Black men, Black women,
Black revolution,
and a Black victory!"
[cheers and applause]
- We were griots
and troubadours and singers
even in Africa,
long before we went into
this here long period
of captivity.
But once
the oppressor recognized
that there was a certain kind
of talent beyond the laborer,
they could exploit that too.
[upbeat jazz music]
- Adam Clayton Powell
was the first
United States official
to bring African American
jazz musicians
into the service
and into Europe
where, eventually,
they became far more popular
than they do here
in their own country.
- The people who
we're planning to use--
my friend Dizzy Gillespie
who's the father
of modern jazz.
- What do you think
about that, Dizzy?
- I don't think
we'll have any trouble
converting the people
over to our style of music.
- You think
they'll dig that.
- I think
they'll dig it very nicely.
- This is what you
might call a cool w*r
rather than a cold w*r.
- [chuckles]
Yeah, very good.
The weapon that we will use
is the cool one.
[virtuosic trumpet playing]
♪
- When the State Department
sent Dizzy Gillespie
and Louis Armstrong overseas,
they were trying
to show the world
that they were kind
to so-called Black people,
but I don't think
it made a bit of difference.
[upbeat jazz music]
- It was a way
for people to have a stage
and perform,
but it was part and parcel
of a movement to show the world
that there was
a transition happening
even if they didn't see it.
It was a tactic to say,
"See?
We're honoring
our cultured people."
The State Department
was grasping
for visuals
of African Americans
musically
as well as physically
that would sort of soothe
African Americans into thinking
that they were being respected
in a way,
even though they weren't free.
- And we happen
to be in America.
We're not American.
We are people
who formerly were Africans
who were kidnapped
and brought to America.
Our forefathers
weren't the pilgrims.
We didn't land
on Plymouth Rock.
The rock was landed on us.
[soft dramatic music]
- Brother Malcolm knew
how to build an organization.
I got to the Audubon Ballroom
probably around 1:30
or something
and start doing the things,
you know,
to get ready for the rally,
which is scheduled for 3:00.
There were about
five of us backstage.
I do remember Brother Malcolm
saying to us that day
"The way I feel today,
I should not be here."
[solemn music]
- I was driving in my car
into New York city.
I was on my way to see Malcolm
at the Audubon Ballroom,
and I had the radio on,
and I had
the Black station on,
and I hear about
this assassination.
- The assassination
of Malcolm X
was an unfortunate tragedy,
and it reveals that there
are still numerous people
in our nation
who have degenerated
to the point
of expressing dissent
through m*rder
and that we haven't learned
to disagree without being
violently disagreeable.
- Why's it a flare to you?
- Because he's a part of me.
Because he looks like me,
and his skin is me.
He's a Black man,
and I'm a Black man,
and it takes up
a Black emancipation.
- I couldn't have cried
any more, I don't believe,
if I had lost my mother.
- What did he mean to you?
Can you tell me
a bit more about it?
[mournful music]
- He meant
deliverance for my people.
- Some Black people
were against Malcolm.
Everybody didn't cotton
to Charlie Parker
when he played what he played.
Other musicians said,
"Man, what are you playing?"
It's the same thing
again here with Malcolm.
If you hit that chord--
it's about the chord.
It's about the connecting
to the heart, the spirit.
♪
- I was very shocked
when Sister Betty,
who I, of course, had seen
at some of the rallies,
and I had met her briefly
on a couple of occasions,
and I wanna
make this very clear.
I was not a part
of Brother Malcolm's
inner circle.
I was a strong supporter.
So I was kind of surprised
when she asked me
to be a pallbearer,
so I agreed to do so.
♪
- Here at this final hour
in this quiet place,
Harlem has come
to bid farewell
to one of its brightest hopes
extinguished now
and gone from us forever.
♪
For Harlem is where he worked
and where he struggled
and fought.
- Some of the brothers
in our organization,
they told the regular guys
who dug the grave,
"Yeah, we'll do that."
♪
"No, we'll do that.
We'll do that."
That was a very sad day.
- Ossie Davis said, you know,
"A Black prince--they k*lled
our Black prince."
- Malcolm was our manhood,
our living, Black manhood.
This was his meaning
to his people,
and, in honoring him,
we honor the best
in ourselves,
and we shall know him then
for what he was and is,
a prince--
our own Black, shining prince.
♪
- The form of resistance
in the everyday walk of life
in Harlem meant
that you were trying
to be a part of a society
you didn't feel welcome in.
[Chicago soul music]
It was also part and parcel
of survival.
To be able to survive
and feed your family,
many Harlemites
had to go downtown
and work on Park Avenue
as maids or butlers
or doormen.
♪
- Move up a little higher
♪
Some way or somehow
♪
'Cause I've got
my strength ♪
And it don't make sense
Not to keep on pushing
- 'Cause African Americans
realized, "Oh, wait a minute.
"We're the majority
of this union.
"Without us, it doesn't work.
"Without us,
there's no clean sheets
"on those hotel beds.
Without us, it all comes
to a grinding halt."
And in the '60s,
over and over again,
African Americans
started to realize that,
and they were clued in
to that power.
- To survive was a statement.
To survive defied the odds.
Yeah, I might
have to work two jobs.
Yeah, I may have to be
a janitor or a domestic worker,
but I'm gonna
put food on the table,
and you didn't think
I could do that.
- With just
a little bit of soul ♪
♪
- In the '60s, we were only
two or three generations
away from when
it was against the law
to have a family unit
if you were Black.
It gave a sense of community
and a sense of unity.
That's what the church did.
Those groupings were the ones
you could call on
for the marches
and the rallies and to vote
'cause we were beginning
to learn how to use the vote
in the North, thanks to Adam
and Dr. King in the South.
♪
- Stands there,
ahead of me ♪
- For family units
to stay together
even if parts of it broke
was as revolutionary
a statement as you could make
at that time.
- And keep on pushin'
- We all meet at the table.
- Hallelujah
[tender dramatic music]
[vocalizing]
♪
- Oh yeah
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah
Oh yeah-ea-eah
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01x02 - Freedom Songs
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Documentary series examines the story of Harlem, its music during the 1960's and its connections to today.
Documentary series examines the story of Harlem, its music during the 1960's and its connections to today.