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Take This Hammer: James Baldwin tours black San Francisco in 1963

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In the spring of 1963, San Francisco poet, documentarian, and media activist Richard Moore accompanied and filmed author James Baldwin and Youth For Service Executive Director Orville Luster on a tour through the black-majority Bayview/Hunter’s Point and Fillmore districts of San Francisco. They sought to portray the real experience of African-Americans in what was considered America’s most liberal city.

That outing would result in Take This Hammer, and the footage of it was shot at a crucial time in Baldwin’s life. After 15 years in exile in Paris, the Harlem-born writer was back in the States at the peak of his renown and with political fire in his eyes. His turbulent novels from the ‘50s—especially Go Tell It on the Mountain and Another Country—had stunned the literary world with their exposure of racism and deeply developed queer characters.

During the same spring in which Take This Hammer was shot, Baldwin published the rather incredible essay Down at the Cross, and ended up on the cover of Time. That summer, he’d end his tour of the American South at the March on Washington with a quarter-million of his fellow Americans, with many other celebrities.

Baldwin’s observations certainly set The City’s white lib establishment into fits: “There is no moral distance ... between the facts of life in San Francisco and the facts of life in Birmingham. Someone’s got to tell it like it is. And that’s where it’s at.” Unfortunately, as seen in documents like Kevin Epps’s 2001 doc Straight Outta Hunter’s Point, not much has changed in SF over the generations…
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Baldwin, Brando, Belafonte, Poitier, Mankiewicz and Heston talk Civil Rights, 1963

Posted by Ron Nachmann
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04.19.2011
02:34 am
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Baldwin, Brando, Belafonte, Poitier, Mankiewicz and Heston talk Civil Rights, 1963

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On August 28 1963, the same day Martin Luther King delivered his landmark “I have a dream” speech, at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, writer James Baldwin, director Joseph Mankiewicz, and actors Harry Belafonte, Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, and Sidney Poitier, sat down in a CBS studio to discuss Civil Rights in America. It was an historic moment, one that would be difficult to imagine happening today, amongst Hollywood’s glitterai - especially when Mankiewicz let’s the cat out of the bag:

“Freedom, true freedom is not given by governments; it is taken by the people.”

 

 
Via Open Culture
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.04.2011
06:14 pm
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Martin Luther King Jr. in roots

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In terms of political philosophy, reggae has leaned largely towards Marcus Garvey, Paul Bogle, Malcolm X and the Black Panthers. Here are a couple of exceptions, salutes to the man who we celebrate today in the U.S.

First, “Martin Luther King” by Max Romeo from Reconstruction, his 1979 follow up to his landmark album War Ina Babylon.
 

 
Here’s “Martin Luther King”, one of the tracks on studio wizard Scientist’s 1983 album International Heroes Dub with the Forces of Music band. Other track titles include “George Jackson”, “Ho Chi Minh”, “Malcolm X” and “Desmond Tutu”...
 

Posted by Ron Nachmann
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01.17.2011
03:24 pm
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Revolution comes out of the barrel of a microphone: James Brown live in Boston April 5, 1968
12.10.2010
11:15 pm
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On April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King was assassinated. The following day mayhem erupted in cities all across America. Riots and looting had broken out in Chicago, Detroit, Washington D.C. and L.A.. Boston was a powder keg on the verge of exploding and Mayor Kevin White was considering canceling all public gatherings, including an April 5th concert by James Brown at the Boston Garden. When White realized that canceling Brown’s show might actually trigger the very riots that he was attempting to avoid, the Mayor made a profoundly smart and historic move. He met with Brown and discussed ways in which they could keep the peace. They decided to proceed with the concert and broadcast it live on local television. Unfortunately, the Boston network affiliates refused to broadcast the concert. But, public station WGBH agreed to air the show and it turned out be a historically significant decision that altered the course of Boston’s history. Brown’s concert would be seen by far more than 14,000 concert goers. It would be made available to everyone in the Boston area with a television set. And it might just quell some violence. As it turned out, it did.

Brown’s performance was absolutely epic. He dedicated the concert to Dr. King and through his music managed to calm the anger and frustration of a community in deep mourning. Boston stayed cool while other cities burned.

Here’s 150 minutes of footage aired by WGBH on that extraordinary night when the hardest working man in show business became a force of healing, peace and Black pride.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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12.10.2010
11:15 pm
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