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On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. By staying in her seat, she stood up for racial justice.
Parks’ civil disobedience sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted 380 days. The economic boycott gave birth to the modern Civil Rights Movement. On Tuesday, NPR’s Michel Martin will host a national conversation focusing on whether the bus boycott still matters.
You can join the conversation via Twitter using the hashtag #busboycott60.
On Saturday at the Merriam Theater, bassist Christian McBride performed like it was 1969. McBride’s “The Movement, Revisited” is centered around the words of four Civil Rights icons, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks and Muhammad Ali.
McBride and his 18-piece band were joined by the Philadelphia Heritage Chorale, and four narrators – Rev. Alyn Waller as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Dion Graham as Muhammad Ali, Samuel Stricklen as Malcolm X, and Sonia Sanchez as Rosa Parks.
McBride shared that he grew up reading Jet and Ebony which gave him a history lesson in the black experience. The four icons stood out for him. “The Movement, Revisited” stems from a commission by the Portland Arts Society to compose a piece for Black History Month:
The genesis for this project began in 1998 when McBride was commissioned by the Portland (ME) Arts Society to compose THE MOVEMENT, Revisited, a two-part composition for small instrumental group and gospel ensemble. This year, McBride envisioned a project of wider scope on the same theme and it has grown into a full-scale, 90-minute production.
The narrators brought to life the personality and passion of their character. I particularly enjoyed McBride’s exuberant “Rumble in the Jungle.” The choir evoked the spirit of the Freedom Singers with “I’m So Tired” and “Freedom, Struggle.”
In an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, McBride said:
I don't want to predict anything, but the magnitude of the piece - why it was written, what it was about - I can't imagine I'll ever write something as monumental on this scale again. I do get overwhelmed playing it, and every time I do, it feels new. Sometimes, I play this piece and still go, “Wow, did I really write this?”
If the standing ovation is any indication, the audience was wowed by the piece.
McBride’s message music harkens back to earlier generations of jazz greats who were inspired by the struggle for racial justice. In 1929, Louis Armstrong asked, “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue.” Composed by Fats Waller, it is considered the first American popular song of racial protest.
Billie Holiday told the world about the horrors of lynching.
Both Armstrong and Holiday are featured in an exhibition at the Library of Congress, “The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom.” The multimedia exhibition explores the events that shaped the Civil Rights Movement. It includes manuscripts like Dr. Billy Taylor’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free,” composed in 1954 and popularized by Nina Simone in the 1960s.
In 1959, bassist Charles Mingus composed “Fables of Faubus,” a satirical protest against Arkansas governor Orval Faubus who had deployed the Arkansas National Guard to Little Rock Central High School to prevent nine African American students from entering the segregated school.
Jazz has an element of freedom. It is that freedom that allowed jazz musicians to use their platform to sound a message of defiance and resistance. From John Coltrane’s “Alabama” to Max Roach’s “We Insist! Freedom Now Suite,” jazz was a soundtrack to the Civil Rights Movement.
“The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom” will be on exhibit at the Library of Congress until Jan. 2, 2016.
I am an accidental preservationist. For this lifelong activist, the movement to save diverse places is about racial justice. It’s about staking African Americans’ claim to the American story.
In his remarks before the National Trust for Historic Preservation's annual conference, Bryan Stevenson, founding director of the Equal Justice Initiative, spoke eloquently about the ways in which the built environment reflects social inequalities:
Identity matters. You can tell the identity of a nation by looking at what they honor. . . . There is power in memorialization. You preserve the things that matter. . . . We do an injustice when we tell stories about history that are incomplete.
From the Civil War to Civil Rights, Philadelphia’s historic resources tell a more complete American story. But in Philly, only two percent of historic properties are protected. Incredibly in the 1950s, City Hall narrowly escaped the wrecking ball. Much to the chagrin of city leaders, including Edmund Bacon, then-head of the Planning Commission, rehabilitation cost less than demolition. In other words, it was “cheaper to keep her.”
Fast forward to today, gentrification is laying bare Philadelphia’s culture of demolition. As I write this post, a developer is demolishing the church where Marian Anderson learned to sing and the congregation nurtured her talent. The world renowned contralto helped pave the way for the Civil Rights Movement.
The Royal Theater was a center of the African American community from the 1920s to the 1950s. It was Philly’s first and largest movie theater to cater exclusively to African Americans. Although it’s listed in the National Register of Historic Places and the Philadelphia Register, the historic property is about to undergo a “facadectomy.”
These places are at the intersection of historic preservation and social justice. The buildings’ social history of resistance and triumph is connected to contemporary issues, including gentrification, displacement, income inequality and social inequity. Truth be told, developers are deciding which places are important.
In Los Angeles and Phoenix, adaptive reuse is a matter of public policy. Philadelphia’s culture of demolition has been exacerbated by the 10-year residential tax abatement which provides a perverse incentive for developers to tear down historic buildings.
To bring about policy changes, we must engage and empower accidental preservationists to become stewards of historical assets in their neighborhood.
Veterans Day 2015 I want to thank the brave men and women who have served in the military. I want to give special thanks to the Tuskegee Airmen. Although a U.S. Army Air Corps' study tried to prove African Americans could not be pilots, the Tuskegee Airmen met the challenge.
You can show the veteran in your life some love by helping him or her story share their story with the Veterans History Project (VHP), a project of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
The Library of Congress wants to preserve history:
VHP's mission is to collect, preserve, and make accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war.
Share your story, if you're a veteran. Simply sit down with a friend or loved one and record a conversation about your military experiences for 30 minutes or longer. Interview a veteran in your family or community. Collect a veteran's historical documents.
Collaborate with your local high schools and universities, retirement communities, veteran service organizations, churches, area businesses, and other community groups.
For more information, including how to get a VHP Field Kit, go to www.loc.gov/vets.
I'm off to Washington, DC for PastForward, a conference of people saving places that matter.
I was awarded a diversity scholarship so I'm particularly looking forward to the PastForward Diversity Summit sponsored by the National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture. During a Twitter chat on Friday, I invoked an African proverb to underscore why diversity matters:
Some of the diversity sessions will be livestreamed. You can sign up to be a Virtual Attendee at no cost. You also can join the conversation via Twitter using the hashtag #SaveDiversePlaces.
