Founded by WDAS program director and DJ Jimmy Bishop in 1964, Artic Records was a building block for “The Sound of Philadelphia.”
Future cofounder of Philadelphia International Records Kenny Gamble was a songwriter and producer for the record label, and recording artist with the group, Kenny Gamble and the Floaters.
In a 2013 interview, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Gamble told WHYY:
That was like my training ground. It was like going to school. Experimenting. Jimmy Bishop used to let me work in the studio, work on the board.
Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates got his start at Arctic with the blue-eyed soul group the Temptones.
A teenager from North Philly, Barbara Mason, wrote and recorded Artic’s best-selling record (Kenny Gamble was one of the backup singers).
Arctic released its last record in 1971. Around the same time, Jimmy Bishop disappeared, and to this day nobody knows whether he’s dead or alive.
The site of Artic Records is a stop on my walking tour, “North Broad Street: Then and Now.” We will take a stroll down North Broad in October 2022. To be added to the mailing list, send your contact info to greenbookphl@gmail.com.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, “The time is always right to do what is right.” It’s past time for the Pulitzer Prize Board to do right by Duke Ellington and grant him the award he was denied in 1965. The New York Times reported on May 5, 1965.
Jazz historian and author Ted Gioia has launched an online petition for Duke Ellington to be granted the Pulitzer Prize in Music:
In 1965, the jury for the Pulitzer Prize in Music recommended that jazz composer Duke Ellington receive the award in honor of his lifetime legacy of excellence. The Pulitzer Board denied the request, and decided to give no award in music that year rather than honor an African-American jazz composer. In the aftermath, two of the three jury members resigned in protest.
The time has come to rectify this unfortunate decision, and name Duke Ellington as the winner of the 1965 Pulitzer Prize in Music. The recent precedent of Jim Thorpe's reinstatement as sole winner of the 1912 Olympic gold medals, taken from him 110 years ago, makes clear that even after many decades these wrongs can still be righted. Ellington was a deserving candidate back in 1965, and the significance of his legacy has become all the clearer with the passage of time. Giving him the 1965 prize is the right thing for Duke Ellington, the right thing for the Pulitzer, and the right thing for American music.
It’s never too late to right an egregious wrong. If you love Duke Ellington madly, keep your eyes on the Pulitzer Prize and sign the petition.
The exclusion caused an uproar in the Black community. Historian John Henrik Clark, a consultant for the exhibition, later withdrew in protest. Dr. Clark told The New York Times:
In the light of the vocal role played by blacks in the current social upheaval, it is shocking that [Museum Director Thomas] Hoving and [Exhibition Curator Allon] Schoener have remained sheltered from urban life. They continue to persist in a paternalistic approach to black people – one that demands that whites define and describe the black experience, about which they know nothing.
Fast forward to today, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney and his appointee, Kelly Lee, executive director of the Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy (OACCE), want to give a no-bid $500,000 commission to Wesley Wofford, creator of the traveling statue, Harriet Tubman: The Journey to Freedom. The commission would be for a new statue. Wofford has no unique insight into Harriet Tubman and knows nothing about Philadelphia, a city that is majority minority. His studio is located in the North Carolina Mountains.
The exclusion of Black artists has caused an uproar. OACCE’s plan to spoon-feed Wofford gives new meaning to “starving artist.” The data collected from the public survey “will help determine the theme and messaging of the permanent Harriet Tubman statue to make it unique to Philadelphia and inform the physical design and statue’s text.”
We are taking a page from the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, a watchdog group whose members included Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden and Harlem residents. We are protesting the planned exclusion of Black, women and other underrepresented artists from competing for the Harriet Tubman commission. Much to their chagrin, Mayor Kenney and Kelly Lee cannot just give Wofford the commission. While professional services contracts are not subject to the lowest responsible bidder requirement of the Home Rule Charter, OACCE must follow the procurement process and post a non-competitively bid contract opportunity to the eContract Philly website. Applicants will have at least 15 days to submit a proposal. When the notice of “New Contract Opportunities” is posted, we will give the signal.
We will share the Request for Proposals on social media and via email. Established artists should be able to respond within the timeframe. We already know the location of the statue, City Hall’s North Apron, and some design elements, granite base and at least nine feet tall. The theme(s) will be announced once the public survey data are compiled. So start visualizing your design. By the way, don’t be concerned that submitting a proposal will jeopardize future opportunities with OACCE. Kelly Lee and Jim “I’ll be happy when I’m not mayor” Kenney are lame ducks. Kenney leaves office in January 2024.
Harriet Tubman, the most celebrated conductor on the Underground Railroad, is memorialized in countless dissertations, history books, novels, documentaries, artworks, songs, and movies.
According to the Monument Lab National Audit, Harriet is among the historical figures with the most public monuments. As of December 2021, there were 21 public memorials of Harriet in cities across the country.
A new statue of Harriet Tubman was unveiled on the grounds of Lincoln Park in Pomona, California on July 4, 2022.
Philadelphia's Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy (OACCE) plans to award a no-bid commission to Wesley Wofford, creator of the touring statue, The Journey to Freedom, which was installed on the North apron of City Hall from January 11 to March 31, 2022.
OACCE recently held a public engagement session allegedly to “help inform the design of this statue.”
Public Art Director Marguerite Anglin said the lack of an open call was due to the “tremendous outpouring of love and pride for the Journey to Freedom statue.” Maisha Ongoza, a member of Celebrating the Legacy of Nana Harriet Tubman Committee, schooled Anglin and her boss, Chief Cultural Officer and OACCE Executive Director Kelly Lee:
I know the statue had a lot of emotions in people but I know a lot of artists who can generate that same level of emotion. That’s what artists do. … He [Wesley Wofford] doesn’t have a monopoly on being able to capture what people feel about Nana Harriet. Everyone feels her deeply that’s how important she is to us.
Ongoza and other community members protested the lack of transparency. The decision to award Wofford a no-bid commission was done without public input. Yet the public is expected to engage in “listening” sessions, surveys and other forums designed to pick their brain for free while an artist whose studio is located in a former Confederate state picks up a $500,000 check. Wofford brings nothing unique to the table. There is no reason the public feedback that OACCE plans to share with Wofford cannot be shared with other artists in an open call.
Kelly Lee dismissed concerns about denying Black and other artists an opportunity to participate. She said, “Our office has the ability to commission a specific artist to do a specific piece.” Since 2017, her office has awarded one non-competitively bid commission to a specific artist to do a specific piece.
The community is fighting to ensure there’s not a second no-bid commission. Ongoza told Lee: “Why can’t we have an open call process? We feel cheated that we can’t get a chance see what other artists could offer up for us. We’re just locked into what we’ve seen already when we know the potential of others is also just as great.”
Harriet Tubman made her escape from bondage under the cover of darkness. OACCE made its decision to hire Wesley Wofford under the cover of darkness. I am going to shine light on this “unique situation” by filing Right-to-Know-Law requests with OACCE and the Procurement Department. Kelly Lee wants the community to believe she can unilaterally award a non-competitively bid commission. She cannot. Sole source contracts must be approved in writing by the Procurement Commissioner, the Finance Director and the City Solicitor.
The world will come to Philadelphia in 2026 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. In an op-ed published in The Philadelphia Inquirer, I wrote that rather than celebrate slaveholders (34 of the 56 Signers, including Thomas Jefferson, owned slaves), we should celebrate resistance to slavery as personified by Douglass.
The renowned orator’s presence in Philadelphia dates back to his escape from bondage. He arrived by steamboat from Wilmington in 1838. We can bring Frederick Douglass to life by staging public readings of his iconic speech at places and sites associated with the abolitionist, including Independence Hall, Mother Bethel AME Church, Concert Hall, the Union League of Philadelphia and Camp William Penn. Douglass was delivering a lecture at National Hall when the news came about John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry.
At the same time, we should heed the advice that Douglass gave a Black activist shortly before his death: “Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!” Agitation means we resist Philadelphia insiders who presume to tell us how the United States Semiquincentennial should be commemorated. We should follow the blueprint of the July 4th Coalition which, in 1976, rallied between 30,000 and 40,000 people to protest the lack of diversity in official celebrations and the whitewashing of history.
You can read my op-ed, “This July 4th, let’s honor Frederick Douglass and ‘agitate’” here.
