Anthony Samad
James Brown cleared all that up in 1968 (at least the identity part). That was the most defining year in the history of America, and it was the year, “Black America” declared its identity and James Brown wrote our national anthem, “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.” It was the boldest proclamation in an era of proclamations that included Malcolm’s “Freedom, Justice and Equality, By Any Means Necessary;” Martin Luther King’s “We, As A People Will Get To The Promise Land;” and who could forget the boldest of the bold, Muhammad Ali, proclamation of “I Am The Greatest.” But it was the spirit of James Brown, then “the King of Soul,” that was the spirit of Black America. It was a time when Black America came out of its 350 year fog, and for a brief moment in time, we knew who we were. It’s time for Black America to find itself again. What better time than in 2007. Let’s dedicate 2007 to the spirit of James Brown, a man who despite his foibles, worked damn near every day of his life, overcame massive odds (and constant personal challenges) to free himself and free the mind of his people—not just for a time but for eternity.
See, while Black America has gone backwards on many fronts over the past forty years, we never quite went back to being Negroes (at least not officially). Lord knows some of us tried to take us back—and some might suggest that this latest iteration of the new “New Negro” (lost identity, lost ambition, lost cultural principals and lost sense of indebtedness to previous generations) combined with the maniacal behaviors of the new “Nigga” (gangstas, bangas, slangas) has Black America in such a jacked up state, that we need another movement just to get us all back on the same page. Quiet as its kept, as much as we now tend to romanticize the period, we all weren’t on the same page in the 1960s. Everybody didn’t march with King. Most people didn’t embrace Malcolm (until 25 years after his death, when the movie, “X” came out in 1991). Everybody didn’t embrace the radicalism of the Panthers, the Pan-Africanism of the All Afrikan People’s Revolutionary Party, the African centered culturalism of US, nor the intellectualism of integrationism (the other civil rights groups promotion of peaceful co-existence as a ‘colorblind’ society). No matter where you were in the socio-economic strata of the black Diaspora, when James Brown said, “Say it loud…” nobody insisted on maintaining their current identity. I don’t recall anybody abstaining on the new identity by saying, “I’m Negro and I’m Proud.” Nobody was proud to be a Negro in America in the 1960s—or any other time. Being a Negro in America had the negative connotation of being a second (or third class) citizen in a society that promoted egalitarian pluralism (society of equals) but practiced inegalitarian Eurocentrism (a race caste system based on white supremacy). Now check this out; as negative as being a Negro was, being called “black” was even worse in the eyes of the African American. Black folk would get in fights when somebody called them a “black muthaf***r, not because they were called a muthaf***r, but because they called black. Both terms came from the oppressor, but in our own cultural confusion, we rejected our blackness first. We were, indeed, a confused people. One song changed all that.
James Brown said it was not only okay to be black, but to be proud in that blackness, and if you are really proud of being black, then say it (and don’t whisper it either). Say it loud. The knowledge of blackness may have come from Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and carried forth by Stokely, Angela Davis and the host of young pro-black “radicals” that were considered on the “fringe” of the black intellectual mainstream, but it was James Brown that mainstreamed blackness by taking a new generation’s perception of themselves and making it the whole race’s perception of themselves. When James Brown came out with an “Afro” and black bellbottoms, suddenly we saw our parents, who we thought were total “squares,” wearing Afros and bellbottoms. My father, who forced us get a haircut once a month now let his own hair grow out. A cultural transformation was in full effect (I still remember my mom in her “hotpants”). That might have been the last time black folk were “nappy and happy.” It didn’t last long, but at least it happened. Thanks to JB.
Of course, James Brown brought back “perms” and long leather coats in the 1970s as blaxploitation took over blackness and the King of Soul became the Godfather of Soul, but James Brown’s trendiness didn’t takeover his consciousness, nor his impact on future “messengers” through the music of future generations. When Black America had been decimated by the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s, with poverty, black unemployment and violence at a 30 year high, when the question was being asked by Public Enemy, “Who Stole The Soul” out of the black community, it was James Brown who spoke up, saying, “Here we are in the ‘80s, practically the 90s, talking about the same thing we were talking about in the 30s.” Brown wondered what happened to the spirit of the black community, but he led us into the 1990s, which served as a period of retroflection and cultural reconnection culminating with the Million Man March. James Brown never lost his spirit, his desire for black progress and was never too far removed from his people.
In 2007, let’s remember what James Brown was—bigger than life, iconic in stature (Elvis, Lennon, and no other musical genius star shined as bright for 50 years), but also let us remember what James Brown stood for, a spirit that invigorated a culturally dead people and gave rise to a pride and identity that forever defined our blackness, in a positive way, that Blacks in America had never known. Let’s live this year in embracement of cultural consciousness, and proclaim positive values, as James Brown, would say it, one last time; “Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.”
- Anthony Asadullah Samad is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum and author of the upcoming book, Saving The Race: Empowerment Through Wisdom.
- He can be reached at www.AnthonySamad.com
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