How James Brown Made
Black Pride a Hit
It’s been 50 years since he wrote
“Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud,” a
song that is still necessary.
By Randall Kennedy
In the gym at Paul Junior High School
in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 1968,
not that long before the assassination of
the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I asked
a buddy whether he was interested in a
certain girl. He told me that he was not
because she was too dark.
He and I were African-American.
(Then we would have called ourselves
Negro.) So was she. All of us supported
the Civil Rights Movement and idolized Dr.
King, yet I did not hold my friend’s colorstruck judgment against him. And he did
not state his opinion with embarrassment.
We had both internalized our society’s
derogation of blackness.
Indeed, we luxuriated in the
denigration, spending hours trading
silly, recycled but revealing insults: “Yo
mama so black, she blend in with the
chalkboard.” “Yeah, well, yo mama so
black, she sweats chocolate.”
It was precisely because of widespread
colorism that James Brown’s anthem “Say
It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” posed
a challenge, felt so exhilarating, and
resonated so powerfully. It still does. Much
has changed over the past half century. But,
alas, the need to defend blackness against
derision continues.
Various musicians in the 1960s tapped
into yearnings for black assertiveness,
autonomy and solidarity. Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions sang “We’re a
Winner.” Sly and the Family Stone offered
“Stand.” Sam Cooke (and Aretha Franklin
and Otis Redding) performed “A Change is
Gonna Come.” But no entertainer equaled
Brown’s vocalization of African-Americans’
newly triumphal sense of self-acceptance.
That Brown created the song most
popularly associated with the Black is
Beautiful movement is ironic. He generally
stayed away from protest, endorsed the
presidential re-election of Richard Nixon,
lavishly praised Ronald Reagan, and
consistently lauded Strom Thurmond.
His infrequent sallies into politics
usually sounded in patriotic, lift-yourselfup-ism. In the song “America is My Home,”
he proclaimed without embarrassment that
the United States “is still the best country /
And that’s without a doubt.” Alluding to his
own trajectory, he challenged dissenters to
name any other country in which a person
could start out as a poor shoeshine boy
but end up as a wealthy celebrity shaking
hands with the president.
At the very time that in “Say It Loud,”
Brown seemed to be affirming Negritude,
he also sported a “conk” — a distinctive
hairdo that involved chemically removing
kinkiness on the way to creating a bouffant
of straightened hair. Many AfricanAmerican political activists, especially
those with a black nationalist orientation,
decried the conk as an illustration of racial
self-hatred. For a brief period, Brown
abandoned the conk and adopted an Afro,
but that was only temporary. The conk
was part of the characteristic look of “The
Godfather of Soul.”
Even though by 1968 uprisings against
white supremacism had been erupting
for a decade with great intensity and
success — the Montgomery Bus Boycott,
the Children’s’ Crusade in Birmingham,
the protest against disenfranchisement
in Selma — prejudice against blackness
remained prevalent, including among
African-Americans.
Champions of African-American uplift in
the 1960s sought to liberate blackness from
the layers of contempt, fear, and hatred with
which it had been smeared for centuries.
Brown’s anthem poignantly reflected the psychic problem it sought to address. People
secure in their status don’t feel compelled
to trumpet their pride. At the same time
“Say it Loud!” was a rousing instance of a
reclamation that took many forms. Instead of
celebrating light skin, thin lips, and “good”
(i.e., straight) hair, increasing numbers of
African-Americans began valorizing dark
skin, thick lips and “bad” (i.e., kinky) hair.
The reclamation of blackness in the
sixties made tremendous headway quickly.
By 1970 my friend would not have dared
to repeat out loud what he had told me
unapologetically two years before. Here,
as elsewhere, however, changes wrought
by the black liberation movement, though
impressive, were only partial. Nearly four
decades after the release of “Say It Loud,”
Professors Jennifer Hochschild and Vesla
Weaver, having synthesized the pertinent
academic literature, declared authoritatively
that compared to their lighter-skinned
counterparts, dark-skinned blacks continue
to be burdened by lower levels of education,
income, and job status. They receive longer
prison sentences and are less likely to own
homes or to marry. Filmmakers, advertisers,
modeling agencies, dating websites
and other key gatekeepers demonstrate
repeatedly the ongoing pertinence of the old
saw: If you’re black get back. If you’re brown,
stick around. If you’re white you’re alright.
Intraracial colorism in Black America is
often seen as a topic that should, if possible,
be avoided, especially in “mixed company.”
That sense of embarrassment three decades
ago prompted officials at Morehouse
College to demand that Spike Lee cease
filming on campus once they learned that his
movie was exposing, among other things,
black collegiate colorism. The impulse
toward avoidance remains strong.
With racial prejudice against
all African-Americans still a potent
force, many would just as soon ditch
the discussion of “black on black”
complexional bias. Colorism, however,
remains a baleful reality.
Half a century after James Brown’s
proclamation, it remains imperative to
assert what should have been assumed
and uncontroversial all along: that black is
beautiful and as worthy of pride and care
and consideration as any other hue.
(Adapted from: www.nytimes.com, 20/07/2018)
As of late 1960s, after the release of “Say It
Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud”:
