To Be Somebody at Wattstax by Gregory Esparza + Lindsay Hughes interview
- Watts72
- May 16, 2019
- 24 min read
Updated: Sep 16, 2021
The uplifting poem, “I Am Somebody” written by Reverend William Holmes Borders Sr. in 1943 could place in the minds of his congregation how they could imagine being like all the black heroes of their era. In his poem, the protagonists were poets, authors, sports stars, people from the arts, political activists, labor leaders, and politicians (Wiggins 2008, 4-6). However, three decades later, in 1971, there was the young Reverend Jesse Jackson, who performed the poem on Sesame Street, one year before Wattstax, to a group of disadvantaged multiethnic American children (6). His rendition suited the struggles the children faced with underprivileged families, which meant having less quality or access to everything from stable housing, food, loans from banks, access to health coverage, a quality education, and gainful employment. It was that long history of making Democracy elusive, by negatively stereotyping the black community, of which privileged whites and the police exploited and abused, as these calculated state and federal designs gave cause for black stressed economic situations which further made Wattstax more memorable; because Reverend Jackson opened the celebration with a convincing speech that stirred black nationalism and pride. Since with his poem, a black person did not have to be the “star” to be somebody, because the message was, you were still somebody, even if you were poor.
"... a black person no longer had to be the “star” to be somebody, because you were still somebody, even if you were poor."
Revisiting the fact that Reverend Jackson changed the trajectory of the words in "I Am Somebody," he acknowledged the living conditions of black folks on welfare and of being unskilled. Evidently different from the original poem, where to be somebody, one had to be the most popular, talented, or successful person in their field; still, a great message to impart, but with Reverend Jackson's rendition, to be "somebody" was possible despite one's social status among the marginalized poor and unskilled. Then, tie in the black nationalist sentiments at Wattstax, tailored for both the local and global black communities to acknowledge their humanity, since the dominant society had historically ignored it. That is to say, Reverend Jackson's passionate message instilled pride where often states of internalized racism and shame were felt by black community members under long term stressed living conditions in Watts and throughout the world.
What also made Reverend Jackson’s version of the poem distinct was his usage of gospel’s traditional call-and-response found in black churches. Add to that fact, Reverend Jackson challenged the Wattsax audience of 110,000 plus in attendance to repeat after him, which manifested to what I would say was a community-wide cathartic moment where everyone in unifying manner acknowledged their common hardships as they collectively reclaimed their dignity and humanity. It must have been an incredible feeling to hear their yell as everyone was captivated by his every word. Thankfully, for those of us not there in 1972, the Wattstax documentary released in 1973, captured that amazing moment, as the community of Watts celebrated their rich culture, full of proven talent as they also remembered the riots/rebellion of 1965.
Los Angeles in the 1960s, not unlike other black urban centers throughout the nation, since the 1930s, had endured the economic hardships that came with white “capital flight,” suburbanization, and urban renewal, followed by deindustrialization (Lipsitz 1988, 137; Lipsitz 2006, 6-12). All those factors combined, shifted opportunities to build wealth away from black communities while it lifted the poor white communities across the country to new heights (Lipsitz, 137; Kelley 2019). It was yet another phase in United States’ history that wrongfully affirmed and manufactured a value in whiteness, orchestrated by xenophobic American social architects. Since coupled with the negative impact of no access to good paying jobs or the ability to borrow money from racialized banks, in the 1960s, as white people were privileged, it bolstered their false sense of superiority, while black families were destabilized and left to fend for themselves with little to no institutional support (146-147). Add to all the pressures felt by the black community surviving with fewer resources to subsist, and there was the abuse of policing, such as the Los Angeles Police Department in Watts. With hyper-policing militaristic mindsets, the LAPD viewed both the Chicano barrios and black ghettos of Los Angeles as hostile territories (Kelley 2019). Although life rarely felt secure in the black community, it was just one more routine traffic stop and abuse of police power that set the riots off in the Summer of 1965 and the people rebelled. According to Dr. Robin Kelley (2019), Watts in Los Angeles was also just one of approximately 300 other cities nationwide that experienced riots and rebellion in places like: Chicago, Harlem, Providence, Washington D.C. and more, as Dr. Kelley argued that the United States, in essence, was a country at war between 1964 – 1972. Which many critics about race relations might say is still a relevant argument, in particular to the overt racism felt across the United States today. However, with the Watts riots in mind, many people felt it was a revolutionary act to riot in 1965 and that the revolution continues to this very day, while others saw the rioting as a fool’s errand.
For some folks at Wattstax in 1972, seven years after the riots, they claimed to not see any improvements to their community and believed rioting was a foolish thing to do. Some even felt that Watts became worse when many former markets and businesses never returned after the riots ended (Wattstax1973). By 1972, residents in the Watts still lacked gainful employment opportunities, a quality education, and other pillars of society needed to lean on for success, while militarized policing only appeared to ramp up. As for the politically-inclined concertgoers, Wattstax remained as a continuation of the revolution, that rooted for black nationalism, power, pride, and self-empowerment. Still, for others, the event appeared less about nationalism and was remembered as a time of celebration and peace that fostered a sense of hope and upliftment too hard to ignore. Either way, it was a celebration, especially after Reverend Jackson called on the audience to repeat after him, “I Am Somebody.”
Listen to Reverend Jesse Jackson’s opening speech:
I am (I am) somebody (somebody)
I am (I am) somebody (somebody)
I may be poor (I may be poor)
But I am (I am) somebody (somebody)
I may be on welfare (I may be on welfare)
But I am (I am) somebody (somebody)
I may be unskilled (I may be unskilled)
But I am (I am) somebody (somebody)
I am (I am) black (black), beautiful (beautiful), proud (proud)
I must be respected (I must be respected)
I must be protected (I must be protected)
What time is it? (nation time)
When we stand together. What time is it? (nation time)
When we say no more [unknown] what time is it? (nation time)
What time is it? (nation time)
What time is it? (nation time)
What time is it? (nation time) -Rev. Jesse Jackson
Reverend Jackson told everyone a new day had arrived, where black people were taking care of black-owned businesses. His message harkened to the times of Ella Baker and the cooperative movements of the 1930s that called for supporting back capitalism as an “alternative” to white-owned establishments (Ransby 2003, 85).Reverend Jackson also aligned with his contemporaries, such as former SNCC executive director,James Forman, author of the Black Manifesto,since among all of its demands, they called for cooperative farms to be established in the belief that coops could help as many black folks as possible more quickly (7). Those movements from the 1930s and late 1960s held the notion that white institutions were never designed to help the black community, so, the black nation was intent on helping themselves situate themselves for better lives. Self-help strategies have been a trope echoed by many, from Reverend Martin Luther King to direct-action activists, such as Ivory Perry. Perry challenged the apathy of black youth and the inaction of the black educated, by asking them to participate in their communities for change, while also taking to task white-owned companies, politicians, drug dealers, and whomever he saw as detractors to black quality of life (Lipsitz 1988, 262-263). Reverend Jackson described how black communities produced, distributed, and consumed goods made by the black nation, which, when done effectively, could strengthen their community. He noted the situation for blacks still living in slum conditions and about incarceration, but instead of staying in that lowly state of mind, he emphasized a new mindset in Watts that “shifted from burn baby burn to learn baby learn”(Wattstax1973). He explained the meaning of “nation time”stating,“…it means that when dogs bite black people in Birmingham, black people bleed all over America; it means that when black people cannot run in Rhodesia, black people will not run from America…” (Wattstax1973). Meaning what harmed one black person in the world affected the unified black global community. Black nationalist with international worldviews was no longer about just improving local conditions. Their mission had been a universal correction for all black brothers and sisters to self-help and protect each other.
Wattstax, in the end, was a complicated endeavor. Some might have just considered it the best concert they ever attended, while for others it ran the gamut from being a complete waste of time to it being the continuation of the revolution. I lean more with the notion that the event was great entertainment while also political and a revolutionary act during a time just before the channels of government and the economy were gearing toward a neoliberal position. In 1972, blaming black failures in society on the black individual and not upon the system of capitalism itself was still popular, just as it is in 2019. That kind of misguided thinking makes enormous acts of generosity in the twenty-first century practically appear revolutionary. Since, instead of placating to that "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" ethos, on May 19, 2019, philanthropist and billionaire Robert F. Smith donated 40 million dollars to pay the college debt for the entire Class of 2019 at Morehouse College, a historically all-black male institution (Driskoll 2019). In doing so, Mr. Smith freed up those young black men from decades of debt that would have stifled their chances to be more effective in life and for their communities. Since what is already understood is, the financial liability of higher education is most detrimental to those students that have come from families of lesser means to handle the debt easily.
Furthermore, with his generosity, Mr. Smith pushed the conversation further along about the commodification of Colleges and Universities across the nation as everyone contemplates why his act of generosity was necessary in the first place. Not to mention the fact that educated black folks still cannot, “get the same level of employment afforded to college graduates of other races” (Downey 2019). Which means, employment and access to other institutions for a better quality of life still favor the wealthy and overall white privileged folks. Therefore, it is evident, that from generations of oppression and racism endured by the black community, that self-help and upliftment are still essential to shape a better future. Carrying on in that tradition of self-help and upliftment, from Reverend Holmes Borders Sr. and all those before him, to Reverend Jackson in 1972, we come to philanthropists like Mr. Smith and the Morehouse College Class of 2019, as Smith was doing community building, when governments have failed the people at a fair chance in life under capitalism. Best of all, just as Reverend Jackson challenged the audience at Wattstax to shift their self-perception, Mr. Smith challenged all the graduates at Morehouse to go out into the world and by his example, pay it forward, because that is what it takes for the historically disenfranchised to succeed in America. (#wattstax #iamsomebody #jessejackson #blacknationalism #blackpride #structuralracism)
Bibliography:
Downey, Maureen. “Opinion: Morehouse Gifts Don’t Erase Loan Burdens and
Underemployment of Blacks.” AJC: Atlanta News Now (2019): https://www.ajc.com/blog/get-schooled/opinion-morehouse-gifts-don-erase-loan-burdens-and-underemployment-blacks/xAytR3Yg7fSgyojTKELEZN/
Driskoll, Quardricos Bernard. “Robert Smith’s Gift to Morehouse Graduates and Its Meaning for
Education, Especially Colleges.” The Hill(2019): https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/education/445602-robert-smiths-gift-to-morehouse-graduates-and-its-meaning-for
Forman, James. 1969. “James Forman delivers Black Manifesto at Riverside Church: SNCC
Digital Gateway.” https://snccdigital.org/events/jim-forman-delivers-black-manifesto-at-riverside-church/
Kelley, Robin D.G. “Ghetto Rebellion/World Revolution, 1956-1970.” Lecture presented at the
University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, May 21, 2019.
Lipsitz, George. 1988. A Life in the Struggle: Ivory Perry and the Culture of Opposition.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Lipsitz, George. 2006. A Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit From
Identity Politics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Ransby, Barbara. 2003. Ella Baker & the Black Freedom movement: A Radical Democratic Vision.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Stuart, Mel, dir. Wattstax. 1973, Los Angeles, CA: PBS. https://youtu.be/A_P6ZWUJIa0
Wiggins Jr., William H, Contemporary Heroes and Heroines Day Cultural Resources. The African
American Lectionary, 2008.
Interview
Gregory Esparza interviewed Lindsay Hughes at a wine bar in Long Beach CA, on May 21st, 2019 around 6:30 pm (PST).
Photo: Gregory Esparza and Lindsay Hughes, Long beach, California, May 21, 2019.
Gregory Esparza conducted this interview with Mr. Lindsay Hughes at the Willmore Wine Bar in Long Beach on May 21, 2019, between 6:30 and 9:00 pm.We met to talk about the Watts Riots of 1965, but in particular, about Hughes attending Wattstax in 1972, a seminal event held in part to remember the riots and to uplift the black community. Hughes affirmed a common sentiment that Wattstax brought Black pride and joy for his community of Watts and Los Angeles at large in 1965. His life growing up in Watts also shed light on the historical injustices faced by African Americans in Los Angeles and the country, such as low unemployment, “hyper-policing” (Hunter and Robinson 2018, 98), and living in black disenfranchised, segregated communities.
Hughes was born in 1950 and raised in Watts and later attended the University of Redlands from 1969-1973. Afterward, he returned home to Watts, then Inglewood for a short while before settling as a longtime resident of Long Beach, California. We met at a place where he and his friends had been meeting every Tuesday night since 2015 to play dominoes, partake in private collections of wine, joke, laugh, and talk about life. Some were friends since childhood and most, if not all, were professionals in their fields, as doctors, lawyers, city art directors, business owners and more. Hughes owns McDonald’s franchises since 1980. Although I intended to interview one person, which was more difficult than first imagined, that all changed when I met UCLA alumni Mr. King Carter within my Facebook network. He introduced me to Hughes, and unexpectedly, the night I met Hughes there were three additional friends for me to speak with about Wattstax. However, at this time, the transcript below only pertains to Mr. Hughes.
Before meeting with Mr. Hughes, my introduction to Wattstax was through various articles and a fascinating documentary, Wattstax (1973), that managed to capture the spirit of the day in 1972. For me, the film conveyed black power, nationalism, and black folk helping themselves. From Hughes’ perspective, he recalled feelings of black pride, and the celebration of black culture and community, more so than the event being about black nationalism for him. We also spoke about the Watts Riots of 1965, since they are in part related to reasons why Wattstax went to Los Angeles. When the riots happened, Hughes was 15 years of age at the time, and his experience left me with a sense of a city in lock-down mode, in particular, to when the National Guard was present. He explained how the Guard would come down their streets and tell everyone to go inside because of curfews in place. In spite of the Guard’s presence, those were still some hot August summer nights, and Hughes remembered that as soon as the Guard drove off, everyone would go back outside. Many articles have attributed to the fact that thousands were arrested during the riots to diffuse the tensions, but most of the people caught out after curfew were not career criminals with records of any type. Elizabeth Hinton (2016) wrote that “the LAPD booked more than 4,000 residents for curfew violations” (70). What is worse is that 80 percent of those arrested were tried often with no legal representation or jury and found guilty of felonies where they faced anywhere from one year to life in prison, at a time when common burglary crime only met a maximum of fifteen years (Ibid. 71). Watts was patrolled, and Hughes described how his mother would not let them out of the house, but as young boys, it was hard to keep them indoors, and they saw from a safe distance people pulled from cars and beaten and the city on fire. Decades after the riots of 1965, understanding the history of this nation and the City of Los Angeles's role in age old practices that upheld radicalized policies across all sectors of society, perspective and historical context, allow me to see the riot as inevitable; a push back, or rebellion by the citizens of Watts from too much systemic oppression coupled with police abuse.
Although I may see Watts 1965 as a rebellion, Hughes held the belief that the riots were a sad day for the city. He described how once they ended, there were no more stores to shop at, which forced them to go out of their regular public spaces to buy goods. This change meant going into cities where they were usually unwelcomed. He mentioned areas, such as Huntington Park, Lynwood, South Gate, Compton, and Downey. All towns that for him, were usually, “no go zones,” which recall the unjust segregated housing most African Americans endured across the country and in places like Watts throughout most of the twentieth century. A practice that stemmed through the post-WWII era of restricted covenants and red-lining that legally, but unethically, kept black and white people segregated. Hughes explained how there were no jobs in Watts and that for those that did find work, it was usually for less than two dollars an hour. His father was one of the many that worked at that pay scale. Which was another hallmark of systemic oppression, that entailed few choices for black men and women to find a decent paying job. It is not a stretch to understand that lowest paying jobs were also the most hazardous as well.
When we spoke about the concert,, Wattstax, Hughes was there for the whole thing because Isaac Hayes was his hero, and in 1969, Hayes had one of the hottest albums out, Hot Buttered Soul followed byShaft in 1971(Rob Bowman, “Stax”). Hughes talked about how he was not going to miss Isaac and everyone for just one-dollar. He expressed thanks to Stax bringing their music to Los Angeles and described Wattstax as “their day” in the neighborhood. However, one thing often overlooked about the event was that Stax Records also saw opportunity. From a business perspective, Stax brought their much loved Stax artists before a crowd of over 110,000 people, which meant exposure. Indeed, no harm no foul. Secondly, there was a political goal that sought to impart black nationalism and instill ideas about black community cooperation, since dominant white institutions often proved too racist to serve the black community adequately. Lastly, on a good note, Stax Records made it charitable endeavor, as all the proceeds raised from the concert, “as well as [proceeds from] soundtrack albums and film, were donated to black charities in the Los Angeles area; [and] for several years, Stax contributed heavily to Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH…” (Ibid. “Stax”). Wattstax in 1972 was the latest evolution in that long history of black organizers seeking to help their community when state apparatuses failed them. However, this time, it was the scale of the venture and music that brought people together for self-awareness.
I asked Hughes if he was ever part of any movements during the 1960s and 1970s, and he replied, “I was black. I was black. Okay. I was a part of movements because I was black.” This statement imparted the most genuine sense that even if a black person was not an active member of a movement, they were in the movement by virtue of the color of their skin, while navigating white society’s. Structured racism made it an inevitability that all black people had to fight for their rights in this nation. Back then, California's Governor Brown described the black rioters or rebels of 1965 as terrorists. LAPD Chief Parker said of the riots, that it was, "very much like fighting the Viet Cong" (Hinton 2016, 69-71). Under that kind of state leadership and racialized perceptions and sensationalized rhetoric, it is easy to see how tensions grew to rebellion when the police treated Watts as if it were a war zone in hostile enemy territory.
Sources:
Bowman, Rob. “Stax.”
Hinton, Elizabeth (2016). From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America. Harvard University Press. pp. 68–72.
See the transcript below: (No videos are attached at this time)
Speaker 1: Alright, here we go. Alright, well a, Mr. Lindsay Hughes, my name is Gregory Esparza. Lindsay Hughes, it’s the first time we’re meeting.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it’s a pleasure. Um I know we spoke briefly over the phone and uh thank you for your time because I want to ask you some questions about Wattstax 1972.
Speaker 2: That’s right, 1972.
Speaker 1: But first there is some basic stuff because I want to get some background context so um, of course, Lindsay Hughes, but of course, I want to also find out when were you born and where were you raised.
Speaker 2: When was I born; you want my age.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: I was born in 1950, in Watts, in fact, I can even tell you the street, 2419 109thStreet. That’s what my birth certificate says. And I lived there for 18 years until I went away to college. And when I moved away from college, I came back briefly living with a friend in Watts, then moved to Inglewood, and then bought a home in Long Beach and I’ve been a product of Long Beach ever since.
Speaker 1: Alright, so of course, Wattstax is going to have a lot to do with what happened seven years before in 1965.
Speaker 2: Right
Speaker 1: Watts riots.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Were you there at that time when that happened?
Speaker 2: Yes. I was 15 years old. I remembered when it broke out. In fact, I remembered it so well that at the 50thanniversary I was the tour guide for the Mayme Clayton Museum. We had a busload of about 60 people, and I gave a tour of what happened that night from that Thursday night all day Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Uh, we had basically about 6 days of um big problems there, but they burned they burned down that whole neighborhood. Um, my mother didn’t let us get out of the yard. But we could watch it on television, and we could see the fires. So, um it was a really sad sad day because when everything was said and done, our neighborhood was gone. All our shopping was gone, and we had to go to a Huntington Park. We had to go to Lynwood, and those were some of the places, when I was a kid, that we couldn’t go, as a kid, we couldn’t go to Lynwood, South Gate, barely could go to Compton; I couldn’t go to Downey, and so, that part of my life, I’ll never forget that. Uh in 1965 it was, and I saw some of the neighbors, and I remember them National Guards coming down our streets, making sure that, told us “there’s a curfew, go in the house.” And uh they would sit there and wait until everybody go in the house and then they would drive, and then we’d come back out again because it was hot, it was August. And it was hot, and so um the community was gone, there was no hope. There weren’t any jobs basically there in the neighborhood in ’65. In fact, unemployment was about 3 percent in the nation, but in Watts, it was about 13 percent. You know just no jobs, kids didn’t have jobs, I mean parents were making less than 2 dollars an hour, my father less than 2 dollars an hour. Um but uh we survived. So, when Wattstax came, it was a concert who charged a dollar and uh I remember I was in college and it said Wattstax and I’m coming home cause it’s at the Coliseum too. Oh yeah for a dollar, I’m a see a concert, okay for a dollar, yes, we gonna be there. Plus, we knew all the artists who were gonna be there, and it was an opportunity for us to see it. Families who were there, but I mean it was, it was a great day and night, okay, and I drove back up, after the concert I drove back to school.
Speaker 1: Did you get there for the whole concert?
Speaker 2: I was there for the whole concert. The entire thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so, was it already packed when you were walking in?
Speaker 2: Hell yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, so, so I want, I want to understand like, could you hear the sound of the
crowd first or did you hear music first?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, when I got there. You recording?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: When I got there, you know it was getting in, okay. Okay. Just gettin’ in. Tickets, lines backed up. Yeah. Yeah. I remember just getting in there and seeing all these people here. So, once I got in, I just looked around, I said, man, the first thing came to my mind there's a whole lot of black people here because basically because I was at the University of Redlands. Okay. Which was, Redlands is white. So, to see my people at the Coliseum, you know, was just it unbelievable because I remember, but like watching football games you know and seeing the crowds, the Rams and stuff like that. Yeah. Okay. But not when you go… you walk in, you could see… man... And it's open seating too. So, you could set where you could, you know. Find your spot. Find a Spot. Okay. And you set there, and you just looked around, and you just look around to see who was there. Did you know anybody. You know, see if you can catch some friends. I found a few friends in there. So I went over there and set with them, and we just set there and waited for the concert to start and you know, we talking and not believing that not believing that all the artists that they said they were going to be there, they was actually gonna be there. And they said Isaac Hayes was going to be there, and they said we'll... [inaudible] Because I wanted to see Isaac because Isaac had this, this new a record out. And I definitely wanted to see Isaac and I if I recall the reason why I stayed because Isaac was the last one on. All right. Okay. So, I that's why I know I was there for the whole concert cause, he was the last one on. I came to see Isaac, okay and but everybody else was, you know, its Stax records. So, you know, everybody was doing their thing. Jesse Jackson was there and uh, he was, he was, you know, keeping us going, you know, Say it loud, you know, that concept of black and I'm proud from James Brown, but you know, he wasn't there, but it was a basically be proud that we are black and that was basically what it's about. And, and 100,000 people that they say that were there. I think I think it was more, and then you had people on the outside who never get in.
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay. Yeah. Speaker 2: They couldn't get in, okay cause there was no tickets.
Speaker 1: Sold out? Sold out.
Speaker 2: Sold out. So, in that perspective, that was, I got, I got a feeling of good music. I'm at home. A concert. Okay. Then for a dollar. Okay, that was the main thing that I got from it. A sense of hey, this is nice. Okay. Especially coming back from college where we could barely hear black music. Because we couldn't get the radio stations up there that we wanted. So, guys would have to bring records in, cause, we mostly listen to records. So, when we'd go to L.A., we'd bring back the newest song. Everybody say, okay, listen to this. An everybody be in the dorm room… listen to the new whoever, you know. And that's how we got the hook they say hey everybody going to be with Stax. We all, we all went down.
Speaker 1: Soulsville. Yeah, you all went down. So, there's different questions and different directions I want to go, but I want to touch one more time on just that. It seems that it was that visual and that made an impact on you when you saw just to sea, a sea of black people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was, it was like that. It was a visual of, how do I say this? It was unbelievable. It was unbelievable. To see that many people in one spot. Yeah. And that, uh, there wasn't any fights.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You mentioned that over the phone.
Speaker 2: It was no fights. Uh, it was just peace. I mean everybody just wanna have a good time. You know, you have a few people who had kinda acted up when they started playing music, but basically, everybody stayed in their seats. And they dance, and I remember one time, only thing that kinda got out of control when Rufus was Rufus Thomas. Right. I remember him having some hot pants on and uh, he had some hot pants, he had some boots and uh, the song came out, the "Funky Chicken" he was doing that, and then everybody start coming off. When they started getting on the field, they wasn't supposed to be on the field, and then a they basically, that’s when the concert kinda stopped, and he wanted everybody to get off the field and then after that. He kinda resumed, and then everybody was cool after that.
Speaker 1: Thankfully for those of us that couldn't be there, there was that great
Documentary, and so I could get a chance to see some of that. And, one of the things that interested me as well is going back to the beginning of the concert. Jesse Jackson speaks at the beginning when he does that speech, and I wrote some the stuff down. I am somebody, proud. And the crowd responds, call and response.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was his thing. That's still his thing today. I am somebody. Yeah. Jesse has been saying that for 50 years, at least 50, maybe 60 years. He encouraged the youth, the youth. Basically, I am somebody letting people know that you, you, you're a man. You are somebody in this society and basically for us, cause, we had Martin Luther King at that time. And Martin Luther King was talking a whole… (pause) Jesse and Martin Luther King were like in the same ballpark together, but Jessie was a little more flamboyant.
Speaker 2: Okay. Then a Dr. King even though they ran together. Okay, and after when he
got killed, I think he got killed in '68, Jesse, Jesse a basically came in and kinda picked up the mantle. Yeah. kinda picked it up and went on, you know, so that's basically, all I can tell you man, but if they do it again [Wattstax], somebody do it again, it ain't going to be one dollar. Oh No.
Speaker 1: That's like the Woodstock 50 years later that that's not going to be what that was either. It’s not going to be a dollar.
Speaker 2: And the fact and the fact that it's not going to be all black, it's definitely not going to be all black. Okay. At that particular time, you have to understand what America was like at that time. You had the Vietnam War; you had violence all over the country. Okay. You had protests all over the country; you had Nixon there. Okay, so you had a lot of, you had a lot of things going on. So, at that particular moment, it was kind of like our day in the neighborhood, and we were so glad that the record company did that for us. Yeah, basically that's, that's all I can tell you. A celebration. Yeah, celebration of a celebration.
Speaker 1: How about Kim Weston sings the Black National Anthem. I had never heard it before, until I saw that documentary. Was that something or?
Speaker 2: (10:10) That'd been around? Our fraternity brother wrote that.
Speaker 1: Whoh whoh okay.
Speaker 2: My fraternity brother wrote that in 19 what, 19, early 19, I want to say at least before 1940.
Speaker 1: Wow, what was his name? James. Speaker 2: Yeah. He was an original fraternity brother for Phi Beta Sigma, James Johnson.
Speaker 1: James Johnson?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was [the] original, he wrote that "Lift Every Voice and Sing."
Speaker 1: So, what did you think when you heard it sung at that particular event with everybody there?
Speaker 2: Well, we had been singing that. So that was, that was nothing new for us. But we had been singing it a long time. It wasn't nothing new for us. Alright. You know, "The Star-Spangled Banner," to be honest with you I still don't know all the damn words. And guess what?
Speaker 1: What’s that?
Speaker 2: As I started looking, reading reading, the rest of it, I don’t even want to know it.
Because the second stanza is a monster. Yeah. So, I don't wanna do it. But if you get it, they used to call it the Negro National Anthem. Okay. That's what they used to call it. You read that all the way through. You will be impressed.
Speaker 1: You talking about Johnson's?
Speaker 2: Uh Huh. Read it all the way through you will be impressed.
Speaker 1: I brought the lyrics.
Speaker 2: You got it?
Speaker 1: I got the lyrics right here.
Speaker 2: You got it. That should be our national anthem right there!
Speaker 1: Right, right, so, I brought that in case we want to visit that.
Speaker 2: That’s it, that's it, you visited it. That's it, that should be the National Anthem.
Speaker 1: I'm running on on UCLA time, so minutes go by like seconds.
Speaker 2: That’s it.
Speaker 1: But I brought, I brought this, and you know, but I'm going to have to put his name up there cause, I just grabbed it off the internet. I was curious about the song. So, let me see. Um, here's the, here's my next question and I think you've already covered, so I kind of want to move back into the idea of just the music itself.
Speaker 2: Watch the drink.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. You were mentioning you knew all the artists that were coming now, but there was… and you mentioned over the phone that they had, they had everything for everyone. They had everything: gospel, funk, you know blues. But you already said Isaac was your...
Speaker 2: Isaac I wanted to see Isaac, I wanted to see Isaac Hayes because he came out with a album called Hot Buttered Souland I liked it so much he had a he had a robe on and I had I had one of my girlfriends make this robe, okay just like Isaac. I would walk around campus with the robe on. King'll tell you. That boy King right there, that's King Carter. That's King," Alright. He'll tell you they made a robe. [As he shouted across the room] “Hey King tell him about the robe they made for me like Isaac Haye's robe.”
Speaker 1: Black Moses.
Speaker 2: Yeah man. Isaac was my hero. I had to see Isaac.
Speaker 1: Were you a part of any... Uh, I know you were part of University of Redlands at the time but were you a part of any of the movements that were happening between ‘65 and ‘72.
Speaker 2: All depends. All depends on what you call movements. I was black. I was the black. Okay. (13:56) I was a part of movements because I was black. You have to ask me what movements did I support. Okay. That's a different way of putting it. I supported anything that was making black people benefit. Okay. Everybody has a way of making us better. You had the Black Panthers; you had our fraternities you had the churches. Okay. You had, you had a the Muslims everybody who's going to make us better. Okay. If it was legal, I was going to support it. I even, I even supported Brown Power. Yeah. It was all happening at the same time. I supported woman's rights. The Women's Lib movement came in 1970, ‘71, ‘70, 1970, ‘71, ‘72 okay. I
supported that. I supported. Everything that made us human, I supported. Okay, as long as it was legal.
Speaker 1: And everything, of course, that this event was celebrating, was empowerment.
Speaker 2: Yes, economic empowerment, okay, education, okay everything that was going to make us better. That's what I supported.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you one more thing about that attire you were wearing. So, you were doing Isaac Hayes.
Speaker 2: On campus, but at the concert, I can't even remember what I was wearing at the time. I can't even remember what I was wearing at the time. I can't remember that.
Speaker 1: How about things that other people were wearing?
Speaker 2: Hey, you know, everybody had a natural. Everybody, you had bell bottoms, okay. I've got to go back. I have to think about that. We had Bell bottoms; we had boots, they had hot pants, okay, whatever it was we had. You know you said there's a video about this. Look at what they was wearing in the audience, and get a good sense of what was going on. And that’s why I was there.
Speaker 1: So, you gave me a good sense of your experience of what you saw. Of course. I'm, I'm trying keep an open-ended and not direct question. So, is there anything that I didn't ask that maybe you remember about the event itself that you want to share.
Speaker 2: I was 15 years. I was a, I was twenty-two years old there, at 22 years old and I'm almost 70 so you know, I don't have Alzheimer's I have half-timers, so hey man nice doing business.
Speaker 1: Exactly. That's what I was going to say. Thank you so much. This was really great.
End Transcript-
Sources:
Gregory Esparza and Lindsay Hughes photo from Gregory Esparza’s personal collection May 21, 2019.
Jesse Jackson photo: http://www.ptsnob.com/2013/07/that-was-rockin-show-marathon-wattstax.html
Video of Jesse Jackson "I Am Somebody" poem at Wattstax https://youtu.be/NTVwT3j_zqY
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