Tag: segregation

IMMIGRATION FILMS – #2 “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)”

Trailer:

https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2988163097?playlistId=nm0005567&ref_=vp_rv_ap_0

Film Review by Marlene Ardoin

The Harlem Cultural Festival (also known as Black Woodstock) took place in Harlem’s Mount Morris Park on Sundays at 3 PM from June 29 to August 24, 1969. The series of six free concerts had a combined attendance of nearly 300,000. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) refused to provide security, and it was instead provided by members of the Black Panther Party.^[3]

Woodstock was a music festival held August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur‘s dairy farm in Bethel, New York. It attracted an audience of more than 400,000. Thirty-two acts performed outdoors despite sporadic rain.

Both festivals signaled a seismic cultural shift in the United States.

One could argue that the long hair and naked bodies of Woodstock were more important than Afros and Black pride, but the important point was that whatever was happening, it was happening during the same time period.

The Harlem Cultural Festival was not just Black talent, but every kind of immigrant inhabitant, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominican Republicans, Mexicans, Jamaicans, etc.

The Harlem Cultural Festival sponsors included Maxwell House Coffee, and the Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Affairs Division of the City of New York. In addition, money was raised to film the musical acts, which ended up in a box in a basement, until now.

I personally lived during that time period, as did many of today’s attendees of the film, “Summer of Soul”. In fact, that shared experience has created spontaneous discussion groups between film goers after the film, even while wearing masks of the pandemic.

What has happened since these two festivals?

A Black man did become President of the United States for two terms, Barack Obama (January 20, 2009 – January 20, 2017).

The civil rights movement broke the prevailing pattern of segregation.

One of the greatest achievements of the civil rights movement was the Civil Rights Act (1964), which led to greater social and economic mobility for African-Americans across the nation and banned racial discrimination, providing greater access to resources for women, religious minorities, African-Americans and low-income families.

The hard won civil rights include the right to vote, the right to a fair trial, the right to government services, the right to a public education, and the right to use public facilities.

Both festivals used the joy of music to change American culture towards a more tolerant, fairer and more just way of living.

The “Summer of Soul” reminds us that a few bumps in the road cannot stop the train of ever expanding progress in being worthy inhabitants of our shared world.

The Woodstock organizers were faced with financial ruin at the end of their four days, but managed to get that turned around when the Academy Award winning documentary film Woodstock was released in March 1970. Maybe the 2021-22 Academy Awards will do the same for “Summer of Soul”.

Trailer:

SUMMER OF SOUL | Official Trailer | In Theaters and on Hulu July 2 – Bing video

Full Cast & Crew

Directed by

Questlove	…	(as Ahmir-Khalib Thompson)
Hal Tulchin

Cast


The 5th Dimension	…	Themselves
Gladys Knight & The Pips	…	Themselves
Jesse Jackson	…	Self
Mahalia Jackson	…	Self
B.B. King	…	Self
George Kirby	…	Self
Abbey Lincoln	…	Self
John V. Lindsay	…	Self
Moms Mabley	…	Self
Herbie Mann	…	Self
Dewey ‘Pigmeat’ Markham	…	Self
Hugh Masekela	…	Self
Max Roach	…	Self
David Ruffin	…	Self
Nina Simone	…	Self
Sly and the Family Stone	…	Themselves
The Staple Singers	…	Themselves
Stevie Wonder	…	Self

Produced by

Inuka Bacote-Capiga	…	co-producer
David Dinerstein	…	producer
Robert Fyvolent	…	producer
Beth Hubbard	…	executive producer
Joseph Patel	…	producer
Hal Tulchin	…	producer
Summer of Soul Wiki: Summer of Soul – Wikipedia Woodstock Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock Harlem Cultural Festival Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_Cultural_Festival

Summer of Soul Wiki:

Summer of Soul – Wikipedia

Woodstock Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock

Harlem Cultural Festival Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_Cultural_Festival

Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

7/28/2021 # Summer of Soul

HIDDEN FIGURES

(l to r) Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) , Mary Winston Jackson (Janelle Monáe), and Dorothy Johnson Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) are hired by NASA for their mathematics ability.

HIDDEN FIGURES

Film Review by Marlene Ardoin

After just five minutes of watching “Hidden Figures,” I was hooked into rooting for these three Black women, who somehow during the 50’s and 60’s, managed to get hired by NASA as mathematicians.

Trying to keep a critical eye, I have to say that the subject matter of this film has the same time frame as other films in this year’s crop, like “Jackie” and “Fences.” The characters in each of these films have the pictures of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John F. Kennedy up on the walls of their home.

Even though segregation was still an issue during this time period, these women, Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) , Mary Winston Jackson (Janelle Monáe) , and Dorothy Johnson Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) somehow managed to get a hands down great mathematics education under their belts.

Let’s face it, even today, in 2017, the United States is 29^th in math and science on the world stage.

So, what did these women do at a time when women were not even encouraged to educate at all?

After a little research, I discovered that each of these women were educated in an all-Black University. So, they did not have to deal with the pressure to be subservient or less than what they were capable of being.

One other observation was that, they were each light-skinned, straight-haired in appearance, which also removed a few other barriers in a world that sees the dominant group through this lens.

Mathematics is not boring in this film.

Katherine kills it with her mathematical demonstrations.

Mary wins in court, when she applies to take an all-White, all-male Engineers course.

And, Dorothy made me laugh with her rationalization for taking a book that she needed out of the Whites-only section of the library.

Kevin Costner as Al Harrison, the director of the Space Task Group is convincing as the color-blind, fair-minded leader, who fixes the coffee pot situation and the bathroom sign situation, all while beating the Russians in the space race.

I have to hand it to these women, they are all geniuses when it comes to balancing marriage, children and careers.

They all were also teachers before being hired by NASA.

Dorothy was especially alert to the quickly shifting computer oriented times.

I lived through these times, but from the White privilege perspective. This was a time when many Whites became allies to Blacks. It was also an important time of the women’s rights struggle.

Sad to say, but many of the male protesters did not want male privilege to change. Thank you NASA for employing some enlightened male employers and leaders.

Taraji P. Henson as Katherine G. Johnson, a mathematician who calculated flight trajectories for Project Mercury.

Biography of Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Johnson

Biography of Mary Winston Jackson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Jackson_(engineer)

Biography of Dorothy Johnson Vaughan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Vaughan

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1/30/17 Hidden Figures

THE BEATLES: EIGHT DAYS A WEEK

Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and John Lennon.

THE BEATLES: EIGHT DAYS A WEEK

By Marlene Ardoin

Having lived through the Beatle’s phenomena, I cannot believe that it only lasted for four years, 1962 to 1966. This documentary, “The Beatles: Eight Days a Week” beautifully captures their evolution as artists and as leaders, growing up before our eyes.

In the beginning, they appeared to be light-hearted and fun loving. As they traveled the world, 166 concerts in 15 countries and 90 cities, they bumped into existing moral dilemmas.

In the South, there was the question of segregation at one of their concerts, a war in Vietnam was raging and a very large generation of baby boomers were trying to come to terms with their own sexual repression.

By the end of their four years of touring, The Beatles were spent, exhausted and no longer light-hearted. They express sympathy for Elvis. “He had to do it all by himself, at least we had each other.”

In this documentary, they are compared to Mozart in terms of the sheer number of great songs that they wrote during the course of their career. Ringo Starr was the anchor, and each of the three guitarists, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison, took turns writing songs. Their songs are timeless and were a reflection of the era in which they lived.

At the end of the documentary, we are treated to the 11 song live concert at Shea Stadium 1965.

The Beatles were the first performers to perform at a sporting arena. After the Ed Sullivan show, the crowds that they attracted were unprecedented. We even get to see their final concert in San Francisco 1966.

A big thank you to director Ron Howard, who completed this film in spite of the lawsuit over Shea Stadium performance.

10/10/16 – # The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years