Black Power, Black Forum
THE PAST HAS A PLACE IN MOTOWN’S PRESENT
Motown’s spoken-word label, Black Forum, has received more attention in the past ten years than during its original, three-year lifespan in the early 1970s.
Actually, it seems to have attracted more interest in the past month, spurred by “modern” Motown Records’ decision to relaunch the label. Its goal is to provide “a platform to a new generation of writers, thinkers and poets,” while also re-releasing six of the eight Black Forum albums which came out in 1970-73 (there’s a complete list below). The whole project is being done in collaboration with the Motown Museum in Detroit.
The first of the six was digitally reissued last month, namely, Why I Oppose The War In Vietnam, featuring the controversial speech given in April 1967 by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., excerpted here. Not only was it Black Forum’s debut album, but it also earned Motown’s second Grammy, accepted by company executive Junius Griffin during the award ceremonies in 1971. He had previously worked for Dr. King, and was a key figure in the development of Black Forum in the first place.
Black Forum: a “new era” at Motown?
Another aspect of the label’s relaunch is that it now has a social media presence on Facebook, Instagram and (soon) YouTube. Who could have imagined as much in the summer of 1970, when the initial Black Forum releases were just three of 37 new albums announced by Motown at a three-day sales convention in San Francisco?
Black Forum was unveiled then as “a medium for the presentation of ideas and voices of the worldwide struggle of Black people to create a new era.” This reflected America’s racial troubles of the times, following Dr. King’s assassination and the lack of significant progress in civil rights for black citizens. Berry Gordy gave three of his backroom team – Griffin, Ewart Abner and George Schiffer – the responsibility for creating and operating Black Forum. Its first releases included Writers of the Revolution, recorded for Motown seven years earlier (but unissued then) by poets Langston Hughes and Margaret Danner, and Stokely Carmichael’s provocative speech about indicted Black Panthers leader Huey Newton, Free Huey!
Yet leaving aside the Grammy for Dr. King’s album, Black Forum was not a commercial success. Then again, spoken-word recordings – comedy apart – rarely reach the top of the charts. Still, the label’s intentions were honourable, its participants were authentic, and it alleviated some of the pressure on Gordy to publicly support the Black Power movement. “The thing with Stokely would have been a way of giving money to the Black Panthers,” the late Barney Ales once told me, provocatively. “They were putting the muscle on anybody, especially if you were a black guy with money.” Ales, who was white, was in a position to know: he was Motown’s executive VP and general manager at the time.
In terms of Motown history, the first significant insights into Black Forum came in Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit by academic Suzanne E. Smith, published in 1999. She discovered, for example, the origins of the Hughes/Danner recording: Gordy’s firm had sent a copy of its 1963 album, The Great March to Freedom (which showcased Dr. King’s early draft of his “I Have A Dream” speech, delivered in Detroit) to Hughes. He was appreciative, and this led to the poets’ affiliation with Motown.
TAKE THESE ALBUMS, OR ELSE
Smith in her book went on to detail other Black Forum projects, and their fate. “Berry Gordy told the distributors that they could not receive Motown’s latest musical releases unless they also agreed to take the Black Forum recordings.” Ewart Abner was the source of that claim – Smith had interviewed him and Junius Griffin (both now deceased) – but the ultimatum made little difference. Copies held in a distributor’s warehouse do not necessarily make for sales.
Following Smith, the most thorough account of Black Forum has been in Listen, Whitey! by musician and historian Pat Thomas, subtitled The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975. This coffee-table book (for want of a better description) in 2012 offered a powerful visual and narrative history of how the Black Power movement influenced folk, rock, soul and jazz during that period. An entire chapter was devoted to Black Forum, documenting each of its eight albums, with extracts of their content and images of the cover artwork.
Documenting Black Power’s influence on music
“Frankly, I was shocked as I went through a ton of various ‘history of Motown’ books,” Thomas told me earlier this month, “and saw how little [about Black Forum] was included by other authors – including some who declared that their particular book had a political angle!” His research was further complicated by the fact that Black Forum’s principals were no longer alive.
Thomas was also surprised at “how forgotten the label was – and that even a two-CD set put together by Motown themselves of their political and Black Power-era songs didn’t include any Black Forum songs, or even mention in the liner notes that such a label existed.” (This was Power To The Motown People! from 2007, a U.K. compilation.)
For his part, Thomas tags the label’s final two releases as personal favourites, which were the most musical of its output. “That Amiri Baraka album, It’s Nation Time, never fails to amaze me, because of its vibrant, incendiary power that still sounds fresh, its blend of rap, soul, jazz and gospel elements – even a brief tribute to classic Motown. I also love the strident political warmth of Elaine Brown’s singing, songwriting and piano playing.” Moreover, it was Thomas’ personal acquaintance with Baraka and Brown which helped the creators of the next significant chronicle of Black Forum’s history: a BBC radio documentary entitled Motown: Speaking In The Streets, first broadcast in January 2014.
The programme was made by financial educator and record collector Alvin Hall with BBC producer Ekene Akalawu, and presented on-air by Hall. The interviewees included Brown and Baraka, as well as theatre director Woodie King, who produced It’s Nation Time; former Motown Records official Suzanne de Passe; and authors Thomas and Smith.
A FINAL INTERVIEW?
“I was able to put the BBC and Alvin in touch with Elaine and Amiri,” says Thomas, “and convince them to participate. Elaine is actually a good friend of mine and liked my book, so she was a bit more interested than Amiri. However, he got ‘excited’ as he was doing the interview – it brought back good memories, I guess – and since he died soon after, it might well be his final ever interview.” In the programme, the onetime militant asserts that many of the Black Power goals remain “relevant [today] because the things that we were addressing ourselves to still haven’t been solved.”
Alvin Hall identifies the session with Elaine Brown, the only female leader of the Black Panthers, as the best. “She is a pretty fierce woman,” he told me, “a take-no-prisoners personality. We did the interview at a radio station in San Francisco, and the sound guy was telling her to put on her headphones in a certain way. She had just had her hair done, she turned and gave him the most withering look. He just shut up.” More importantly, Brown was righteous about her past: “Yes, it has absolute relevance to what’s going on right now,” she emphasised. Tellingly, she was speaking to Hall in the wake of nationwide protests over the death of black teenager Trayvon Martin, widely considered as a victim of racism.
Bonding with Brown over lunch
A lighter moment involved Motown record producer Hal Davis. Suzanne De Passe recalled that he was due to see Brown about making an album, but became disturbed, telling De Passe that “she showed up with a bodyguard and she’s a Black Panther and I’m not going to take this meeting, I’m out.” By contrast, De Passe found common ground. “I was a bit intimidated, of course, but still I had a big hint that we were going to get along great, because she was carrying a Louis Vuitton purse.” Brown confirmed that occasion and remembered what turned into a five-hour lunch with De Passe, and the subsequent development of “a real friendship” between the two women.
Hall has nothing but praise for De Passe. “She arrived in her athleisurewear, and she was really talkative. In fact, she could not have been more giving.” But for the documentary’s limited, half-hour running time, there would have been more material from the Motown executive and others. “Ekene and I really wanted to do two, 30-minute programmes, but could not convince ‘the powers that be.’ As a result, we left so much information from the interviews on the proverbial cutting-room floor. Nonetheless, Ekene wove together a beguiling, informative and satisfying programme.” And Hall received numerous e-mails after the broadcast, from listeners keen to acquire the Black Forum recordings.
Which brings us, conveniently, to Motown’s re-release plans for this year, should any of the documentary’s audience still be interested – or should there be new fans, because Motown: Speaking In The Streets is to be repeated by BBC Radio 4 Extra on March 25.
Meanwhile, the Motown Museum will continue to promote and showcase Black Forum to visitors, while proceeding with its community-serving poetry initiative, Motown MIC: The Spoken Word, now in its eighth year. This encourages the talent of Detroit-area poets and orators to create original work, incentivised by cash prizes. The museum has also held a number of “Black Forum Friday” events, at which the label’s spoken-word albums were played and a panel of scholars and artists discussed Motown’s involvement in social movements.
A half-century ago, Motown used the word “struggle” to help define the ambitions of its spoken-word adventure. Today, the company’s message is broadly the same: “By amplifying the voices of the new revolution, Black Forum builds on its history of moving society forward in a just and inclusive manner.” Clearly, this forum has not been adjourned.
Spoken-word notes: most of the Black Forum recordings have been unavailable for years, with the original LPs fetching high prices in collectors’ circles. It’s Nation Time and Elaine Brown were reissued on vinyl in 2018, and the former is also available on the likes of Spotify and Apple Music. That doesn’t appear to be the case with Brown’s album, whose nine tracks were written by her, and produced by Freddie Perren and Fonce Mizell. Two of those, “No Time” and “Until We’re Free,” formed the only Black Forum 45, released on April 9, 1973. (An earlier Brown album, 1969’s Seize The Time, is digitally available.) Dr. King’s Why I Oppose The War In Vietnam, as issued by Black Forum, can be found on Apple Music. Much of his public speaking was recorded and released by a variety of labels, some of it unauthorised. Last August, Motown put out a digital single excerpting his historic “I Have A Dream” speech, given in Washington, DC, in August 1963.
BLACK FORUM LP RELEASES 1970-73
451 DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., Why I Oppose The War In Vietnam (released 10/70, reissued 2/21)
452 STOKELY CARMICHAEL, Free Huey! (10/70)
453 LANGSTON HUGHES, MARGARET DANNER, Writers of the Revolution (10/70)
454 BLACK FIGHTING MEN RECORDED LIVE IN VIETNAM, Guess Who’s Coming Home (2/72)
455 OSSIE DAVIS & BILL COSBY, Address The Congressional Black Caucus (4/72)
456 BLACK SPIRITS, Festival of New Black Poets in America (4/72)
457 IMAMU AMIRI BARAKA, It’s Nation Time (4/72, reissued 11/18)
458 ELAINE BROWN, Elaine Brown (4/73, reissued 9/18 on vinyl, and 3/21 digitally)