Power to the People!

Tyree Boyd-Pates served as the Humanities Curator for the LA Phil’s Power to the People! festival, which was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. The following essay was originally scheduled for publication in March 2020. You can listen to a playlist Boyd-Pates compiled for the festival here.

Paul Robeson, an esteemed actor, singer, lawyer, activist, and athlete, famously stated, “Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s radical voice.” Those words are central to the LA Phil’s Power to the People! festival because they are at the core of what drives artists to speak truth to power.

During the 1960s, Robeson’s prophetic statement became a clarion call for artists of the Civil Rights Movement who stood at the intersections of society and championed the voices of those who were rallying in the streets for change – especially for equality.

As a professor, historian, and museum curator, I have spent a great deal of time amplifying historical examples of Robeson’s statement within exhibitions, lectures, and essays dealing with African American social activism during the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. A recent exhibition that comes to mind is the California African American Museum’s Los Angeles Freedom Rally, 1963.

In 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King leveraged his nonviolent approach to activism and the support of several notable celebrities like Dorothy Dandridge, Rita Moreno, Paul Newman, Sammy Davis Jr., and Dick Gregory at Los Angeles’ Wrigley Field to lead the most significant civil rights demonstration in the U.S. shy of the March on Washington in August of the same year. Both civil rights demonstrations were pivotal in applying political pressure for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and subsequently, the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Artists are the gatekeepers of truth and civilization’s radical voice

In the vein of Robeson’s charter, these civil rights efforts were championed by both Black and white artist-activists, including Harry Belafonte, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier, James Baldwin, Marlon Brando, Theodore Bikel, Diahann Carroll, Charlton Heston, Burt Lancaster, Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt, and Elizabeth Taylor among others. Each recognized that, as artists, they were civilization's radical voices able to amplify the cause of civil rights in America during the Jim Crow era (1877 through the mid-1960s).

During this period, segregation was widespread throughout the country. It limited the life choices of African Americans, especially in the South. During the 1960s, African Americans earned half as much as their white counterparts and were twice as likely to be out of work. Moreover, only 49 percent of all Southern school districts had integrated. African Americans were largely second-class citizens until the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Acts by Lyndon B. Johnson, almost 102 years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Although civil rights gains were made after the passage of those two acts, political power and living conditions were still not equally distributed in America’s inner cities. Out of that dissatisfaction and frustrations over MLK’s nonviolent approaches to protest, a new era was ushered in: the Black Power Movement, creating a new generation of social activists who would inspire artists over the next two decades.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the Black Power era was a revolutionary social movement that espoused three core principles: pride in self, economic sufficiency, and equality for all people within the African Diaspora. Throughout the era, there would be an increased call for African American Studies departments on university campuses, an embrace of African ideals, and the proliferation of artistic expressions showcasing the lives of those of African descent – culturally and politically. Slogans of note during the era included “Black is Beautiful,” “Black Power,” and “Power to the People.”

Bring power to the people once again

In 1966 notable political organizer and activist Stokely Carmichael, also known as Kwame Ture, made the initial calls for “Black Power.” In the same year, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, co-founders of Oakland’s Black Panther Party (BPP), along with prominent members like Angela Davis, Kathleen Cleaver, and Elaine Brown, all espoused the slogan “Power to the People.” This slogan was aligned with the party’s 10-point program and political platform that outlined the importance of Black community autonomy to counter state-sanctioned racial oppression and constant police brutality through self-defense.

Over the next several years, as the BPP gained more popularity, growing to 38 chapters and 13 free health clinics, so did their slogan “Power to the People.” This phrase represented African American’s dissatisfaction with the status quo and a desire to redistribute the political power that was in the establishment’s hands back to the people.

Despite the growth and influence of the BPP, by the end of the 1960s, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had named the BPP the greatest threat to the internal security of the United States of America. By the middle of the 1970s, they were dismantled, with 28 members killed, countless imprisoned, and others who fled the country for their safety. Still, the BPP’s message of “Power to the People” lived and would take hold among other artist-activists.

The BPP’s revolutionary aesthetic soon became more mainstream. The party’s natural Afro hairstyles, sunglasses, and black leather grew in popularity thanks to shows like Soul Train and influential musical acts like Marvin Gaye, Nina Simone, and notably James Brown.

In 1968, during the height of the Black Power movement, James Brown landed in the top 10 on the Billboard charts with songs like “Say It Loud, I’m Black & I’m Proud” and 1971’s “Soul Power,” where the call and response “What we want? Soul power!” regularly became “What we want? Power to the people!”

By 1971 the slogan “Power to the People” had made its way to former Beatles band member John Lennon in the form of a single with the Plastic Ono Band. Having grown more critical of his own non-violent stance on protest and heralding of peace, Lennon advocated for a more radical approach to revolution. On the cover of the single for the album, John Lennon is seen lifting his fist in the same fashion that Black Panther Party members routinely did. Lennon would go on to make other protest music that would pay homage to prominent Black Panther member Angela Davis.

Like Paul Robeson once stated, artists are the gatekeepers of truth and civilization’s radical voice. During the LA Phil’s Power to the People! festival, artists of all genres are using their artistry to galvanize the masses and rally support for grassroots causes that would bring equality for us all. Whether it is the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s or the Black Power Movement of the 1970s, may we all use history as the template to actualize our collective strength to bring power to the people once again.