Afro-Netizen: James Brown: The Man Who Named a People

Friday, January 05, 2007

James Brown: The Man Who Named a People

James Brown’s historic contribution to Black self-determination is incalculable, writes BAR’s Executive Editor. The ‘Godfather of Soul’ made it possible for the masses of people to affirm their own name.

By Glen Ford
Executive Editor
Courtesy of Black Agenda Report

“Overnight, it seemed, the great bulk became ‘Black’ people.”

In death, James Brown this past weekend vied for headlines with two other passing luminaries: a former U.S. president, Gerald Ford, and the man a generation of Americans have been taught to hate, Saddam Hussein. That’s world class celebrity – no doubt about it. However, despite all the accolades, I believe the historical James Brown has been short changed. Even Brown’s many, mostly self-authored titles – “Hardest Working Man in Show Business,” “Godfather of Soul,” “Soul Brother Number One,” to mention just a few – fail utterly to convey the Barnwell, South Carolina native’s seismic impact on the modern age. James Brown can arguably be credited with a feat few humans have achieved since the dawn of time.

He named an entire people: Black Americans.

More accurately, James Brown was the indispensable impresario who chose the moment and mechanism that allowed Black Americans to name themselves. He was the Great Nominator who in 1968 put forward for mass consideration the term that the descendants of former slaves would voluntarily and by acclamation adopt as their proud, collective designation. “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” set in motion a tsunami-like process – breath-taking in speed and scope – that for the first time in their North American history created a mass social forum through which slave descendants could loudly register their ethnic-name preference. Overnight, it seemed, the great bulk became “Black” people – with an attitudinal clause: get used to it.

The uniqueness of the Brown-impelled nomenclature change lay in its referendum-like character. With “Say It Loud,” Mr. Brown, who had earned a powerful bullhorn by forging direct, cultural connections to the masses – which is, of course, what popular entertainers do – cracked open the social space in which a whole people could quickly affirm or reject their Blackness. The phenomenon built upon, but was more far-reaching than, Stokely Carmichael’s popularization of “Black Power,” two years earlier. Carmichael’s slogan called for – demanded – power for Black people. But James Brown’s anthem actually empowered ordinary Black folks to signal to their leaders and oppressors – the whole world, in fact – the fundamental terms of any dialogue: how they were to be addressed.
“Everybody got a chance to declare whether or not they were ‘Black and proud.’”

To be sure, group nomenclature had been a near obsession among Africans/Negroes/Coloreds/Blacks as far back as intra-Black debates have been recorded. But the late Sixties, the point in history seized by James Brown to introduce his plebiscite, was a time of both unprecedented mass Black political action (including urban rebellions) and the emergence of Black-oriented media that could reach into every nook and cranny of the national Black polity. For the first time, the Black call-and-response could be national – that is, people-wide – and, in political terms, near-instantaneous. Through the medium of Black-oriented radio – which was then a one-sound-fits-all Black demographics affair – the Black call-and-response was no longer limited to the literate classes, or to the realm of the church. Thanks to Black radio, everybody got a chance to declare whether or not they were “Black and proud.” Most voted, “Yes.” It was a landslide. The skeptical minority were drowned out by the Black and newly-Black, or borne along by the back-beat of James Brown and the Famous Flames.

Fully essay here

Afro-Netizen on Friday, January 05, 2007 at 05:02 AM in Arts & Entertainment, Race, Culture & History | Permalink

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Friday, January 05, 2007

James Brown: The Man Who Named a People

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