It was hot in the days before air-conditioning. That was a fact we had to accept. In the evenings, the afternoon heat lingered in the houses forcing us to the porches. We knew our neighbors. We knew the good. We knew the bad. We heard it all through the open windows. The bad was louder than the good.
I would come home from high school and find my mother and Annie working around the house, cleaning, cooking and doing what must be done. Annie was our Afro-American maid. Having a maid was not a sign of wealth in those days. Most Southern families had help as the maids were called. It was a custom that went back to slavery, but things were changing. The Civil Rights movement dominated the news and in Atlanta racial tensions were high.
Everyday afternoon I went to the big RCA hifi stereo that sat in the living room and filled the house with the sound of James Brown or Otis Redding. Annie liked the music. Mon tolerated it. When my mother was not at home, Annie would turn on the art deco radio that sat on the kitchen counter and we would listen to Gospel music, or the soulful sound of Piano Red, a local Afro radio personality. This scene was being repeated in homes throughout the south, and it was placing Black musical ideas in young white minds.
In the summer of 1963, James Brown was to do a show at the Atlanta City Auditorium. I planned to attend. Only a few Whites would be there, but I didn’t care. Just a few years prior, at shows like this, Whites by law had to sit in the balcony leaving the main floor for the Afro-Americans. It never occurred to me that I was an integration ground breaker. I just wanted to see James Brown.
At the city auditorium, the crowd squeezed through the doors, extended across the sidewalk and into the street. I felt white, too white and I was afraid but no one mistreated me. Integration was the goal of the Civil Rights movement and I was doing that.
I found my seat. After a few minutes, someone called from behind.
“Bobby, hey, Bobby, it’s Bobby, hey, hey Bobby!”
“Hi Hattie.” I said. Hattie worked for out next-door neighbor. She had watched me grow while sweeping their floors and washing their clothes.
“Lan, boy, you are the last person I thought I would see here. You like James Brown?”
“Yes ,ma’am, I do. Can I have one of those beers?” Hattie had snuck a six-pack past the security guards in her large purse.
“Listen at you. I know how old you are. Yo moma would have my hide if I gave you a beer.”
Overhead through the sound system we heard: LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, GIVE A BIG ATLANTA WELCOME FOR THE HARDEST WORKING MAN IN SHOW BUSINESS–JAMES BROWN AND THE FAMOUS FLAMES.
The band played, and the auditorium exploded with dance and screams. Women shouted, “Try me James, try me,” referring to his hit record Try Me. I did my white-boy dance as best I could, but I was not comfortable with it. My rear-end would not find the seat again that night, not until after the finale in which his back-up singers place a cape over his shoulders as they sang, “Please, please, don’t go.”
In 1968 when Martin Luther King was assassinated, James Brown happened to be in Atlanta. In many cities, there were riots but as yet in Atlanta, there had been no trouble. My father owned a tuxedo shop. It was downtown in an area where riots were expected. He borrowed a pistol and a shotgun from his friend, Buster, who was a World War II hero and owned a nearby pawn shop. Dad, Buster and other merchants sat in their stores armed awaiting the rioters. I begged him not to go. He said he could not stand by and watch a lifetime of work go up in smoke without putting a fight. I feared for his life. For me, it was a sleepless night.
A crowd gathered not far from his store. Mayor Allen went to the trouble area. He climbed on top of a police car and with a bullhorn he begged for calm. He made little progress until James Brown joined him there and reasoned with the mob. There was no riot in Atlanta. My father’s business was spared and returned unharmed.
Years pass and the past is forgotten. It is a hip-hop world now. The young accept things as they are and don’t look back. Brown is ancient history, but he came to mind when I heard his song Out of Sight. It was among the forty gigabits of music a young friend downloaded to my computer. In looking back, I don’t think Brown has been given enough credit for what he did that night in Atlanta, nor do I think enough credit has been given to the roll music played in ending segregation.
Posted by bobokelley 