Читать книгу Drake's Treasure - charles berrard - Страница 2

The activism of the 1960s challenged the very foundations of the American social system. Sex, drugs, rock and soul music shook the moral fiber of its Judeo-Christian roots. To the horror of Christian bigots, first white people—and later, Native Americans—learned how to “shake their booty” when they discovered black music, one of white America’s most coveted taboos. If America was wrong about its non-white ethnic heritage, it was probably wrong about other things: religion, sex, drugs, the Vietnam War, capital punishment, civil liberties, the American Indian, the environment, and even the political-economic system.

The floodgates had been opened. Major cities were inundated with America’s youth; even many who had yet to reach puberty were running away from moral hypocrisy and physical, mental, and sexual abuse at home. Turning-on, tuning-in, and dropping-out became the new ethic. Teeny-boppers, artists, professionals, and workers of all kinds were reconsidering their values, rethinking what they were doing for a living and questioning the contradictions in a system that their parents had ignored in order to ‘make it’ in society. A critical reevaluation of family, society, church and state was taking place in a segregated America. Political activists, new spiritual leaders, poets and musicians were providing some of the answers: Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Students for a Democratic Society, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the Black Panthers, James Baldwin, Mario Savio, Abbie Hoffman, Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, Ntozake Shange, Gloria Steinem, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Timothy Leary, Sly and the Family Stone, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Joni Mitchell, Country Joe McDonald, Marvin Gaye, the Doobie Brothers, and Randy Newman were among them.

Hugh Hefner’s Playboy and the 007 archetypes were redefining the organization man for whites and blacks. The bohemian beatnik, weaned on jazz, drugs and poetry, had morphed into the flower-child hippie. The activist took another direction.

Ozay Broussard was born in the south colored and grew up a Negro, then became black and Afro-American in the ’60s. His activist days were in California. Between civil rights arrests and peace marches, he had seen the arrest of students in the Free Speech Movement and the shootings in the People’s Park demonstrations in 1969, when students and community protesters took on capitalism’s sacred cow—private property. Joni Mitchell’s song about paving paradise rang true.

The movement changed after JFK’s death. There were those who pushed the struggle to the next level–armed revolution. The Students for a Democratic Society morphed into the Weathermen, the Black Panthers threatened retaliation, and the Black Liberation Army carried out the threat. At the same time, Ozay observed that any day you could expect an encounter at a major intersection with Hari Krishnas energetically singing, accompanied by tambourines and drums, passing out books and encouraging everyone to chant the words that would bring Krishna consciousness. The Diggers were giving away free food and picking up hitchhikers (this usually ended with a joint being passed around). By now, a return to a neo-tribalism had emerged, a new urban-gypsie lifestyle distinguished by long hair and handmade clothes.

The “Be-in,” the art “Happening” and the rock concert were where mass gatherings took place. They became the only locations where drugs could be consumed in public without anyone getting arrested. “Namaste,” “peace,” “brother” and “sister” were the new salutations. Those not getting high on drugs were searching for that natural high, a religious experience—and some became “born again” on Jesus, Krishna, or LSD. Others chose the secular commune with mystical overtones.

Steve Gaskin, who based his teachings and rituals on eastern religions, had overflow crowds om-ing at the Family Dog auditorium down the road from San Francisco’s Cliff House restaurant. The sustained humming of the om syllable—from the Tibetan mantra, om mani padme hum, that embodied the myriad teachings of Buddha: meditation, patience, discipline, wisdom, generosity, and diligence—characterized a dramatic portion of these meetings.

Sporting two doctoral degrees, the inventor of Kwanzaa, Ronald Everett (a.k.a. Ron Karenga), launched an Afro-centric church that became known as US. In the mid-sixties, Ozay was looking for an intelligent alternative to guns. His visit to Ron’s church left him with the feeling that he had just witnessed another unapproachable (bodyguards at his sides and throughout the audience), egocentric strong man, as was happening in the other major black activist organizations.

Esalen, on the Big Sur coast, was becoming the institute for alternative “new age” studies, with guest gurus from India and American gurus like Tim Leary and Ram Das. Men’s support groups were everywhere; men were trying to find their inner child, and attempting to keep up with and understand what the new feminists were about—and in the process, getting more in touch with their own feminine nature and breaking the patriarchal stereotypes that regarded women as second-class. If you were a frat boy—in the “reserves,” looking for that first million before the age of twenty-one, seeking a “Stepford” wife who would dutifully bring you and the boys beer as you watched Sunday football—you were in deep trouble in this new culture. But like a redneck flaunting white privilege, too many men still took their male advantage as God-given, and hell would have to freeze over before they gave it up.

Free love, open marriage, gays and lesbians coming out became headline debates throughout America—and fodder for the Christian Right. The whole notion of sexuality became a libidinal minefield. Sex? Free Love? When the new liberated woman threw away her bra, the Church had had it. It was conclusive now, they claimed: drugs and black music were transforming women into “amoral creatures of the night.” “Free Love.” Ozay felt that with this expression, the press thought it had found a new euphemism for whore. In fact, the opposite was happening: men and women were rebelling against the notion of selling their bodies. To Ozay, the whole notion of buying sex was distasteful.

Ozay also watched how the music revolution of the ’60s taught white people to move their butts. From the head bopping apartheid days of American Bandstand to Soul Train of the ’70s, America was learning how to dance to Little Richard rather than Pat Boone, Ray Charles rather than Lawrence Welk. And Elvis Presley’s meteoric rise was an embarrassment to white Christians. Though he didn’t sound black to blacks, whites thought he did. But they were much more upset about what “Elvis the pelvis” did with his hips. After dance crazes like the Twist, the Hully Gully, the Monkey, the Watusi, the Pony, and the Boo-ga-loo, a host of line dances became popular. America was experiencing a cultural revolution. Black music and dance was sexual, and older white America, in general, didn’t want to hear it or see it. Bible belt record burnings were frequent, but white youth couldn’t get enough. When white musicians started popularizing black songs, their music marked the beginning of a new era. The “bubble gum” teen idols like Fabian, Pat Boone, Dion, Paul Anka, and Connie Stevens were soon forgotten by young America.

Motown and other recording labels produced stars like Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Dells, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, the Jackson Five, and The Supremes. After hearing Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Little Willie John, white musicians wanted more, and began searching for the roots of black music —Blues, Jazz, and Gospel—discovering Scott Joplin, Lonnie Johnson, Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Aretha Franklin, and Tina Turner, among others.

Dance bars opened up everywhere. Jukeboxes were put on non-stop mode, with discs played back-to-back so you wouldn’t have to sit down. These were called disco bars. They were so popular and successful the record companies began to pump out music specifically for disco bar jukeboxes, and disco music was born. Sister Sledge, Sylvester, Blondie, The Bee Gees, Evelyn “Champagne” King, Donna Summer, and Anita Ward hit the top of the charts.

For some, like Ozay, the fast pace of dancing burned off the excessive booze. To others it was a new kind of healing. Ozay, along with many others, liked to get into a trance-like dance groove; he saw it as a religious experience. It happened with just the right combination of music from Rufus Thomas, Jr., Walker and the All Stars, Santana, Sly and the Family Stone, or a number of others. Getting high, then higher! And higher still, the crowd, with one voice, sang. Higher! A room full of people swaying together, in unison, their hands pointing upwards to another plane.

Ozay felt that popular music, for most blacks, has always been dance music. Of course, you couldn’t take away gospel roots from the equation, because its high energy and soulful singing always made you want to dance. Historically, dance leads to trance, and trance leads to God, and that experience can be achieved in church or a dance hall.

Be-ins, outdoor concerts—Woodstock being the most infamous—were happening all over the US and Europe. The Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, the Fillmore East in New York, the Kaleidoscope in Los Angeles, concert halls, bars and homes across the country became temples of music and dance. There was no turning back; a critical mass had been reached.

America had changed. The insistence that Afro-Americans be a part of the American experiment was spearheading that change.

This is the backdrop for Ozay Broussard’s journey.