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Josephine Baker, circa 1926. Photograph by George Hoyningen-Huene

Interchange – Centering Black Film: From Spike Lee to Josephine Baker

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Our opening song is “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” – and its history alone illustrates the difficulties of centering anything black in this white capitalist country. We’re listening to Hank Crawford and Jimmy McGriff’s version off of their 1987 album, Steppin’ Up.

Dubbed in 1919 by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP, as the “Negro National Anthem” for its power in voicing a cry for liberation and affirmation for African-American people.

It was first publicly performed as a poem in 1900 by its author James Weldon Johnson as part of a celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday at the Edwin M. Stanton School in Jacksonville, Florida with Booker T. Washington in attendance. The school is named after Lincoln’s Secretary of War.

Johnson’s brother, John Rosamond Johnson, put the song to music in 1905. The Johnsons intended the inspirational song to serve as a musical protest against the humiliating conditions of Jim Crow and the bloody wave of racial lynchings that were sweeping the country.

In 1985 Miller Brewing Company commissioned a new pop version of the song fronted by Al Green and Deniece Williams with backing vocals from Patti Austin, Roberta Flack, Deborah McDuffie, and Melba Moore. Miller is now MillerCoors, a joint venture of SAB (South African Breweries) and MolsonCoors. The Coors family is one of the funders of all things Right Wing in the USA.

In 1989 Spike Lee opens Do the Right Thing with a plaintive version of “Lift Every Voice” played by Branford Marsalis on the tenor saxophone.

Our GUEST today is Terri Francis, an Associate Professor in the Media School at Indiana University in Bloomington and Director of the Black Film Center/Archive. Francis’s forthcoming book The Cinematic Josephine Baker excavates how Baker pioneered her defining role in early African American cinema, seeking forms of authorship within performance.

Today’s program begins with the institutional role of The Black Film Center/Archive within a State University where the black student population is roughly 4% of the total. We then move to the Oscars and the support communities for black filmmakers. Spike Lee looms large but new filmmakers and television series producers like Ava DuVernay (Queen Sugar) are discussed as examples of an empowered and expanded community of important creators and professionals.

We then reach back into the past to discover that Josephine Baker should be viewed as historically important as a black filmmaker of critical intelligence. What might be a revelation here is that Josephine Baker emerges as a comedian.

RELATED
Josephine Baker, “Speech at the March on Washington”
The Beautiful Clutter Of Black Film In 2018 by Zeba Blay
Josephine Baker & the burlesque by Terri Francis
What Does Beyoncé See in Josephine Baker? by Terri Francis

MUSIC
“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” Hank Crawford and Jimmy McGriff
“Fight the Power,” Public Enemy
“J’ai deux amours,” Josephine Baker
“Everybody Wants to Dance Like Josephine Baker,” Boney M.
“Blue Skies,” Josephine Baker

CREDITS
Producer & Host: Doug Storm
Executive Producer: Wes Martin

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