Original subtitles

Has anybody talked to you at all about what we're doing?

You just got dragged here? Yeah.

Okay, we're gonna tell you a little bit.

This is a documentary we're doing for public television.

It's called Black Is... Black Ain't.

We've finally begun production on this project.

Two hundred and twenty five.

- I thought the number would be higher... - T-cell count slipped back down.

- ...but I don't feel well. - Weight down too.

I'm worried, but keep this to myself.

My weight and T-cell count are the same.

What's happening to my body?

AIDS forces you, because of the likelihood

that you could die at this moment —

AIDS forces you to deal with that

and to look around you and say,

"Hey, I'm wasting my time if I'm not devoting every moment

to thinking about, how can I communicate to Black people,

so that we start to look at each other,

we start to see each other?"

Black is... Black ain't. Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't. - Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't. - Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't. - Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't. - Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't. - Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't. - Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't. - Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't. - Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't. - Black is... Black ain't.

- Black is... Black ain't. - Black is... Black ain't.

♪ Well ♪

- Oh! Come on, now. Come on! - Hallelujah!

Yes, now! Tell it!

♪ I say, Black is ♪

♪ And Black ain't ♪

♪ Black is ♪

♪ And Black ain't ♪

♪ Black is blue ♪

♪ Black is red ♪

- ♪ And Black is tan ♪ - Black will get you!

♪ And Black is light ♪

♪ And Black will leave you alone ♪

♪ Black can get you over ♪

♪ Black can set you down ♪

♪ Black can let you move forward ♪

♪ And Black will make you stumble around ♪

Black is so high!

And Black is so low.

Black can say yes!

- And Black can say no. - Black can be your best friend!

- Be cozy as the night! - Tell it!

♪ Black can do you in ♪

♪ Make you fuss and cuss and fight ♪

- ♪ Black is Black ♪ - Preach now!

- ♪ And Black is blue ♪ - Tell the truth!

♪ Black is bright ♪

♪ Black is you ♪

To tell the truth, there's nothing better in this world

than my Big Mama's gumbo.

I guess it's because it's got a little bit of everything in it.

Well, there goes the gumbo.

Everything that you can imagine can be put into gumbo —

shrimp, crayfish,

sausage, alligator sausage,

pork sausage, crab.

What does Black mean?

It seems very difficult to define in any absolute sense

what it means to be Black.

Seasoned just nicely.

You don't want the broth to overpower the roux.

Cook it, and it just has a nice sort of aromatic flavor with the spices.

The most definitive identity any Black person has is Blackness.

If it gets too thick, it's like you're tasting that,

but you can't really get to the ingredients that make the gumbo.

There are as many kind of Black people

as there are Black people to be.

There are so many variations on the theme.

Cooks all night and all day. Ooh, it's wonderful.

And it's just inviting. You walk in and it's like...

Mmm!

Come on here to the kitchen.

When I was a boy, the nation was in turmoil.

Though, to be honest,

much of what was going on was at the periphery of my life.

Still, I was aware enough of the changes

to try to convince one of my friends one day

that it was time for him to stop using the word "colored."

"Edward Lee," I said, "you ain't colored no mo'.

You Black."

"No, I ain't," he shot back.

"Yes, you is," I said.

"No, I ain't," he insisted.

Now, to be real, Edward Lee was so dark

he could have passed as one of the original Africans.

But back then it was an insult to call somebody "African" or "Black,"

so I knew why he was upset.

Still, I wanted him to see the new light.

"Edward Lee, you Black."

"Colored — No one is colored anymo'.

'Colored' is the white man's word.

You Black and should be proud."

"Take it back," he said.

"No, I'm not."

"Take it back," he repeated, tense.

"For what? It's the truth!"

"Take it back,

or I'll beat yo' Black ass."

"Uh-oh."

Edward Lee was big.

I started moving backwards.

"Edward Lee, I don't know why you so mad.

Ain't nothing to get mad about.

Black is b-beautiful.

You Black. I'm Black. My mama's Black."

Now that stopped him.

Anybody so willing to insult his own mama must be serious.

That day, I escaped Edward Lee's punches

and held my own all at the same time.

I was proud.

I think Norman of Australia leads with John Carlos.

At the award ceremony

came the symbolic protest by Smith and Carlos,

each wearing a black glove,

holding fists aloft and bowing their heads during the anthem.

Later, they were dismissed from the team and sent home by the US Olympic Committee.

For the longest, of course,

being Black wasn't always so beautiful.

A 16th-century Oxford dictionary

provides a clue to the word's meaning before we redefined it.

"Black: deeply stained with dirt.

Soiled, dirty, foul."

"Having dark or deadly purposes, malignant."

"Black: pertaining to, or involving death.

Deadly, baneful, disastrous, sinister."

"Iniquitous, atrocious, horrible, wicked."

- "Black." - Black!

"Indicating disgrace,

censure, liability to punishment."

And remember the children's rhymes?

♪ Jump back, Jack ♪

♪ Your hands too black ♪

♪ Look like you been working On a railroad track ♪

♪ Clickety-clack Clickety-clack, clickety-clack ♪

♪ Jump back, Jack Your hands too black ♪

♪ Look like you working On a railroad track ♪

♪ Clickety-clack, clickety-clack Clickety-clack ♪

♪ If you're red, go ahead ♪

♪ If you're brown, stick around ♪

♪ If you're Black, get back ♪

♪ If you're yellow, you're mellow ♪

♪ If you're white, you're right ♪

♪ If you're Black, get back ♪

♪ If you're red, go ahead If you're brown, stick around ♪

♪ If you're Black, get back ♪

♪ If you're yellow, you're mellow ♪

♪ If you're white, you're right ♪

♪ If you're Black, get back ♪

People used all kinds of terms

to avoid saying "Black."

You could be dark brown, medium brown — ridiculous things.

But definitely there was not the concept

of "Black is beautiful" that later evolved.

When I was growing up, as was your experience,

you didn't call anybody Black unless you were ready to fight.

And the very worst thing you could call somebody was a Black African.

Right? "You Black African." Oh, yeah.

That was a fighting piece. "Don't call me Black. I don't like that."

Why I didn't like it?

Because...

people in my community of a different color

made me feel so inferior.

"Why your hair so kinky?"

- "Why your lips so big?" - ♪ If you're red, go ahead ♪

- ♪ If you're brown, stick around ♪ - "Why your nose is so big?"

♪ If you're Black, get back If you're yellow, you're mellow ♪

♪ If you're white, you're right If you're Black, get back ♪

♪ Black is beautiful Free Huey ♪

♪ Said I want him free Free Huey ♪

♪ Black is beautiful Free Huey ♪

In the '60s, we began to say Black was beautiful.

That was a slogan that indicated a politics of struggle.

♪ Said I want him free Free Huey ♪

But later on in life, I learned that this nose was good and pretty.

One guy came along, name of Stokely Carmichael,

said, "Black is beautiful."

And then we realized that Black is beautiful.

This kinky hair could go in all kinds of ways.

This nice, brown chocolate skin,

looks so nice, could be all kinds of color, you know?

And then we begin to realize that, I am somebody.

How does it feel to be back in the hospital?

I'm not happy to be back here, you know.

It's hard. It's boring.

It's like one week of it and I'm just bored.

It's like, how did I endure six months of it last year,

you know, from November to May or so?

And already here, now, I wanna get out.

When I was a boy, every year we took a trip to Louisiana,

where most of my cousins lived.

It was a journey I always looked forward to.

My family ranged from every shade.

Every shade you could imagine.

Now, in Baton Rouge, all of us were a little bit darker.

But if you crossed the river to New Orleans,

all of the family was lighter.

In fact, some of them so light, they could pass as white.

But I just — You know, I didn't even think about it.

♪ Yeah, I wanna go home But I can't get back ♪

♪ I wanna get back... ♪

I grew up very confused. I really did.

You know, I never really talk about this much,

but I did grow up confused

because I didn't exactly know where I actually fit in in the world.

Because we were never taught to consider ourselves to be Black.

When we reach the mulatto group, we begin to get two extreme types,

which, for convenience, we shall call dominants and recessives,

and a third type, which we shall call intermediate.

Black is... Black ain't. Black is... Black ain't.

I could not use the word "Black" to describe my father.

If I ever called my father Black,

you know, I would have got a spanking or possibly worse,

because he did not consider himself to be Black.

He did not want to be Black. He was Creole.

When I was growing up, I heard people who were white

call themselves Creole.

I heard people who were Black call themselves Creole.

I heard these people speak to each other every day in Creole,

and the people who called themselves Creole

ranged the whole color gamut.

How much?

- You speak it also? - Yeah.

I speak a little Italian and French.

- Are you a Creole? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm supposed to be.

You're supposed to be? What does that mean?

- Well, that's what my people told me. - That's what they told you?

- What does it mean? - What?

- What does that mean, "Creole"? - That means a little French, and then...

kind of mixed up, a little French.

- Really? - Mm-hmm.

Does it have anything to do with being

a light-skinned or a dark-skinned Black person?

Oh, no, no. They got people darker than you that's Creole.

And later, as I grew up and started being able

to move a little bit beyond my neighborhood,

I learned about some people

who had concepts of Creole as something other than cultural,

who had concepts of Creole as maybe being a racial

or a biological heritage.

♪ This fable of elements ♪

♪ Which classify order Species, subspecies ♪

♪ Genus, phyla, animal, vegetable ♪

♪ Illegal chemical, socialist ♪

♪ Democrat, Republican ♪

♪ Yuppie, buppy, guppy, proud racist ♪

♪ Black, white, African ♪

♪ Native American, Irish and German ♪

My family used to have picnics out in the country,

and they would turn dark-skinned Black people away.

They would not let them come in.

My grandfather had a first cousin who was blind who lived in Baton Rouge,

and they would seat him at the door.

But he would take a comb,

and if he couldn't pass the comb through your hair,

you couldn't come in.

In this study, six degrees of curvature,

or types of hair form, are recognized:

straight, low waves, deep waves, curly, frizzly and woolly.

My friends used to tease me and my hair.

One of the things I do remember

was going to a Brownie camp or Girl Scout camp,

um, outside of Birmingham, and it started to rain.

You know, all the girls who had probably

just had their hair straightened for camp, right,

uh, started to run.

And, um, I didn't run

'cause my mother wouldn't let me straighten my hair,

as much as I wanted to.

And I remember the girls teasing me —

"Oh, you just think you got good hair. You don't have to get out of the rain."

The good hair was the hair that didn't require the straightening,

and the bad hair was the hair that did require the straightening.

I just didn't like setting my hair and pampering myself like that,

so I decided to go natural.

Mama would say, "What you gonna do with your hair?"

Uh, I'd say, "I'm gonna leave it like it is.

This is my natural hair."

One of my aunts said, "You look like an African."

So I start making gyrations, you know, start dancing.

When I came along, it was "Negro."

Later on, it changed to "Black."

Later on, it changed to "Afro-American."

I don't know what we gonna change to next,

but we've been changing so fast

I don't think we know what we are ourselves.

I think we have such an obsession with naming ourselves

because during most of our history we've been named by somebody else.

I am Black, female,

Catholic, colored,

Negro, African, American.

So it is all those things together.

All of those words, when we took them into our own culture,

became, I think, affirmations of who we are,

rather than ways by which society at large put us down.

AIDS is central to the catalyst

that's pushing me to deal with identity on the global perspective.

The connection between AIDS and Black folks

and Black folks' identity is metaphoric.

Both of them are a struggle against the odds

in the face of adversity,

in the face of possible extinction.

How do we keep ourselves together as a people

in the face of all our differences?

How do we maintain a sense of communal selfhood, if you will?

Who's in the community and who's not?

I mean, there has been a history of excluding other Black folk

from community in this country

to the detriment, I think, of our empowerment as an overall people.

Okay, you may begin.

♪ To be young, gifted and Black ♪

♪ Oh, what a lovely, precious dream... ♪

My picture's about when I am a doctor

and I'm about to go to dinner at the hospital,

which they have in the lunchroom.

The song provokes painful...

Health, innocence,

the feeling of possibilities.

Weren't we all so eager and capable then,

each one of us, to uplift the race?

Jubilation.

We want Black power.

We want Black power. We want Black power.

- We want Black power. - Black power!

Contradiction.

All the time we were saying it loud

and proclaiming the beauty of our Blackness,

a deep wedge of silence divided me from my father.

We didn't talk. Literally.

Like so many other Black boys and their fathers,

we confronted each other across a chasm of silence.

"If there were seven blind men

"One of them unable to speak

"Unable to hear, would be my father

"My father

"He would be the one promising to deliver

- "Promising to deliver - "What never arrives

"He would be the bridge, which on one side I stand feeling doomed

- "Unable to speak - "To never forgive him

- "Unable to hear - "For the violence in our pasts

"Forgive him

"While on the other side, he vigorously waves to me to cross over

"Promising to deliver

- "But he doesn't know - "Forgive him

"The bridge has fallen through

"If there were seven blind men, the one unable to hear

- "He would be the one - "Would be my father

"The one unable to speak

- "Feeling doomed - His son."

At that time, to be a Black man

required this code of silence.

You didn't express feelings.

You weren't hurt.

You couldn't acknowledge hurt and pain and rage and anger.

And what that engendered was silence.

No one talked to each other,

'cause that would have been admitting vulnerability,

and vulnerability was associated with being feminine.

Black masculinity, Black manhood.

Isn't that ultimately what it became all about?

The redemption of an emasculated male identity.

When we translate the history of Black oppression sexually,

especially through the writings of George Jackson, Eldridge Cleaver,

it's all sexualized into emasculation and castration,

so the reclamation of the Black race gets translated into "it's a dick thing."

That's why I'm fond of saying,

"If the Black thing is really a dick thing in disguise,

we're in serious trouble."

Because it is like a kind of worship of the phallus.

You can buy into the popular stereotypes and run around holding your dick

and thinking you gotta fuck everything in sight

to prove that you are a man,

to prove that you have that stamina and that virility

and you're not to be fucked with.

We are men. All men do it.

We have to do it. We are men. It is a man thing.

Men must find and conquer as much pussy as they can get.

Do not think for two seconds that you're the only one...

That's why, for example, Eddie Murphy's Raw fascinated me.

I mean, when he says in that film

that a woman doesn't want to hear that you love her,

she wants to know you will fuck her to death.

And he's doing that — You know.

And in the audience when I saw that, Black men were giving Black power salutes,

and I was thinking, "Damn, this is just so serious,

this idea that, you know,

we need to reclaim the space of that erect, brutalizing phallus

as our identity as a people."

The dominant conception of being a Black male today

is still one in which the body is highly sexualized,

in which one identifies with a certain kind of sexual prowess,

in which one does, in fact,

feel as if one is an object of fear,

at times, disgust,

not just from white America — much of white America —

but from Black America as well.

And hence, I think it's very difficult,

uh, you know, being a Black male, getting in contact with one's humanity.

It's very, very difficult.

What about the heart?

What about his mind? What about his vision?

Couldn't be sensitive, couldn't cry, couldn't be afraid

because of these notions I had about what it meant to be a Black man.

I didn't like being pounded into the ground.

That wasn't my idea of becoming a man.

I know that for myself, in growing up, a lot of times,

it was just a survival technique to be able to put on that toughness.

♪ 'Cause it ain't nothing like suburbia ♪

♪ 'Cause in my hood a young soldier Might murder ya ♪

♪ It's kinda sick when you're watching Your partner get killed... ♪

I'll play some basketball. I'll play some football. Get some pussy.

You know, I'll beat up a few people. I'll run in a gang. Just be a boy.

You know, that's — that's — Be a boy on his way to being a man.

I'm a young man, but I ain't a man yet.

'Cause there's still some stuff I'm not responsible for.

I don't take responsibility for some of my actions,

so I guess I ain't a man yet, you know.

I'm a young man.

That's how I see myself.

What about you all?

I'm a young man, too.

What does manhood mean to you, though?

Well...

I don't know.

Black manhood.

Black masculinity.

Historical sore spots.

For centuries, American culture had regarded us

as playful eunuchs,

laughing, singing sambos,

childlike in our disposition.

While Black women were seen as strong

and often, because of this, unwomanly,

our men were considered weak.

Is there any wonder then

that when Black men finally achieved public voice,

the top priority was restoring

what society had repeatedly stolen from us?

The Black man must rise.

The time has come for the Black man to take his place at the head.

Off the pigs!

The world's course would change

the day that African heritage people come together as brothers.

The Black man in America has no knowledge of his true identity...

In World War II, 850,000 Black men fought

and we were promised freedom and we didn't get it.

The Black man will define Black power.

The Talented Tenth shows the promise of Black men.

The only thing that's gonna free Huey is gunpowder.

We came to this country as Black men and as Africans.

...to stand up and take his place.

It's time, brother.

With so many words about the Black man, one had to wonder —

- Where were all of our women? - Free Huey!

And what of their redemption?

When we said "Black is beautiful" in the late '60s,

that meant "the Black man is beautiful."

There is this tendency now

to want to constantly rehabilitate the Black man as patriarch...

and I have problems with positing that as the goal of the community.

Yes, I struggle with and for my brother.

I speak with and for my brother.

But I think my brother has an equal responsibility

to speak with and for me.

I entered graduate school the same year I finished college.

That was 1969. One of those apocryphal years, you know?

And I really thought that I would never be politically active again,

because nationalism was so deep.

If there was any time in my life when I felt like a persona non grata,

just like out in the stratosphere,

was in those first years of graduate school.

I didn't think I was any less capable

of making decisions and doing positive work than anyone,

regardless of gender.

I didn't think that because I was female that I was supposed to somehow get stupid.

Twenty-five years ago, there was someone in this organization

who argued that the role of women was to wear long African dresses...

to organize cocktail parties

and to convince rich men to donate money to the organization.

And this particular person actually came in

and dismantled the whole structure that we had

because he felt that the women had too much power.

Let me see if I've got the consequences of this.

In addition to all this, the Black —

In addition to the myth of the Black macho man,

we also have the myth of the super Black woman.

You're strong, you can take anything. Boy, look at her caring for those kids.

And that's the way we got ripped off. That was the way we got ripped off.

Because we had always been strong and we didn't suffer, we didn't have pain.

- So the myth went. - We didn't suffer the way that they did.

Because we had all the jobs and it was easy for us,

and we were just laying up with the slave master.

I mean, all sorts of ridiculousness was said and was believed

by not just Black men, but Black women and by America at large.

I just think that Black feminists

have not been good at critiquing Black male sexism,

um, because of the oppression that we suffer as a people.

I think it just becomes the job no one wants to do.

You know, everybody knows about it. It's well known.

It's well understood by Black women and Black men,

and yet, um...

nobody is supposed to speak about it publicly.

I did so.

Um, and I think that that was, you know, sort of the significant departure.

- And you were punished. - And I was punished for that, yes.

Yes, I was punished.

That's true. Still being punished actually, I think.

Black women can be and have been resistant to Black feminism

because they're concerned about losing approval from Black men.

This is not an unfounded fear

because often, to speak out about difficult issues

is to be ostracized, is to be criticized.

But I think that there are some Black women, including myself,

who feel that speaking truth to power is far, far, far more valuable

than bowing and taking it.

There's a cure for what ails us as a people,

and that is for us to talk to each other.

We've got to start talking about the ways in which we hurt each other,

and the ways in which we hurt each other is also through silence.

Because nobody can unload the pain or the shame or the guilt

by not speaking.

"In my loneliest gestures

"Learning to live with less is less

"I never wanted to be your son

"You never made the choice

"To be my father

"What we have learned from no textbook

"How to live without one another

"How to evade the stainless truth

"How to store our waste in tombs beneath the heart

"Knowing at any moment it could leak out

"Do we expect to survive?

"What are we prepared for?

"Trenched off

"Communications down

"Angry in alien tongues

"We use extreme weapons to ward off one another

"Some nights our opposing reports

"Are heard as we dream

"Silence is our deadliest weapon

"We both use it

"Precisely

Often."

We have basically everything,

you know, everything all the other states have.

But we have a little blues, you know. We have more blues.

Because Mississippi is the heart of blues.

Greats such as B.B. King and Z.Z. Hill.

All blues songs to me have meaning to 'em.

'Cause they're talking about where they're coming from,

and their nature and things like that.

I feel that the blues have a lot of meaning to 'em.

Like, regular songs around, you know,

you can't really find the meaning in some songs.

But in blues, they have a lot of meaning.

- You listen to blues? - No, sir.

Why not?

It's too moody. Blues is too moody for me.

I like — I listen to R & B and I listen to reggae

and I listen to rap music.

- Black music. - What's it all about?

What's it all about?

These are the profiles of Black musical composers

who have maintained higher standards

throughout the years.

They have brought us from slavery.

♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪

♪ I woke up this morning With my mind sta... ♪

♪ My baby's gone And don't know what to do ♪

♪ Turn this mother out ♪

♪ We gonna turn this mother... ♪

What's the sign for "cut"?

Use it.

You know, what's Black music?

The music of this world.

And that music has been so influential.

In fact, without it you can't even imagine what music might be on this earth.

It's been such a crucial part of our heritage.

I mean, beyond the entertainment value,

it too is what binds us together as a people,

that creation and recreation, from generation to generation.

♪ Baby, baby, baby, I love you ♪

♪ Ain't no doubt about it Baby, I love you ♪

♪ We can stop being washed away ♪

♪ We can stop being washed away ♪

♪ We can stop being washed away ♪

♪ We can stop ♪

♪ We can stop being washed away ♪

♪ We can stop being washed away ♪

♪ We can stop being washed away ♪

♪ Sand grain by sand grain ♪

♪ Pebble by pebble... ♪

Understand, I hate history, period,

because I don't like studying on things that people did before, you know.

It's all about what's going on now. People gotta do now.

They can't keep looking back on stuff that happened a long time ago.

You see, to me history is important because you have to look back.

History repeats itself, you know.

Maybe you can look back on something

that happened a long time ago and it could help you out now.

History repeats itself.

All right, Whitney.

It's all right to know who Martin Luther King and Harriet Tubman —

you know, know what they done and all that.

But, like he said, history, ain't no need for that.

You better look for the future.

That's what you should be studying, the future, you know,

them computers and technology and all that stuff.

Chains tied on your ankles and stuff, that ain't gonna help you.

You better try to learn that IBM computer or something.

On the real, for real, you know.

History is more than chains on your ankle

and knowing this Black leader and knowing that Black leader.

It's much more to history than that.

I mean, the thing with Black people is,

if you wanna be Black, you don't want to know your Black history?

You wanna forget about your Black history?

It's all right to know about them people and what they done.

But what Martin Luther King gonna do for you now?

What Harriet Tubman gonna do for you right now?

It's not only Harriet.

She don't make history. Malcolm don't make history.

Is he gonna come fix you dinner?

Is he gonna come buy your kids some shoes next month?

Is he gonna get you that job on the interview tomorrow?

No, that's not it. That's not it.

I'm thankful for what they done,

and for how Martin Luther King fought all them struggles and all that.

You're saying, "Thank you, but to hell with you."

Yeah. "Thank you, but no thank you."

No, I'm saying — I'm saying I'm thankful for it.

But what is it gonna do for you now?

What good it gon' do for you now?

We seek after knowledge,

and if knowledge is kept from you,

then I would say you're kind of dumb, you know.

But that's why our white brothers didn't tell us

about all these heroes and heroines that we have had in our race,

because that is knowledge.

And they don't want you to become too knowledgeable.

Africans were represented as people from the dark continent

and they were always represented as superstitious, savage.

Remember, we have an identity crisis, brother.

At one time, you call a brother an African, he wanna get mad with you.

You call a brother Black, he wanna fight you.

Now, we're coming to the focal point that we're Black and we're African.

And we're from African descent.

We are Black people.

And so now we're starting to adopt the true identity of who we really are.

When the Ethiopian and Italian war of the '30s occurred,

there were people who then developed

a feeling of affinity to Africa.

I imagine they knew all along they were Africans,

but that war kind of brought it out,

because some Blacks actually went over to help the Ethiopians.

They identified with the Ethiopians.

When I hear the word "Africa,"

what it means to me is it brings me back

and it makes my mind go back to my ancestors.

I have a vision of Africa as a very nice place

where I would like to go.

I like that my ancestors came from that place,

and I don't like that my ancestors were taken away from that place.

When I hear about my ancestors, it gives me strength

to know that they did very good and they survived —

most of them survived slavery.

So that gives me courage to go on.

If you don't have a knowledge of who your ancestors are,

then of course you're lost.

Who are your ancestors? What is your true root?

I'm His Royal Highness Oba Oseijeman Adefunmi I —

oba, or king, of Oyotunji...

the only African Village in America, or at least the first.

I am Her Royal Grace Iya Orite Olasowo of the Oyotunji African Village,

located in Beaufort County, South Carolina.

We realized that we could not really develop African civilization and culture

to its fullest degree in an American city,

so it became necessary then to leave the urban areas

and found our own community.

This village means, first of all,

a reaffirmation of self, my personal self identity.

This village also means to me a restoration and a preservation

of some of the very, very ancient customs and traditions of our ancestry.

I would say to those Afro-Americans

who have somewhat lost their identity —

Because if they've changed to another lifestyle,

or they've patterned themselves after another race

and picked up the values and the customs of another race,

then I would say to them that they're not really living

within the confines of their true identity.

I love kente cloth.

I have kente cloth in my house and I wear kente cloth,

but I don't confuse that with my identity.

Because I can wear kente cloth if I want to,

but I can also put on a pair of jeans

and I feel just as Black as I did when I had the kente cloth on.

Putting on our kentes and whatever cloths and importing from West Africa,

all of that's really wonderful.

I say all of that's really wonderful.

Whatever makes, you know, your spirit rise,

I say, by all means, nurture it in that way,

if that's what it takes for you, if that's the affirmation it takes.

But that doesn't then give you the privilege

to beat someone else down

just because they don't wanna change their name

or wear African cloths or stay in the inner city.

Black is... Black ain't. Black is... Black ain't.

An African proverb says, "No matter how well a house is built

and no matter how high it stands, it must stand on something."

And that something is our tradition.

So that appreciation for tradition

evolves into the modern conversation called Afrocentricity,

which means centeredness in Africa.

Most young brothers, all they know is they come from slavery.

But if they knew about the antiquities of old,

the Egyptian civilization, how we ruled 10,000 years

before the Greeks came in and conquered,

if we was to know we were descendants of kings and queens —

We're not taught about Imhotep.

Imhotep, who was a chief physician, a grand vizier,

a poet magician and a pyramid builder for the king Djoser.

So we got to study the in-depth,

like my brother said, the antiquity.

Learn about we have great people of that stature.

Then we will build a pride and an enrichment of ourselves.

Then we're like, "Hey, I am somebody," as Jesse Jackson would say.

Then you know you're real.

There is no decolonization process

that doesn't require us to reclaim our past.

So there is, to me, something very positive

in having Black people who used to despise the word "Africa"

find a way to lay claim to that diasporic connection and experience.

When it comes into the kind of fundamentalism

that wants to make that Africa superior —

You know, these Black folks who tell me,

"We don't have to deal with sexism,

because don't you think that in ancient — in Africa

we were kings and queens, we were equal?"

I mean, that is some bullshit. Like, let's get real.

One of the things that we do here is to mythologize our African past,

since it was snatched away from us,

and make assertions about that past that are not necessarily true.

We don't know for a fact that there was not

lesbian and gay, uh, existence in Africa.

In fact, anthropological research indicates

that indeed there was.

So, like, to be condemned on the basis of myths,

that's really very difficult for me.

Six months ago,

I weighed 140 pounds, 145.

I weighed 110 when I went into the hospital.

My T-Cell count,

I know it was around 125, 135,

which is low, but still, it was enough to make me feel

I had a little meat to my cells.

Uh, I've dropped to ten T-cells.

And then I just stopped counting because it became irrelevant.

More important was, how do I feel?

♪ U-N-I-T-Y... ♪

My father used to come home from work humming a tune.

And, I mean, that tune was like a terroristic threat.

♪ Who you callin' a bitch ♪

In every society, the male and the female had a specific, designated role.

All of us have our roles to play.

When we heard that tune hitting those steps,

we knew that we had to get ourselves in order, right?

And always, you will find that the males were put in a more authoritative position.

My dad didn't have to speak, honey. He had to hum his tune.

This is the way the gods had ordered things.

He didn't have to come in and say, "Do this, do that. I'm the ruler here."

It was all taking place.

The Bible teaches us that the head of Christ is God,

and the head of man is Christ,

and the head of woman is man.

Now, who am I to change that?

Once, you know, I think that my father heard

that my mother was having an affair with somebody,

and he came home from work and he got his gun.

There is no way.

I say there's just no way that the woman can be first partaker of the fruit.

And I remember my father screaming, "I will kill you!"

That very night he said, you know, "This is my house. I will not have this!"

And she had to pack her bags.

You're bringing a hawk into the chicken yard...

...and wondering why the chicken got eaten up.

It's like when you're a kid and you think your parents are equal.

But when I saw my mother weeping and packing her bags

and throwing her shit into suitcases and I thought,

"He has the power to do this."

You bring Mike to a beauty contest,

and all these fine foxes just parading in front of Mike.

And Mike's eyes begin to dance like a hungry man

looking at a Wendy's beef burger or something.

When my uncles came to get her, the other patriarchs came to get her,

I expected there would be some discussion,

that they would try to convince my father that you can't do this,

you can't throw her out of what is her house as well.

But it was like one patriarch has spoken

and the other patriarchs had nodded their head.

If the woman has done wrong, you gotta punish her.

She said, "No, Mike, no."

I mean how many times, sisters, have you said no

and you mean yes all the time?

Wait, wait, wait. I'm talking to women now.

- We going to talk now. - Yeah!

- You see, the day of the BS is all over. - Yes, sir!

You're not dealing with a man that don't know you...

...and the damned deceitful games that you play.

This man is saying he's gonna kill our mama,

who takes care of us every day,

and we're just gonna go up and go to bed and go to sleep?

And I never forgave my sisters and brothers for a long time

for the fact that they actually went up and went to bed and went to sleep.

Where I was like, "No, I can't go upstairs and go to sleep.

I've got to witness this."

Witness this. Witness this.

Witness this. Witness this.

It's not so much for me

manhood that we're trying to reach, that we're emulating.

It's, rather, human and all the complexities of being human,

which includes being feminine.

That when men can be feminine as well as manly,

whatever those terms mean to you,

but when you can be both comfortably,

then you've achieved what it is — I think it is —

to be a man, which is to be human.

When you think of yourself, is there a woman within you?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Many. Many.

Describe the women within.

Mmm. They're Black.

She is Black.

She is, uh — She's got stature.

She swaggers and sways when she walks.

She is strong, great sense of humor, spiritual.

She sings beautifully.

She loves the man in me, who is Black...

sensitive, strapping.

He's a good parent, good brother.

He dances, he leaps.

He's wild when he moves, when he leaps.

He and she walk together, and they run together,

like two animals running.

And they roll around together.

And they become one. And that's Bill.

When you see the scenes of me naked, running through the woods,

which I will hope you will use an abundance of,

those things had a powerful image for me

in terms of searching through clutter in my life,

searching through the clutter of the project,

searching through the attempts by society at large

to cover you and to confine you into some space

in which you're not seen for the naked truth of who you are.

Those scenes are critical in their metaphoric importance.

Well, I mean it's easy for me to make the parallels

of being confined and lost in the woods

and a community confined by its own limited notions of identity.

- You see? - Mm-hmm.

- That's not a great leap for me. - Mm-hmm.

And I can say that or write it actually as text,

'cause I don't know if I want to record more narration.

Well, we've been recording this.

- Mm-hmm. - We can, you know — We can work with it.

Just the woods, the rivers,

you know, the steamboats, all of that.

My own living memory.

The moss trees and old shacks and...

Black is... Black ain't. Black is... Black ain't.

Black is... Black ain't...

Many people would say that I am not a member of the Black community.

In fact, many of the people who are viewing this would say,

"She says she's a lesbian? Oh, no, that doesn't cut it."

But the thing is, I know I'm a part of the Black community

in every single way that is important.

It's obvious,

because of our sexuality,

we've been treated as outcasts.

To be gay or to be lesbian is not to be Black.

To be Black is to be heterosexual.

This idea that somehow my Blackness

is diminished because I love a man

is purely out of that sense that Black men have been chatteled,

Black men have been lynched, Black men have been shot,

beaten, brutalized by the police, the government,

every which way, et cetera.

So that some people view Black homosexuality

as the final break in masculinity

and don't see the love, don't see the empowerment,

don't see the caring, the sharing, don't see the contributions.

A gay man organized the 1963 March on Washington —

Bayard Rustin.

Could he come out at that time?

No.

What happened to him after that singular event?

He was drummed out of the civil rights movement

by Black preachers who didn't want to be associated with anybody homosexual.

And yet, what brought them to that march wouldn't have happened without him.

♪ We shall overcome ♪

♪ We shall overcome someday... ♪

Jason. Dear Jason.

Because some of them that looking like girls, they ain't girls.

I mean, they got some drag queens in Harlem that are together.

I mean, they coming out and they got fur coats

and collars and wigs for days.

And I mean, they don't slouch down the avenue

like no East Side maid.

These broads tip, you know what I mean?

Dear Jason, when the people sang the freedom songs...

Mama said, "You know, that's Mama's children up there.

You all a little funny, but you can't help it.

You know, somebody got to give you a break."

It escapes you for a while.

When the people sang the freedom songs,

do you think they also sang them for you?

Yeah, it gets next to you that you're living some bullshit

that really shouldn't exist,

but you're saying, "I guess this is my life, you know,

and I am going to swing with it."

How long, Jason?

How long have they sung about the freedom

and the righteousness and the beauty of the Black man,

and ignored you?

How long?

Oh, dear fathers, tell me what to do.

I search for ancestral affirmation

to find only this:

pathos,

or worse, historic erasure.

How much longer can I walk this winding road?

♪ I cannot go home, I cannot go home ♪

♪ I cannot go home as who I am, it seems ♪

♪ Unredeemed by what blood lost ♪

♪ Unsaved by what grace ♪

♪ And unnatural by whose standard ♪

♪ They say ♪

♪ That this is not true ♪

♪ Manifold wonder ♪

♪ They say hold tight ♪

♪ And, oh, yes My, my, my lord, have mercy, and try ♪

♪ Try, I try, I try ♪

♪ I cannot go home as who I am ♪

♪ Past are the notions ♪

♪ Past what was past ♪

♪ Remembrance past ♪

♪ Honey child ♪

♪ Say what to laughing ♪

♪ Me, oh, my, oh, my, oh, my, oh, my ♪

♪ And I cannot go home as who I am ♪

Now, Lord, we're down here calling on your name

for we realize we can't do nothing until you come.

Please, sir, have mercy now.

Bless everyone that's in this building.

As a child, the church did offer a sense of belonging.

You know? I mean, a sense of community.

And that's important, I think, for anyone who wants to be nurtured

in an environment of support and love and coming together.

I am very religious

because I go to church every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

And I believe that religion should play a very important part in everyone's life.

Here in Mississippi, religion, it's often exaggerated

to a point where the child is... the child is enclosed.

You know, you can't even —

Some people I know, some females I know,

they can't even, you know, hardly come outside

or watch videos or anything like that.

And for punishment, they either get beat with a Bible,

or they have to stand in the corner with a Bible in their arm.

And that kind of makes me —

that kind of makes me turn my head, you know, to some religions.

♪ Freedom ♪

There's no way that one could look

at the progress of Black people in this county, from slavery on,

without acknowledging the wonderful role that the church has played.

I mean, the church was the beacon toward freedom.

But it remains, unfortunately, structured in this way,

in which people are denied freedom

and the opportunity to explain their greater humanity.

God loves the individual,

but God does not love the homosexual part.

You see what I'm saying?

The sin that is involved, God does not love.

But God — As a person, God loves the individual.

I think that recent homophobic initiatives being led by the Black church,

that's not about community.

That's the opposite.

Religion is to bring mankind together,

not to disperse mankind.

So when you find something that we call religion

that's dividing and separating mankind,

it's not religion.

It's better not to have it.

If you love, then you will do love,

regardless to what's happening.

You don't show resentment.

Because love don't show hostility.

Love don't give you the mind

to get back at a person who has mistreated you,

because you're so busy looking forward...

and waiting for the guidance of the Lord in your life,

that love will just guide you.

No more chitlins and ribs and...

No more bacon fried,

Sunday morning on the way to church.

Pork chop!

Look out! No more — No!

Pork chops, girl, pork chops!

No more pork chops.

Well, the Black church just closed down.

I chose this church primarily because it's a gay and lesbian church.

Over the years growing up in the South

and being a product of the Southern Baptist church,

it was very restrictive to me, as far as being a Black woman.

And here at Unity, I can bring all of me whenever I come on Sunday.

It was okay.

And such a small word that meant so much — "Okay."

I was okay. After an hour of service, I was home.

This is the place that I belong.

I felt natural, I felt myself, I felt love.

There is a place where we can rejoice, where I can rejoice.

I try as best I can to always get my parishioners

to look at how we are all really alike.

And once you do that,

we can then give and receive healing, one from the other.

- ♪ I'm so glad he prays ♪ - ♪ Are you glad? ♪

- ♪ I'm so glad he prays ♪ - ♪ Are you glad? ♪

- ♪ I'm so glad he prays ♪ - ♪ Are you glad? ♪

- ♪ I'm so glad he prays ♪ - ♪ I'm glad ♪

- ♪ I'm so glad he prays ♪ - ♪ I'm glad ♪

- ♪ I'm so glad he prays ♪ - ♪ I'm glad ♪

- ♪ I'm so glad he prays ♪ - ♪ I'm glad ♪

- ♪ I'm so glad he prays ♪ - ♪ I'm glad ♪

♪ I'm so glad he prays for me ♪

- How are you feeling, Marlon? - I feel a little sort of under today.

My stomach is queasy, but it's getting better.

'Cause I think it might —

People need to know why I'm interviewing you

- and you're lying down in your bed. - Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's like when I eat, if I eat too fast,

my stomach gets bloated and I stop digesting my food.

And I have this sort of bloated, queasy feeling.

So I'm here with a hot pad on my stomach.

That's helping 'cause it's starting to growl and digest.

- How many children did you have? - Fifteen.

- Fifteen? - Yeah, I run out.

Are you serious? Fifteen children?

Uh-huh, 15. Mother of 15.

Hmm. How did you raise that many children?

Oh, they wasn't nothing to raise,

'cause people was planting and raising corn

and sweet potatoes, white potatoes and cane...

and everything they wanted then, they was raising it,

all but the flour.

I raised hogs, cows, chickens,

geese, ducks...

guineas.

- What was that — Uh-oh. - I got him that time.

You got him that time. About time you grabbed him.

I knowed he had to be slow.

- You gonna keep him? - Yeah, he'll make a great steak.

Yeah, I know.

You know, I...

When you asked about family,

ask these kids here, "Who am I?"

I'm their cousin, I'm his cousin, his father is my uncle,

but he raised me so they call me their sister.

Their children call me their auntie, which I'm not.

But this is how close we are.

He calls me Auntie. I'm not his aunt.

His father is my first cousin,

but we come up as loving each other and it brings —

We're all a different generation here.

We're coming together today to celebrate Daddy's tenth anniversary of his death.

And because Mtumishi is the oldest of the family,

Mtumishi is going to give us the cepha, the libation.

It is the tradition of our ancestors

to always give praise to those who have gone before us.

So let us start.

May we always remember Harold St. Julien and all those who have gone before us.

My father was a good man,

had a sense of humor, a great storyteller.

The person who loved me the most as a kid,

I felt, was my grandfather.

Big Mama Vi is dead.

But I remember her so well.

Oh, she was so — She was shorter than me.

His smells fill my nostrils with the scent of happiness.

May our children and our children's children

carry forth with pride the nobility of our history and tradition.

Let's eat.

Family is love.

We all trust each other and love each other like that.

Family to me is just love and support.

It's just love. Just someone that's there for you.

It don't have to be a mother or a father.

It could be your next-door neighbor's grandmama.

For real, it could.

Back then we had a family in the whole community.

We looked out for each other.

If someone butchered a pig, the close people around them,

they would send them a piece of meat.

If their cow's giving milk, or their cow quit giving milk,

they would call over and say,

"Send that boy ahead to get a quart of milk,"

or some eggs, or some peas, or some potatoes.

Now, that is family. That's another family.

My father grew up in Marengo County, Alabama,

um, on the border of Mississippi.

And as a child, I spent summers

with my uncles and aunts who still lived on that land.

I just had so much fun, you know.

Never had to put on a shoe.

We could run for acres and miles

and still be on land that was ours, that was my uncle's and aunt's.

My uncle grew cotton. He grew watermelons. He grew all kinds of greens.

Handed down from generation to generation.

My great-grandfather owned this land from slavery.

Got this land — 40 acres and a mule? This is part of his 40 acres.

It's in your blood.

It's in your blood. You love it, every minute of it.

If you didn't like it, you wouldn't be bothered with this.

It's not just the money,

'cause farming is one of the lowest-paying jobs around.

You're doing it because you like it.

Love it, not like it. Love it.

I think that rural life symbolizes,

for many of us, backwardness,

that perhaps there is a tendency to want to distance ourselves

from, uh, rural, agrarian ways of living

because of its association, for African Americans, with slavery.

But there's also something else there.

There are memories there. There's joy there.

There's, um...

a willingness to remember.

The project, in part, deals with my struggle with AIDS.

And I'm struggling in a deep way now.

Once, when I was visiting my cousins in Baton Rouge,

a friend of theirs upbraided me for trying to talk "proper."

"He don't talk proper," my cousins defended.

"He just from Texas."

When I was a kid, they spoke a language

which we are now trying to preserve,

and they call it Gullah.

It's a part of the English language...

and then again it is different.

If I take you to Land's End right now, some people say,

"Pork it, pit that bat, sho, sho the boy yea."

In Land's End, "Sho the boy yea, sho the boy."

No one can take that from you,

that Gullah language that is with the people who speaks Gullah.

I enjoyed speaking to a young man that was from Africa.

He was here, we sat and drank coffee, we chatted,

and I like the way he spoke because he speak like I do.

Not like I'm doing now.

I mean, in the accent of how our people speak

and myself before.

When I listen to the voices within my family,

I hear the evolution of rhythms and cadences

from generation to generation.

Big Mama still sounds country.

Oh, Lordy, isn't that a shame. How come she don't buy her some...

Mama sounds Black, but not country.

I never cooked as a kid, right?

Never got in the kitchen or anything.

My sister could easily pass for white.

And my boss's daughter is having a baby,

and her daughter's birthday is the 27th and the baby's expected on the 27th.

At Harvard, people often marked me for the difference in my voice.

I didn't sound country, I didn't sound white,

but just as much, I didn't sound Black,

in the way so-called Black English

was spoken at Harvard or elsewhere.

- What's happenin'? - What it is?

- What it be like? - It's all you, my brother.

- Give me five. - Right on.

- Peace out. - Girl, I heard that.

- Stay cool. - Ain't it the truth?

- Yo, yo, yo. - Work that booty.

Bring your tired, Black ass over here.

Get down, get down.

You no-count, frog-faced, lizard-lipped baboon.

- Give me some skin. - It's a Black thang.

Can't you understand? It's a Black thang. Can't you understand?

I was very committed to the civil rights movement,

but I was constantly getting the message that I was not Black enough.

You know how they did that back in those days? They probably still do.

I was not Black enough because I was at an elite school.

I was not Black enough

because I spoke, you know, fairly standard English.

You're acting white, or you're imitating.

You're mindlessly imitating whites, is the critique.

You know, you're doing an Amos 'n' Andy, you're doing a Stepin Fetchit.

There was a time when I felt ashamed almost

of the fact that I had studied in France and studied in Germany, right?

Because we were supposed to be talking about Africa, not Europe.

It's something you can always pull out. I mean, "Why are you wearing shorts?

That's — White people wear shorts."

I mean, you can always use that.

And I know the way I act and the way I talk and the way I think

reflects all the places that I've been, and I've been a lot of places.

There's a sense in which everything we've ever done as Afro-Americans

can be interpreted in that vein,

and so it gets to a point where that critique just doesn't make any sense.

I mean, after all, we are speaking the King's English right now.

When I start speaking, you know...

You're gonna say to me, "Well, you're not really African."

And then when I go down the block

and talk to my man Umbake, who's from Senegal,

and we're both speaking French,

and he is African — he was born in Africa —

and you with your African self can't speak French,

then who's African, and who's African American?

Who's legit and who ain't?

I've heard questions of Blackness raised when Blacks moved into the suburbs, okay.

Um, as we've moved up in the economic system in this country,

some of us, there have been charges —

Well, you know, that person's no longer Black.

They don't come through the hood. They don't even live here.

They live out, you know, 50 miles outside of the city.

They commute in every day. Their kids are going to school with white kids.

"Listen to how their kids talk."

♪ Livin' way out, niggas go home... ♪

There are those who would feel

that some members of the African American middle class

no longer identify with being Black.

But I think when you define what being Black has to do —

It has nothing to do with —

It's not about economics.

It is not about economics. It's really about values.

We know where we've been. We know what we've come from.

We know what we have to contribute.

It's a matter of constantly saying,

how can you in your small way, whatever you do —

It may not be as significant as a Malcolm X or a Martin Luther King,

but what have you done to give back to the Black community?

Perhaps the standard, frightening as it may be,

is the inner city for defining what Blackness is,

that you've got to, you know, constantly be up

on the changes in the hip language, the hip Black language,

the hip Black fashions, the hip Black music.

You've got to use your ghetto experience as, you know, your American Express card.

♪ You only got yourself to blame ♪

♪ Get a grip, Oreo ♪

♪ And be true to the gang ♪

Like, I'm a born, bred, raised Harlemite.

I knew what the hood was probably before most of these kids were born.

And the reality is, do you live your life in struggle

around trying to prove a point

to someone that doesn't really give a damn about your reality,

or do you determine what's important to you?

I will pull out my Blackness and you pull out yours.

I have no problem in defending mine.

And I think I speak for a lot of people in the African American middle class.

Um, you know, you can't live in this society and not be Black.

The society won't let you forget you're Black,

but you don't want to forget you're Black.

Fatigue, nausea, fever, chills.

Strange how we adapt so easily

to extraordinary circumstances.

I've experienced an array of illnesses and infections.

Oral hairy cell leukoplakia, pneumonia,

gastrointestinal bleeding, herpes, anemia, systemic blood infection,

gallstones, respiratory failure, renal failure, heart failure.

The list goes on, and yet I am alive.

Good morning.

At least 30 fires are burning in Los Angeles

after a night of rage in the city's Black community.

Angry mobs set swarms of fires

in the predominantly Black South Central part of the city.

There were so many blazes,

the fire department couldn't respond to all of the calls

and just let some buildings burn to the ground.

At least two firefighters were wounded.

Looting broke out in many neighborhoods before police moved in

and began rounding up suspects.

The show of force began this morning,

as National Guardsmen took up positions in the streets of Los Angeles.

We gotta make a living.

We gotta make a living the best way we can.

If that means by selling dope, I guess we gotta sell dope.

Ain't nobody rich in the ghetto.

Nobody rich in the ghetto.

If we was rich, we wouldn't be here.

I ain't gonna be out here every day, out here gangbanging, man.

After I graduate from high school, I'm going somewhere.

I ain't gonna be out here every day.

There ain't shit out here but pain. Fuck this shit.

If I had a chance to start over again...

I wouldn't — I wouldn't turn down that wrong path.

I'd try to go the right way, get my education.

I wouldn't be here today.

I'd be here today, but I'd be in a right mind.

I wouldn't be gangbanging.

I'd be telling y'all a whole different story about a good life.

It'd be a whole different story. I'd go to this school right here.

See, 'cause right now, I be going to school every day.

Right now, I do not miss school a day. You know what I'm saying?

'Cause I gotta have that education, man.

'Cause the white man is not gonna let you do shit.

A high school diploma ain't nothing no more.

You gotta have a — You gotta master in something.

A high school diploma ain't nothing no more, man.

You can't even work at McDonald's with a high school diploma.

That's why, you know, I'ma try to be something.

And when I get up, I'ma take them with me.

'Cause I don't wanna leave none of my friends or family in the ghetto,

'cause there ain't shit in the ghetto.

Gotta tell the little generation how to grow.

See, nobody told us, "That ain't good for you."

No, they let us grow up to gangbang. It's too late now.

- I ain't saying it's too late — - It ain't never too late.

Yeah, it ain't never too late, but we gotta tell the next generation

before they grow up and be like us, and that ain't even it.

"Don't let it be loneliness that kills us

"If we must die on the front line

"Let us die loved by both sexes

"Don't let it be envy that drives us to suck our thumbs

"Or shoot each other dead over snake eyes

"Let us not be dancing with the wind on heavy corners

"Tattered by doom

"Let us not accept partial justice

"If we believe our lives are priceless

"We can't be conquered

"If we must die on the front line

Don't let loneliness kill us."

This sets the tone for what we're accomplishing.

Bloods and Crips being able to shake hands, go to parks together...

What you're seeing right here is history in the making,

and the tying of the red and the blue knot,

is a significant indication that these brothers and sisters

- want an opportunity to see 1993. - Peace in the neighborhood.

Okay, it took the riot, it took all this and the police beating King

to bring us together, to realize that we just killing ourselves.

We gotta learn to trust to each other.

You know, like they say, this truce, that's where it's gotta begin.

We gotta learn to say, "Okay, man, I know we're done.

Let's start trusting each other.

Let's take that wall down.

Let me help you, my brother. All right?"

But we don't even got no unity yet, man.

You know?

I go to church every Sunday and we talk about unity,

and it's hard to get Christians to have unity.

So, you know, we got to have togetherness, man.

We got to be Black people as one.

We have too many evil allies, I believe myself.

That's why we can't get unity within the Black nation.

I always get this sort of feeling

that when Black people talk about unity and community,

you know, that it's kind of like a turf war thing.

We're gonna get together and this is gonna be our block,

and if you come on our block, we're gonna kick your ass.

And I always think I'm gonna be the one whose ass is gonna get kicked.

I think all Black people have to reconcile themselves

to each other,

to our differences,

and we have to get over the notion that you can only be unified as a people

as long as everybody agrees.

You know, we don't achieve freedom by those means.

Well, one, we've got to conceive of new forms of community,

that we have multiple identities

and we're moving out of various communities all at the same time.

There's no one grand Black community.

It seems to me that we would do well as Black folks

to replace the notion of unity with the notion of communion.

The root meaning of it would suggest

that our union is fundamentally based on a notion

that we must be willing and able to communicate with one another.

Because I think that so often, when Black folks evoke unity,

again, it's the flattening out of differences,

the sweeping certain things under the rug so that we can appear to be alike,

that we hold one stand, that we have one position.

I think communion,

and its connection to the notion of community,

um, might give us greater strength and possibility.

Marlon, what kind of dreams have you been having lately?

Um...

dreams about dialysis.

Um, sometimes dreams in which they're not dreams.

It's like MTV.

I just watch it sort of flashing, different things flashing.

What about this dream that you were having not too long ago,

when you were dreaming about Harriet Tubman?

Mm-hmm.

This is when I was feeling really sick in the ER and so forth.

Um, just her coming and standing by me, not saying anything,

so I had to become aware of her presence.

And then just looking into my eyes,

and then looking at the river in front of us.

- Where were you? - I don't know.

Some dark foresty place with a river running through it.

Um, and kind of running pretty fiercely.

Um, yeah, she didn't say anything. It was with her eyes.

She just looked at me and then turned and looked at the river,

and we started walking.

Harriet and I walked across the river.

And what do you think that dream was about?

Overcoming the present crisis.

I mean, you know, there's gonna be more. I know that.

I'm gonna be laid up in the hospital again.

But as long as I have Harriet

and Black Is... Black Ain't to go traveling with,

I'm gonna cross that river.

If I have work, then I'm not gonna die,

'cause work is a living spirit in me...

that which wants to connect with other people

and pass on something to them

that they can use in their own lives and grow from.

♪ I shall not ♪

I know there'll come a time

when I won't be able to get up out of this bed,

and all we can do is just take me home and let me lie in my bed,

and I can look out the window.

And then it may reach a point where I can't even open up my eyes,

and I'm just, I'm lying there,

and I want my mother and I want my grandmother

and Jack to be there

to hold my hand and to rub my head and feet

and let me die.

♪ I shall not ♪

♪ Be ♪

♪ Removed ♪

If a people is like gumbo, then you might ask, what is the roux?

That special element that binds and gives everything its distinct flavor.

Well, you take some color —

a dash or a big dollop, it don't matter —

and you blend it with an assortment of physical features

that reflect every face you might possibly encounter on this great earth,

mix that up with a culture that just loves

to improvise, signify, reclaim,

renew and read,

and you've got it — the recipe for Black folk.

So I wonder, why is there still so much commotion

when we add a few salt-looking people to the stew.

Black folk been looking like white folk since the first traveler from Europe

bred with the first African woman he encountered.

You let people of different colors and cultures come together,

and they're bound to intermix.

And since nobody is racially pure around here,

what sense does it make for us to split hairs and genes

trying to figure out who's got the true Black blood?

Still, some folks wanna go off

about this one acting too white or that one not being Black enough.

But, honey, let me ask you, what's enough?

And who's to judge?

Haven't we had enough of folks telling other folks

what's proper, how to talk, who to love,

how to dress, wear your hair,

eat, drink, pray, make love, dance?

It is time, my sisters and brethren,

to wake up to a new day,

a new day of community

where what unites us are not some obsolete fictions about race,

but our common purpose of social struggle,

a new day, my beloveds, of good will and communion

and hope and always laughter.

The time is nigh, sisters and brothers!

The statement I would like to leave as my own personal legacy

would be one of faith,

to have faith in each other that we will come through adversities,

whatever they might be.

And here, the adversity is really...

our ability to maintain a sense of communal self.

So, my faith is the belief that we will achieve that...

that, against all odds, we'll come through.

You wanna know my recipe for gumbo?

- Better be good. - Don't waste my time now.

Well, I cut up my onions and my celery,

get out a couple of bay leaves and drop them in the broth.

Put some basil and black pepper in there too.

Then I go to the chicken and begin seasoning it.

Cut up some hot pepper sausage and brown it along with the chicken,

then shell some shrimp.

Chicken and sausage go into the broth,

and I let things simmer.

- Ooh, baby! Stop. - Then I turn to my roux.

Now, every person has a secret about their roux,

and I have mine too, so we'll leave it at that.

After finishing the roux, I mix it in with the simmering chicken,

stirring all the while until the brew begins to thicken.

Then I just go away for a time and let things cook.

About an hour or so, I put in my shelled shrimp,

some oysters, some crabs

and any other seafood I might like until it's all done.

Now that's gumbo.

♪ Lift every voice and sing ♪

♪ Till earth and heaven ring ♪

♪ Ring with the harmonies ♪

♪ Of liberty ♪

♪ Let our rejoicing rise ♪

♪ High as the listening sky ♪

♪ Let it resound ♪

♪ Loud as the rolling sea ♪

♪ Sing a song ♪

♪ Full of the faith That the dark past has taught us ♪

♪ Sing a song ♪

♪ Full of the hope that the present ♪

♪ Has brought ♪

♪ Us ♪

♪ Facing the rising sun ♪

♪ Of our new day begun ♪

♪ Let us march on ♪

♪ Till victory ♪

♪ Is won ♪