“Yours in the Struggle”

I was watching an MTV special recently about the history of rhythm and blues. I was washing dishes and couldn’t see the screen so I couldn’t tell whether it was Curtis Mayfield or someone talking about him. Whoever it was made the outrageous claim that Mayfield’s “message” music made the movement happen. A stronger case could be made for the SNCC Freedom Singers, the Georgia Sea Island Singers, Guy Carawan, Pete Seeger, Bernice Reagon, the Free Southern Theater, or even Bob Dylan. All of these were among those involved in and committed to the movement.

There’s no question that Mayfield is an important figure in American popular music, but this assertion is upside down! The movement compelled its artists to remarkable accomplishments just like it drafted its leaders to their roles. Not only did the movement provide the creative impulse that was celebrated in these “message songs,” the movement created the market that the recording industry sought to exploit and gain a measure of influence over.

Artists do make startling predictions sometimes, but our ruminations are still reflections on our experiences. The aesthetic process and its products are inseparable from history, economics, and politics (politics being the process by which we make decisions about our collective life). Along with the greater consideration of the nature and challenges of our spiritual life, politics, history and economics provide the content that art celebrates or cautions us about.

Life is a constant process of change and development. Sometimes things move along in small, hardly perceptible steps. Then sudden, dramatic leaps occur. The temperature of the water over a flame changes slowly in barely noticeable degrees before it suddenly bursts into steam. When society goes through extreme states like this, extraordinary art is one result.

The movement of the ’60’s was just such a time. In the broad sweep of history I expect that other things like the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the great migration will prove to be more important. The coming struggle to bring down racism and injustice will be more important still. Yet the movement of the 60s marked a critical period of transition. Much of what happened is reflected in the art from that era.

There is cruel irony in the fact that, despite the transformative impact of the civil rights movement, racism, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, continues its deadly rampage. By comparative measures, the vast majority of African Americans are worse off in 1997 than we were in 1957. We are more uneducated, more underemployed, more unemployed and more incarcerated. We are less healthy, die younger, and have more inadequate housing. We are more confused, frustrated and hopeless — and nobody seems to care. To borrow from the blues standard, “Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jiving too.”

I’m working on a new play right now. Recently I came to the conclusion that this play will be about the movement and will be addressed to my daughter, Wendi, my son, William, and others of their age group. Some of them have claimed the term “Hip-Hop” to describe themselves. They are among the most energetic who affirm the bond between the culture of oppressed people and resistance. I hope the play will help to strengthen the quality of their contribution to the ongoing liberation struggle. If the play is to be effective, those to whom it is addressed must identify with people and themes in the play.

So I asked my son to help me to gather stories from his peers and to lead me in conversation with them. I was pleased that he was willing to do so and seemed to be proud that I asked. If this first foray into the culture of the “Hip Hop Nation” is mutually beneficial, I will continue on the path. The working title for the play is “yours in the struggle.”

I don’t know who started it, but somebody in SNCC started closing their letters with “yours in the struggle.” The phrase became the epistolary equivalent of a clenched fist raised high in defiance or pressed to the heart with reverence and resolution, “yours in the struggle.” It seems to fit the idea for the play. I proceed in the faith that the play will be useful to the hip hop generation. I hope this is useful to them too.

yours in the struggle,

john

A New Orleans-based actor, writer and activist, John O’Neal was a cofounder of the Free Southern Theater, a cultural arm of the civil rights movement. He is known to Southern Exposure readers for being the conduit for stories of struggle and survival, as told by Junebug Jabbo Jones. A longer version of this essay is published in A Sourcebook on African-American Performance, edited by Annemarie Bean (Routledge, 1999). Reprinted by permission.