The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (7/10)

January 23rd, 2012

For some reason, Sweden in the late sixties/ early seventies was rather preoccupied with America. Maybe it was because Sweden has, by and large, been uncontroversial, typically Scandinavian, detached and happy to be so. Anyway, Swedish journalists were terribly interested in the emergence of black power, a cause started as we all know by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and continued by his enthusiastic disciples. This documentary pieces together all the footage from an eight-year period, filmed dispassionately and without bias, and was of great interest to me – mostly.

Dr King encouraged non-violence. That, to young leader Stokely Carmichael, was only good if the oppressors had a conscience. The United States, he said, did not. In order to actively promote black equality, one had to fight for it. Tooth and nail, gun against gun. Carmichael’s one of the first we see speaking here, and a more charismatic figure you’re never likely to see. He spoke sense even when suggesting unlawful activities. If you’re going to be attacked anyway, might as well get the first shot in. There’s a rather charming scene where Carmichael interviews his own mother, coaxing her gently into admitting that her husband was laid off regularly because of the colour of his skin.

From Carmichael, we move on to the Black Panther movement, Angela Davis, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale et al. Davis’s case was interesting. A radical, intelligent woman, she was banged up and charged with accomplice to murder for owning the guns used in a kidnap/ransom case that went wrong. Governor Reagan wanted her jailed for life; luckily this did not materialise. Our intrepid Swedes caught up with Davis while still inside, and her interview is frank and honest. The interviewer asks whether she approves of violence and is totally unprepared for her answer. It’s fair to say she was for it.

It’s fair to say that the years 1967-1972 were of the most interest to me simply because I believe in equality, and the only way we’re going to get it is by compromise. I’m a supporter of King, of Carmichael, of Malcolm X, of everyone up until Screwy Louis Farrakhan, and watching them in both public and intimate surroundings was fascinating and inspiring. However, 1973 brings us the second part of the documentary.

There’s a bookstore in Harlem that sells only black-themed tomes. Its owner, Lewis Michaux, snorts at the idea of black power. ‘Knowledge is power’, he says, suggesting that the mere raising of a clenched fist really isn’t worth much. Alas, the words ring true. Drugs began to proliferate into black communities (the suggestion from some interviewees is that these drugs were FBI-sponsored) and you really don’t want to join a revolution if you’re stoned, unless the revolution is for 50% off Domino's. I’ve got no time for drugs, and much less for those that use them, so my interest waned.

The Black Power Mixtape, quite literally a found-footage documentary, is a cold, dispassionate, outsider’s look at the internal war America found herself involved in at precisely the same time she was also embroiled in the hugely unpopular Vietnam conflict. I suspect the doc may have more resonance on those who lived through, and remember vividly, the times we’re dealing with here, but regardless of that there are questions here that still, forty years later, have not been answered to anyone’s satisfaction and there are issues – many issues – still unresolved.