It’s a strange anniversary. February 21, 1965 was a Sunday. On that date, sixty years ago, I was in Harlem doing a concert with two friends I’d been playing with on and off for the previous three years. Typically, they were a duo, but they asked me to join and make a trio for the material they wanted for this concert. The primary piece they were interested in was a compilation called “The Civil War Trilogy.”
I was into my days as a Village folksinger, but this material was far from my typical fare. I was all bluesy, and this all belonged to the earlier folk revival stuff of five and six years previous. But it was a fun gig with some old friends from the days before I had been expelled from George Wahington High School. Before expulsion, I had joined them often on stage for performances. But had never expected that it would switch from performing for fun to performing for a marginal living. They were still performing for fun. That afternoon, I was taking my most lucrative day of the week off to perform for free in a Baptist church in Harlem.
Who expects a concert will turn into a night you’ll remember sixty years later? I certainly didn’t. We performed to an eager and appreciative audience, but an interruption came towards the concert’s end. Malcolm X had been assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom just a few miles away. That was the end of the concert. The congregation grew concerned for the safety of the performers. John was African-American and on home turf, but Jerry and I were white-ish and needed to use the subway to get home. The pastor deemed it too dangerous for us to leave. Eventually, a plan developed to move us by alleyway and interconnected basement to a safe place to spend the night.
The next morning an escort accompanied us out of the area.
I never performed with my friends again, and I’ve only rarely told this story before. It’s true.
Years later, I shared my tale with a friend active in the civil rights movement. He asked me if being on the far edges of history affected me. I told him it had shown me that the sense of something happening at a remove is a fallacy. I was protected even if there was no immediate threat. The lesson was double: good people do get involved, and that sense that you are alone and not involved is a luxury that can be swept away instantly.
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Such an empowering experience. That’s what you call humanity in action!
No wonder you can’t forget that night. It was such a momentous time in history too. That night, were you afraid for yourself and your bandmate, or did you feel safe enough but decide to trust your hosts?
I love both of the lessons you found, and I’m grateful you shared them today. I am struggling. Yesterday was a terrible day for me, as I absorbed more news of our political upheaval, and at the same time learned more about my own physical condition. Your message today is timely and hopeful. Hugs.
I think at the time I was uncertain. It was a developing situation, and our hosts were much more concerned than my bandmates, but they knew their community better than we did. It took me until the Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations to realize how seriously askew our social situation was going.
I find myself linking the pieces of the past with what’s going on today and find that the level of moral, and political cowardice in among our leaders is higher than ever. Perhaps that’s why the sixtieth anniversary seems so important. Malcolm, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were so brave, and the current crop is so cowardly, amoral, and interested in seeking cover.
On another issue I am sorry that you are having physical problems.
Thank you for this thoughtful response, Lou. And thank you for your final comment. I’m ok. I have some kind of cough for two months now and I’m exhausted, and there’s no real diagnosis, and it makes me grumpy, and has triggered my PTSD for some dumb reason and…. yeesh. ha ha. On the grand scale of things, I’m fine.
Unease with breathing tends to trigger anxiety. There is little else as essential as good and comfortable breathing. Since I developed asthma I’ve learned this.
Lou, I have come to have a great appreciation for how bad it must be to suffer with asthma. It’s nothing short of terrifying when I can’t breathe. I have never gone so long with the threat of not being able to breathe with me each day. To have this as a permanent condition would take superheroes to learn to live with. You are so strong.
You learn to watch symptoms very closely, and watch for things that trigger symptoms. And, very importantly, keep on trying to live a normal life. Hang in there, Crystal!
I love this.
Thanks.
Wow. I would never forget that, either. I like the “moral of the story” too which comes across to me as “be there when you’re needed.”
That was before my time, but having studied the civil rights struggle since, Malcolm is far and away the chap I most identify with. I couldn’t have been a pacifist at that time.