Soundtrack ‘63 provides a refresher course on history

11th January 2016   ·   0 Comments

By C.C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Writer

Soundtrack 63 is coming to New Orleans. Co-presented by Junebug Productions and the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) the New York-based multimedia event is slated for the CAC, 900 Camp Street, January 16-18, during the Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration weekend.

“From the Black empowerment songs of James Brown to the outcries for justice for Mike Brown, Soundtrack ‘63 illuminates attention around one of the single most important movements in history, with liberation messages that remain relevant today,” says the CAC.

According to civilrightsvet.org, “The year 1963 was pivotal to the modern Civil Rights Movement. It is often recalled as the year of the March on Washington, but much more transpired. It was a year dedicated to direct action and voter registration and punctuated by moments of political theater and acts of violence. In community after community, mass movements of students and adults rise up to challenge and defy generations of oppression and exploitation….

“Direct action protests erupt in some 115 southern cities and towns, and more than 20,000 demonstrators are arrested for demanding freedom and justice. In retaliation, white racists murder ten people and commit at least 35 bombings. But the effort to intimidate Black citizens with jail, violence, and murder fails….”

Soundtrack ‘63 is a multimedia event, featuring live performances, three video screens, film, still images, animation, music, spoken word, live speeches, hip-hop, rhythm and blues, singing, organic instruments, a DJ, two turntables, a drum machine, and strings and horns. Chen Lo, creative director and Asante Amin, music director, spoke about the production with The Louisiana Weekly. “It is the history of the pivotal moments from the civil rights movements and pays homage to the civil rights challenges confronting African Americans today,” Lo explains.

Audience members will view historic and current film footage, hear and see interviews of civil rights leaders, among those historian Cornel West and author/poet Sonia Sanchez, live speeches, including Dr. Martin L. King, Jr., and live performances by Troy Sawyer, Shaka Zulu, McDonogh 35 Senior High School Gospel Choir, Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets, and Sunni Patterson. Soundtrack ‘63 will also feature 1963 Civil Rights events in New Orleans.

The Soul Science Lab partners created Soundtrack ‘63, after Lo was commissioned to do a piece for New York-based 651 Arts for “Movement 63,” the national celebration of 1963 civil rights events held in Birmingham, Alabama in 2013.

“We’re both educators. We’re telling this story to really help people to understand the depth and breadth of the context and aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement,” Lo continues. Amin is from New Orleans. The musician studied under Edward “Kidd” Jordan at Southern University. “There is no precedence for what Soundtrack ‘63 does for all six of our senses and for young people to be able to relate to it,” Amin adds.

The duo’s goal is to connect the civil rights challenges of the young and the elderly and to inspire and motivate a new generation to continue the work of the Civil Rights Movement. “For one, Soundtrack ‘63 makes a simple statement and begs the question: How far have we come to bring to contemporary times the progress that has been made?

“We want to remove the illusions of all the progress we have made. Yes, that’s true, (we have made progress), but we have been living in an illusion,” explains Lo. “We have to continue to struggle and fight, so that we can manifest another reality. I want to light that fire. Music is our weapon. Maybe people can implement things now.”

“Boom! The truth is compelling, if you can present the facts and evidence. We want people to be inspired to revisit history and think. We don’t have to accept second or third-class citizenship. People are being murdered in the streets. Things are crazy but we can change things by what’s been given to us by our ancestors,” Amin concurs.

The effort to bring Soundtrack ‘63 to New Orleans began in Birmingham, Alabama in 2013, during Movement ’63, a commemoration of the civil rights events of 1963. Central to the event was the 50th Anniversary of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing in Birmingham by Klansmen. The KKK, America’s first organized domestic terrorists, killed four little girls and injured dozens of others. The bombing shocked the world and became a catalyst for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.

“We were in Birmingham in a workshop with People’s Institute & Beyond, reflecting on ’63. Those lessons were important,” says Stephanie McKee, executive director of Junebug Productions. She met Lo and Amin, while hosting Movement 63’s 50th Anniversary of Free Southern Theater (FST). FST co-founder John O’Neal launched FST’s successor, Junebug Productions, which continues to address the civil rights struggles of today.

“We see arts and politics as accompanying forces. Art reflects the culture and works in concert with organizers to do the important work of civil rights,” McKee explains. “How timely this mixed media production is,” McKee says, remembering Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, and Black Lives Matter. “Sadly, some of the same things we faced in 1963, we continue to reflect. How we can move as a collective to address these problems. How do we celebrate the civil rights milestones and confront challenges?”

Saying Soundtrack ‘63 is current and retro seems oxymoronic. But Soundtrack ‘63 is a Sankofa moment frozen for all time, in a multimedia presentation about the Civil Rights Movement in 1963, adorned in a cloak of live music, spoken word, songs of freedom, revolution poetry, battle cries of a weary but not bowed people, an orgasmic, holistic telling of the struggle of a people from then to now, looking back and carrying forward messages that inform the here and now, creating new realities from the struggles of yesterday and today. It is all of that and more.

Freshly retro and eerily contemporaneous, the past, present, immediate future swirl together in the soulful manifestation of a culture born of oppression and repression. Soundtrack ‘63 tells of the rebirth of this nation, the ongoing fight against white supremacy and dominance, and the endless struggle of progressive people for an equal and just American society.

Watch highlights from Soundtrack ’63.

This article originally published in the January 11, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.