On the Shoulders of Giants Read online

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  This book is dedicated to those who had the courage and resolve to participate in the great migration of black people to the cities of North America. The oppressive and often brutal atmosphere of the southern United States and the Caribbean basin motivated these brave Americans to find a place in the world where they could thrive. The promise of America’s founding fathers—to allow people to enjoy “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”—was profoundly challenged by their ambition. Their presence determined whether or not the goals of the founding fathers would ever apply to all Americans. Starting in the 1920s, blacks brought their lives and hopes to the cities of America’s northern tier in their quest to achieve the American dream. It is to these pioneers that this book is dedicated. Their sacrifices have borne fruit. All black Americans owe them in so many ways; and our nation would have been so much less without them. Their spirit marches on.

  KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR

  To my wife, Loretta, a brilliant writer and teacher, whose insights and suggestions make me a better writer. And to my children, Max and Harper, who made me want to write this book with the hope that it would provide more shoulders to stand on so they could see farther than I have.

  RAYMOND OBSTFELD

  Contents

  Foreword by Quincy Jones

  Introduction: Our Future or Our Fate

  “Some Technicolor Bazaar”: How Harlem Became the Center of the Universe

  “Mad Medley”: How Harlem Influenced My Life

  “Master Intellects and Creative Giants”: The “Talented Tenth” Paint the World Black

  “The Gifts That My Ancestors Gave”: How Harlem Writers Influenced My Life

  “Fairness Creeps out of the Soul”: Basketball Comes to Harlem

  “Hoping Against Hope”: How the Rens Basketball Team Influenced My Life

  “Musical Fireworks”: Jazz Lights Up the Heavens of Harlem

  “Everything Was Mostly Fun”: How Jazz Influenced My Life

  Photo Credits

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgments

  Index

  Foreword:

  C’mon, Get Happy

  By Quincy Jones

  Most people get it wrong. History isn’t about showcasing the differences between us and those who lived before us so that we can feel superior; it’s about revealing the similarities so we can feel gratitude and humility. Look around. See that guy with the ear-buds and iPod jogging by? See that woman driving next to you, her head bobbing to the radio? How about those children on the playground gleefully dancing to the CD their teacher is playing on the boom box? What they have in common with the generations of people who came before them—before there were iPods, or radios, or CDs—is a passion for music.

  Russian writer Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace) said, “Music is the shorthand of emotion.” I’d go Leo one better and say, “Music is the shortcut to happiness.” A recent poll of Americans about happiness asked what actions they took when trying to improve their mood. In other words, what did they do to get happier? Most said they sought the company of family and friends. But surprisingly, nearly as many said they played music in order to cheer up. In third place was prayer or some form of communication with God. From this we can see that people rely on music for more than just background wallpaper, it is a source of happiness—perhaps even spiritual fulfillment. This happiness isn’t the result of eardrum-busting volume or finger-snapping beats; it’s the articulation of emotions that express clearly what a person is feeling but is unable to put into words. Having those emotions expressed is liberating for a person and therefore makes him or her happier. That desire to be able to express our feelings, and the sense of fulfillment we feel when a song helps us do that, is what we share with the cave-dwellers who pounded on animal hides and danced around a fire, with the bejeweled audiences listening to the swelling sounds of a symphony, and the kid on the stoop improvising a little dance as he listens to the latest tune he downloaded. Music is the only thing on the planet that affects the right and left side of the brain simultaneously—the emotion and intellect.

  In On the Shoulders of Giants, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar does something no other book of the Harlem Renaissance has done before. He makes the connection between an enormously important time in America, and especially African-American history, and our lives today. He shows how black-faced minstrel shows resulted in the stand-up comedy of Redd Foxx, Eddie Murphy, and Chris Rock. He shows how the political activism of W. E. B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, and Marcus Garvey inspired Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. He shows how the innovative and daring artistry of Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, and Ma Rainey made possible the music of Prince, Alicia Keys, and Bob Dylan.

  Beyond the history lesson, though, Kareem offers an intimate account of how the Harlem Renaissance affected him personally and helped shape the kind of man he has become. He details how the values, accomplishments, and dreams of those giants of the Harlem Renaissance influenced his own values, motivated his own accomplishments, and still guide his dreams for his future and the future of his community.

  In other words, Kareem shows us why we should feel gratitude and humility.

  Introduction:

  Our Future

  or Our Fate

  Our youth can be our fate or our future. If young people embrace
Black culture, ground themselves in it, and feel compelled to continue the legacy, then they are our future. But if they turn their backs on their Blackness, if they have contempt for their fathers and mothers, if they do nothing but engage in self-congratulatory narratives and music about themselves and imagine that they are actually any threat to this society or that they have any future in it simply by talking negative, then they are not our future; they are our fate.

  scholar, co-organizer of the Million Man March,

  and Kwanzaa founder RON KARENGA (quoted in BAKARI KITWANA’SThe Hip Hop Generation)

  A reporter once asked me, “If you hadn’t become a professional basketball player, what other profession would you have chosen?” I’ll never forget the shocked look on his face when I answered, “A history teacher.”

  Yes, you read right. A history teacher.

  My interest in history isn’t idle curiosity about who inflicted what bloody atrocity on whom; that’s merely sordid gossip about the dead. To me, history is a living road map that allows us to see where others have been, what mistakes they’ve made, and how we can avoid those same mistakes ourselves. Even better, we also see what others have done well and can embrace their triumphs. We can let their accomplishments inspire us to be greater. We do that same thing with members of our family—avoiding mistakes our parents made, following in professions in which they’ve been successful—so for me, history is like my extended family. Aunt Harriet Tubman. Uncle Frederick Douglass. Cousin Miles Davis.

  Sir Isaac Newton, one of history’s most significant scientists, put his own world-changing accomplishments in a modest perspective when he wrote, “If I have seen further [than other men], it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.” Now, because I stand seven feet two inches, most people probably think I can see just fine without standing on anyone’s shoulders.

  They’d be wrong.

  My height is a matter of genetics. Can’t take any credit there. But who I am, how I see the world, and what impact I want to have on others in my community—that all comes from my heart and brain. And what my heart feels and my brain thinks have been shaped by the many “giants” in my life. Most people can point to the important giants who helped influence their development. Usually it’s parents, grandparents, teachers, and religious leaders. Same thing holds true for me. My father taught me to have passion for jazz and basketball, and my mother taught me to have compassion for others. And, because I’ve always had a keen interest in history, I’ve had the additional advantage of a whole range of giants from the past. Their thoughts, their accomplishments, and even their mistakes have helped me choose the paths I’ve walked in my life.

  Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson, known as the Father of Black History, once said, “Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.” One time and place in history provided a powerful inspiration to me. Between 1920 and 1940, in the Harlem section of New York City, some of this country’s greatest artists, musicians, writers, actors, and athletes were engaged in a cultural revolution that would change America forever. This time was called the Harlem Renaissance because, like the sixteenth-century Italian Renaissance of Michelangelo and Raphael, it redefined an entire culture. These men and women were determined to change how white America viewed people of color, and as a result of their dedication and raw talent, they produced some of the most influential works and accomplishments in American history. The Harlem Renaissance was like a tidal wave washing through history, especially African-American history, and as a teenager, I was caught up in that massive wave. It swept me along, as it did many other black men and women, and made us what we are today: proud and successful African-Americans who, because we know exactly where we came from, also know exactly where we want to go. We proudly and humbly acknowledge the shoulders we have stood upon to see our future road, and we now stand ready to be those same strong shoulders for others. Hopefully, this book will act as a set of tall and mighty shoulders.

  American philosopher George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” True enough. But the corollary to that is that those who don’t know their own history will never see the potential for what they could be. Plenty of people will tell you what you can’t do, what you should never hope to accomplish, and why you shouldn’t even try. If people listened to such naysayers, nothing would ever get accomplished. Before 1954, conventional wisdom held that it was impossible for a human to run the mile faster than four minutes. Then Britain’s Roger Bannister ran it in 3:59.4. A month later, Australian John Landy ran it in 3:57.9. The current record is held by Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj, who ran it in 3:43.13. Every time someone does something remarkable like that, we all have to acknowledge that we have the same spark within us. Maybe it won’t be a four-minute mile, maybe it’ll be a poem or painting or a hook shot you never thought you were capable of doing. Until you saw others do it.

  The Harlem Renaissance contributed to the man I am today—and the man I hope to be tomorrow. Opening the door to that period of history opened many subsequent doors to guide me. The Harlem Rens basketball team helped me see the kind of athlete I could become. Jazz musicians like Duke Ellington and Bessie Smith helped me enjoy the pleasures of uniquely black music and use that as a sound track to celebrate my place in the black community. Writers like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston encouraged me to love the written word and inspired me to write books of my own. Such as this one.

  So, how did I come up with the idea for this book and its unique structure? Aside from my family, I have four major passions that define who I am. First, I was born in Harlem, which has been the capital city of the African-American community since the start of the Harlem Renaissance back in the 1920s. More important to me than anything else I do, or have ever done (yes, including basketball), is my active participation in improving the lives of and opportunities for all members of the black community. Second, I love basketball. I love the camaraderie and sense of communal purpose I get from working with dedicated teammates toward a common goal. Equally important, basketball provided me and other black athletes with a national and international stage from which to shatter racial stereotypes. Third, jazz is an original African-American art form, so my passion for it is both because of the intensity and playfulness of the music, as well as its importance in black history. I like the idea that all my fondest memories will be orchestrated by a music that links my personal history with the history of my ancestors. Fourth, part of my participation in both the African-American and American cultures is to communicate what I’ve learned from my unique perspective of interacting with some of the most influential members of both. To use words to create a giant set of shoulders that any reader could climb aboard.

  This book focuses on those passions by tracing their origins in the Harlem Renaissance that so inspired me. “ ‘Some Technicolor Bazaar’: How Harlem Became the Center of the Universe” details the rise of Harlem as the Black Mecca. Millions of blacks migrated from the South and West Indies to live in what they saw as a new and attainable Promised Land. “ ‘Master Intellects and Creative Giants’: The ‘Talented Tenth’ Paint the World Black” presents the brilliant minds behind the Harlem Renaissance, from the intellects that formulated its philosophy to the writers who embodied its spirit. Through their works of literature, they made white America see black Americans in a whole new light. “ ‘Fairness Creeps out of the Soul’: Basketball Comes to Harlem” recounts the exploits of one of the greatest basketball teams ever to play, the Renaissance Big Five, commonly known as the Rens. Despite relentless racism, they defeated the best black and white teams in the country, amassing one of the most astounding records in the history of the game. There is no doubt that they made it possible for me to be as successful as I was. “ ‘Musical Fireworks’: Jazz Lights Up the Heavens of Harlem” follows the evolution of jazz from its modest birth in the slave songs of the South to its adoption
as the music of choice of the Jazz Age.

  The unique structure of On the Shoulders of Giants is an acknowledgment of and homage to African-American history. The chapters are arranged in a call-and-response format, traditional to West African cultures, where it was used in public gatherings to discuss local politics and in religious rituals. African music would use the same call-and-response as a way to mimic human voices and vocal interaction. Slaves brought this means of expression to the Americas, where it became a staple in their community gatherings as well as in their religion and music. Gospel music, the blues, and jazz all use call-and-response, in which one musician will play a melodic phrase and a second musician will respond to that phrase, as if they were having a dialogue. When a preacher makes a statement and the congregation shouts back, that’s call-and-response. When a dramatic scene takes place in a movie and the audience hollers at the screen, that’s call-and-response. In this book, each chapter describes one particular aspect of the Harlem Renaissance that was significant in influencing me—then I respond to that chapter with a personal narrative about how those historical events helped shape the choices I made and the person I have become. And am still becoming.

  In the epigraph that begins this introduction, the brilliant African-American scholar Ron Karenga says, “Our youth can be our fate or our future.” Something is our fate when we blindly stumble into it without having any control. But the future is something we first envision and then go about creating—if we know what we want and how to get there.

  Let’s go back to the Harlem Renaissance now and stand on those magnificent shoulders. And see how far you’ll be able to see ever after.

  “Some Technicolor

  Bazaar”

  How Harlem Became

  the Center of the Universe

  Harlem!…Its brutality, gang rowdyism, promiscuous thickness. Its hot desires. But, oh, the rich blood-red color of it! The warm accent of its composite voice, the fruitiness of its laughter, the trailing rhythm of its “blues” and the improvised surprises of its jazz.