OPINION | REVIEW: Found footage from Harlem Cultural Festival pulls racial, political tensions into the sunlight

A soulful summer

Hot fun in the summertime: Gladys Knight & the Pips perform at the Harlem Cultural Festival in “Summer of Soul (… Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised).”
Hot fun in the summertime: Gladys Knight & the Pips perform at the Harlem Cultural Festival in “Summer of Soul (… Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised).”

There's something exciting about discovering a long-lost treasure. You've stumbled across something valuable, and you feel a rush because time or circumstance has kept you from it.

There's also a sense of sorrow because it was lost in the first place. In the case of the footage unearthed in Ahmir-Khalib "Questlove" Thompson's debut film "Summer of Soul (... Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)" some breathtaking performances from musicians like Nina Simone and Mahalia Jackson sat buried for decades, long after they had died.

"Summer of Soul" documents a series of concerts held in what's now Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem in 1969. A lounge singer named Tony Lawrence convinced some A-list talent like a 19-year-old Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Sly and the Family Stone and others to play in the park. Maxwell House Coffee sponsored the event, and 300,000 people showed up. Walter Cronkite even announced the festival during a broadcast that also covered the Apollo 11 moon landing.

If you've never heard of the Harlem Cultural Festival, there's no need to feel bad. Musa Jackson, who attended at age 5, has spent much of his life wondering if his vivid memories are just a fantasy. That feeling of "did this happen at all" frames "Summer of Soul" and gives the movie some historical and emotional weight it might not have had otherwise.

Thompson does more than simply trim down 40 hours of sonic platinum so that it looks and sounds great in an IMAX auditorium (I saw the movie on my iPad and on the big screen) or at home. The movie vividly recounts the tensions in America that led to the music.

The Festival took place a year after the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. and during a heroin epidemic. Oh, there was also a war going on in Vietnam. As the attendees point out, Harlem wasn't a joyless place, but you didn't have to look far to see suffering and injustice. It was also the first time The New York Times stopped referring to Black people as "negroes."

Many of the performances, especially Nina Simone's, were overtly political, and Jesse Jackson acted as sort of a guest MC. The joy and pain in the music did not emerge from a vacuum.

Those who think that America is uniquely divided now are probably right, but "Summer of Soul" reveals that polarization has plagued our country far longer than we like to admit.

Lawrence and company seem to have been better organizers than the people who handled Woodstock or The Rolling Stones' infamously disastrous free concert at Altamont Speedway. The crowds are jubilant and orderly and include whole families. Perhaps if the Stones had trusted the Black Panthers for security, as the Harlem Cultural Festival did, instead of Hell's Angels, history might remember its show differently.

Television guru Hal Tulchin ingeniously placed the stage at a certain location in the park so that the sun could keep it lit. He didn't have the budget for an elaborate lighting system. With Stevie Wonder's drum solo, he didn't need one.

"Summer of Soul" will certainly give older viewers a sense of nostalgia, but it gives everyone the realization that great things can emerge with effort and luck. We'll probably always live with injustice, but there are moments when people can address it in constructive ways. Great music is certainly a wonderful first step.

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‘Summer of Soul (… Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)’

90 Cast: Stevie Wonder, Jesse Jackson, Mahalia Jackson, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Sly and the Family Stone, David Ruffin, The Staples Singers

Director: Ahmir-Khalib “Questlove” Thompson

Rating: PG-13, for some disturbing images, smoking and brief drug material.

Running time: 1 hour, 57 minutes

Playing theatrically and on Hulu

Lucille!? B.B. King plays a red (instead of his usual black) Gibson ES-335 at the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969, a moment captured in the film “Summer of Soul (… Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised).”
Lucille!? B.B. King plays a red (instead of his usual black) Gibson ES-335 at the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969, a moment captured in the film “Summer of Soul (… Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised).”

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