James Brown Dies Black – and Proud

I grew up in the Jams Brown era and my favorite songs are - Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud and I Feel Good. My favorite part of the second song goes something like this (loud shocking voice) “Ahhhhhhhh! I feel good”. From time to time I have been responsible for people and significant numbers of computers. I have been known to have this few second feel good audio clip, added to the start up file of the Personal Computers. So, literally, as the PC is turned on in the morning, the user is greeted with – I FEEL GOOD! –. I believe JB the humanist, would have approved of making computers feel good too.

That is what James Brown did, make people feel good with his powerful musical energy. He put the UNK in funk!

Al Sharpton said. "What James Brown was to music in terms of soul and hip-hop, rap, all of that, is what Bach was to classical music.

December 25 Christmas morning, I was shocked like everyone else who heard the news of brother Brown’s transitioning. I passed the word to my family at home as I saw them in the morning and JB was remembered around the Christmas dinner table. My brother in-law Professor Vega was their expanding my Cultural Literacy as usual, making sure I understood the larger context of I’m Black and I’m Proud. He said, Black and Proud came out when the Civil Rights Legislation was coming into existence, which, lead to African Americans going to collages in greater numbers. This was the dawn of the Black studies programs and a new consciousness in our people. His words took me back to Dr. King and Malcolm and all that was going on back then.

IMHO JB was the musical artist with the greatest Cultural Health impact in the history of America. In 1968 he released the national hit I’m Black and I’m Proud. What a cultural milestone, before his song, African Americans were Colored or Negroes, after his song we were Black and proud.

To understand the important of that one song, you have to understand that the concept of Blackness had been beaten out of Black people here in America for more then four hundred years. You remember the TV movie Roots, (that we can no longer see on TV) where the European enslaver beat an enslaved African near to death, to make him give up is African name and take on a European name. Cultural terrorists systematically and effectively deleted African names and the very concept of ancestral pride in Blackness. The Cultural Poisoning Program “Negro” replaced the great history, worldview and pride of the people formally known as Black People.

The legacy of our ancestors who first brought the word Black into recorded history during Classical African Civilization had been erased from the minds of Africans in America. In fact, for one Black person to call another Black was occasion for a fight. In the sixties you could still here the symptoms of Cultural Poisoning from Great American leaders like Dr. King. It was common to here him refer to himself and his people as Negroes.

The Image Poisoning in Black people was so great, it was said, that all the kings horses and all the kings men could not put it back together again. And here comes James Brown, with one song he deleted the Culturally Poisoned “Negro” Program from the minds of men, and restored the more culturally healthy Black program. What is truly remarkable is that he did this not just for his own people but also for all Americans and the world. This was a cultural feat unmatched in the history of music by any musical artist.

Yes, we now mark the transition of our honorable ancestor, who was given the name Brown, but died Black and proud. Thank you my brother.



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AP/NV Godfather of Soul' James Brown Dies



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