“Memories are not the key to the past, but to the future.” — Corrie ten Boom
Memories provide us perspective on understanding the present from the lens of the past. Memories are also a portal to the future as lived experiences and our history are revisited by new generations.
This reminiscence is inspired by Questlove’s documentary film, The Summer of Soul a rediscovery, rescue, and repurposing of the film footage of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, six summer Sundays in 1969, outdoor concerts at Morris Park in NYC. The irony is the concert series occurred the same summer as Woodstock, yet the original filmmakers could not find a distributer for their concert film.
Sly & the Family Stone performing at the Summer of Soul Harlem Cultural Festival
As the current debate about Critical Race Theory and cancel culture occupies the news and social media, and the chasm in our partisan divide grows, we are gifted a look back at our history, both musical and political. It reinforces why it is essential to capture ALL of our history, not simply that of the dominant culture. Corrie ten Boom’s quote which introduces this essay becomes more relevant, “Memories are not the key to the past, but to the future.” So does the following quote by Spanish philosopher George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Nina Simone performing “Backlash Blues” at the Harlem Cultural Festival Summer of Love
A Look Back: Revisiting My Past
I was 19-years-old in 1969. To fully appreciate the lived experience of the time, I begin this reminiscence two years earlier in 1967, during the Summer of Love, the media’s catch phrase for the baby boomers, hippies, and flower children who were dropping out, getting high, and feeling groovy. Cue, The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin Groovy), by Harper’s Bazaar. Many of us were also engaged in the politics of the time, the civil rights and antiwar movement. Cue, The Buffalo Springfield, For What it’s Worth.
Music was both an anthem and soundtrack for our lives. I grew up as a young teen with the Beach Boys, Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and the soul music of the times. Growing up in Racine, Wisconsin, strategically located between Milwaukee and Chicago, we had access to great radio stations, including WKOY and WNOV in Milwaukee and WLS in Chicago.
1967
The summer of 1967 I learned how to dance the boogaloo in a Black church in Milwaukee, it’s “both a dance and musical genre. It’s most popularly a mixture of Latin styles, such as mambo, cha chá, and pachanga, with doo-wop and soul. And it’s upbeat and easy to dance to — a freeform dance where bodies jerk in time to the music.”
Also, that summer, I attended a journalism workshop at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, I was the editor of our the J.I. Case high school newspaper, Just In Case. As soon as I landed in Madison, I knew that someday I would make it my home. I eventually did. I was energized by the political and cultural environment, the antiwar movement, and so much more.
A high school friend, Peggy, convinced me to falsify an I.D. card in 1967 when I was 17-years-old using her sister’s information so I could join her at the beer bars in Kenosha, which at that time you only needed to be 18 to drink in that county. We hung out at Shakey’s singing songs accompanied by the lyrics projected on a screen with a bouncing ball, which predated Karaoke bars, while drinking pitchers of beer and eating pizza, or drank and danced at The Brat Stop. Yes, I was later arrested for a misdemeanor for falsifying an I.D. card. It was not the only time beer and the police were involved in my youth.
Peggy and I often listened to WNOV or WOKY in the car driving back and forth from Racine and Kenosha, Sam and Dave, Soul Man, or the Rolling Stones, I Can’t Get No Satisfaction, singing loudly and soulfully.
1968
Before high school graduation, I learned that instead of attending the University of
Wisconsin – Madison Campus in the fall for which I had been accepted, because of a snafu in my scholarship and work-study package, I would remain in my hometown of Racine in the fall, and attend the University of Wisconsin – Racine Center, which would later become Parkside, bummer!
Sometimes events that at first are life-changing in ways that disappoint, can ultimately be quite the contrary. That fall, in the student union I joined a table of card-playing, long-haired men, hip bell-bottomed women, and Afro and Dashiki-adorned students, ‘rapping’ about music and politics. The auburn, long-haired man with the D’Artagnan good looks holding court would later become my husband, Frank. Later, our rag tag group had our own theme song, Everyday People by Sly and the Family Stone.
We often skipped classes and opted for political discussions, games of hearts, or Star Trek. One time, our eccentric, may I affectionally say ‘crazy’ friend Stan, on a bet involving unknown sums of money, claimed he could steal the student lounge TV during an episode of Star Trek.
Stan, disguised in work coveralls, a hat, and thick rimmed glasses rolled a dolly into the student lounge. Without speaking, and if on a mission, he unplugged the set, lifted it down and strapped it on the dolly while viewers groaned and complained. Stan mumbled something unintelligible yet authoritatively under his breath and casually rolled the dolly and TV out of the student union.
Dick Gregory Bucks
Someone, very likely Stan, introduced our group to Dick Gregory Bucks. Dick Gregory, the Black comedian, civil rights, antiwar, and vegetarian activist, was campaigning for President in 1968 and distributed Dick Gregory for President Bucks for his literature. The ‘bucks’ could be converted to coins in the dollar bill changing machine in the student lounge until “Treasury agents broke into the New York Dick Gregory for President headquarters and seized all the Gregory campaign ‘dollar bills’ they could find. Agents were reported scouring Chicago for the contraband material. The reason given by the government for the seizure was that ‘hippies and other irresponsible young people have been using these in the dollar bill changing machines.’”
Lastly, from a reminiscence first published in First Taste of Freedom:
One day on a dare as we sat bored playing cards in the union, Frank stood up with bravado and stated, “Let’s go to San Francisco.” One of our friends asked, “When?” Without a moment’s hesitation he exclaimed, “Now!” In 1968 “now” was a magical word and living in it was to be admired. The seven of us immediately left the table, not wanting to be the first to bail out of the dare. We all jumped in one car, making stops at each of our banks to withdraw travel money (remember this was a time that pre-dated ATM machines), but didn’t stop at our homes to pack a toothbrush or a change of clothes, how curious.
As we travelled south to Chicago before heading west to California, we smoked a little weed on our way to the Brat Stop in Kenosha for a lunch of beer and bratwurst. Stoned, hungry, and full of ourselves, the reality began to sink in that we were leaving home. As we devoured our brats and downed our tap beers, we waxed sentimental about the things we’d miss most from our home state of Wisconsin. After we finished our lunch, Frank exclaimed, “Enough, let’s hit the road. We’re going to San Francisco!”
It quickly became clear as we got closer to Chicago that this was not a “psyche,” the 1968 equivalent of getting “punk’d.” We were divided into two camps, those ready to turn around and go home and those of us with Frank at the helm, wishing to push on to our destination. When we took a poll, four, including the owner and driver of the car, wanted to return home leaving three of us, Frank, his best friend Charlie and myself committed to forging forward, our paths separating. They drove us to the Chicago Greyhound Bus Terminal in the Loop on the corner of Clark and Randolph and we borrowed most of their cash, capitalizing on their guilt for abandoning the journey.
To read the rest of the story: First Taste of Freedom. Cue up America by Simon & Garfunkel.
1969: The Summer of Soul
Frank and I broke up around the holidays in 1968 and I moved into a series of apartments away from home. The first was with two women roommates and a cat named Whatever above a tavern in Downtown Racine. Our apartment became a hangout for the hippies and we shared our bathroom and kitchen with our neighbors, Russ and Ben, who owned the Leather Shop down the street since their space was not zoned residential and lacked the necessary facilities.
Between the Record Shop downtown on Main Street, Monument Square where people hung out to panhandle and buy weed, and the Leather Shop and our apartment on Sixth Street, we were part of the circuit for the hippies and flower children wannabes. We lost our lease when one of our friends was tripping on LSD and walked into our landlord’s bar downstairs, naked!
Monument Square Racine, WI Postcard
The summer of soul, my friend with benefits, Tommy and I, panhandled for a couple of days to collect enough money to travel to an Arts & Music Festival in Woodstock, NY. At that time, we had no clue it would become the event that it did. We failed to collect the money we needed for tickets, instead we went to movies, smoked pot, got arrested for loitering at Monument Square, and filled Tommy’s VW Bug with gas. He turned the front passenger seat around to face the back and we picked up hitchhikers for the price of a joint to share. My job was to both entertain and keep my eye on them.
At the end of the summer of soul, Frank and I reconciled and we returned to school. I dropped out again when we became active in both the civil rights and antiwar movement while participating in the teach-ins and marches for the October Moratorium Against the War in Vietnam.
Music, culture, and politics were always at the center of our lives.
Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
1968: Flashback & Fast Forward
Beach Boys, Beatles, Bob Dylan & The Byrds
Additional Reading on the Summer of Soul
Summer of Soul Review: In 1969 Harlem a Music Festival Stuns