Jazz in paint

It is February, and one of the things that this month is known for is Black History Month. Last year I wrote a bit about why we celebrate Black History Month. One of the ways to observe or celebrate, is to honor the achievements of artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers. Our library has a number of books and DVD’s that focus on events in history. We have fiction from great writers such as Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Richard Wright and James Baldwin, among others. Jazz from Miles Davis, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.

 

Speaking of Miles Davis, did you know that he was an artist as well? Come check out his work in the book, Miles Davis: The Collected Artwork. It is a fascinating look at his oeuvre, and style that very much like his music, did not follow contemporary trends.

Here is an excerpt from a conversation between James Baldwin and Margaret Mead that took place in 1970. The topics covered included guilt and responsibility, identity and the immigrant experience. In this excerpt that deals with responsibility, Baldwin and Mead discuss how important the past is in shaping responsibility.

                        BALDWIN: A man’s life doesn’t encompass even half a

                        thousand years. And whether or not I like it, I am

                        responsible for something which is happening now and

                        fight as hard as I can for the life of everybody on this

                        planet now.

                        […]

                        MEAD: The more one wants to be an activist the narrower the time is.

                        BALDWIN: Precisely! Precisely!

                        MEAD: What the kids say … if you cut out all the past —

                        BALDWIN: You can’t.

                        […]

They are acting in the past. They don’t know it. It takes a long time to realize that there is a past… It takes a long time to understand anything at all about what we call the past — and begin to be liberated from it. Those kids are romantic, not even revolutionaries. At least not yet. They don’t know what revolution entails. They think everything is happening in the present. They think they are the present. They think that nothing ever happened before in the whole history of the world.