Monday Whatevers: Ode to Soul!
September 26, 2022
Hello, Friend!
It’s Monday, so… inspired by on one of my favorite bits of the Bible, let’s start every week off with a little bit of whatever’s good and noble in the world.
Blessings,
Marcie
Saturday night I finally got around to watching the HBO’s Emmy-nominated and Peabody Award winning documentary Mr Soul!
Once or maybe twice in your life, you experience something that takes you out of your body while you’re watching it for the first time. When you return to your body it’s like your whole self underwent a head-to-toes, ceiling-to-floor renovation. In a matter of a couple of hours, your whole world is made new – for better or for worse. By the end of it, you’re a little bit better because of all the worse things you never knew before the opening credits started to roll.
The worse for me was that I never knew PBS’s Soul! and it’s co-creator and host, Ellis Haizlip, existed. The even worse for me is that I don’t know if my parents or grandparents or older siblings even knew the show existed. In fact, had they known, my whole childhood, full of whispers and accusations against my Black skin, would’ve been different, brighter, and a whole lot better.
In a nutshell, both Ellis Haizlip and the show embodied everything about Black people that was, and still is, true, honest, just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellent, and worthy of praise. It was unabashedly and unashamedly oozing with all things Black and beautiful. It was Black love, Black power, Black intellect, Black giftedness and Black gorgeousness dressed in bell bottoms, pastel leisure suits, daishikis, head wraps, and perfectly symmetrical afros, all washed in every melanin hue of the rainbow.
I know there’s been a lot of debate about whether Black people can be elves and mermaids, etc., but really, it’s not about that. I’m not surprised that people can’t picture us in the imaginary and mythical worlds that don’t exist because those same people can’t picture us simply being ourselves in our very real world. At least, they can’t imagine us enjoying our Black reality without Whiteness somehow feeling threatened. The truth is our stories have always been censored whenever we’ve tried to color outside the lines of a White-normative/dominant narrative.
Soul! aired for five years and featured a collection of poets, musicians, dancers, pianists, actors and activists of the Black Arts Movement. Each episode had a different theme such as The Elements or Wonderlove or Black Fire or Shades of Soul. It had a nearly all-Black audience which was something few Black performers ever experienced. While performers like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Frank Sinatra rarely performed live on TV shows for anyone other than an audience of their peers, performers like Sly and the Family Stone, The Temptations and Nina Simone often performed for before white audiences. The difference is so poignant, it hurts a little to realize how often my heroes had to perform while explaining their worth.
In 1973, Soul! was cancelled expressly because it was beloved and exuded love in a world that didn’t believe that any shade of Blackness was worthy or capable of love. Our government stopped its funding because Nixon and many many many white people couldn’t abide with Blackness existing for its own pleasure.
Last night I watched Mr. Soul! and wondered what the world could have been if Blackness were allowed to be beautiful without the retaliation of the spiteful, worrying White gaze Toni Morrison warned us about. And I was mad and sad and so very, very proud of this show that was lost but now found.
“The primary purpose of Soul! is neither to educate nor entertain, but to give people a chance to share in the Black experience. The show must do that first. Then it can educate and entertain. Soul! makes Blacks visible in a society where they have been largely invisible.”
—-Ellis Haizlip, Co-Creator and Host of Soul!
HBO’s Mr. Soul!
PBS: Letters Written in Support of Soul!
Soul! Stevie Wonder
Soul! New Birth, Inc. & The Nite-Liters
Soul! Zulema
Soul! Lee Morgan & Horace Silver
Soul! Earth Wind and Fire
Soul! Anna Marie Horsford
Soul! Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin
Soul! Ashford and Simpson
Soul! George Faison Dancers & Stevie Wonder
Soul! Al Green
Soul! Patti LaBelle & The Bluebells
Soul! Clifton Davis and The Impressions
Soul! Nikki Giovanni & Muhammed Ali
May your week be filled with whatever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellent, and worthy of praise.
Much Peace,
Marcie
Thank you Marcie for sharing. Even now, I am disturbed that I did not know of this documentary. While I'm not an HBO subscriber, that doesn't preclude knowing of something. I certainly knew about GOT when it was streaming. So many what ifs about this content and how it could have changed things if whiteness had not felt threatened. I very much look forward to viewing the various clips you included and will search out being able to view the full documentary. Peace to you as you continue to process what you watched.