Civil Rights Music

by Reiland Rabaka

  During the same turbulent years that witnessed the backlash against African American youth and their valiant struggle for human, civil, and voting rights, Motown was tapping the teenage talent pool of Detroit’s Brewster-Douglass housing projects. According to Nelson George (2007), the Brewster-Douglass housing projects were “low-rent yet well-kept public housing that served as home for the children of Detroit’s post-World War II migration. For all intents and purposes, it was a ghetto, but for Detroit’s blacks it was one with hope” (80). Berry Gordy’s first great discovery from Detroit’s public housing projects was Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, and soon thereafter a group of guys called the Primes and their companion girl group called the Primettes. The Motown machine quickly polished and rechristened the guy group as “The Temptations” and their sister group as “The Supremes.”

  Hence, similar to several contemporary rap stars (e.g., Jay-Z, NaS, Marley Marl, Kool G Rap, MC Shan, Roxanne Shanté, Mobb Deep, Trina, Lil’ Wayne, Juvenile, Soulja Slim, and Jay Electronica, among countless others), the ghetto, and public housing projects in particular, provided classic rhythm & blues with the raw talent, tall tales, and innovative subaltern aesthetic that fueled much of its success. But, unlike rap, the ghetto origins, or the otherwise humble beginnings, of many classic rhythm & blues stars was masked to make them more appealing to middle-class and mainstream America, especially middle-class and mainstream white America. As is well known, a lot rap is unapologetically ghetto-centered and often celebrates ghetto life and culture. For the most part, classic rhythm & blues production and promotion teams, especially those at Motown in the 1960s, downplayed the humble beginnings of the bulk their stars, preferring to present them decked out in the glitz and glam fashions of the era. Needless to say, rap music and hip hop culture’s hyper-materialism and bold bourgeoisisms did not develop in a vacuum, and Motown and Motown-sound derived music and branding has long served as a major point of departure for contemporary black popular music, especially rap and neo-soul.

  Even though it was obviously an oppositional operation within the music industry of the 1960s, Motown was nonetheless deeply committed to the modus operandi and mechanisms of the U.S. mass market and, it should be strongly stressed, on the U.S. mass market’s mostly anti-African American terms. This, of course, resembles most Civil Rights Movement members’ open embrace of the “American Dream” without critically calling into question whether “American democracy”—as articulated by the wealthy, white, slaveholding men who are recognized as the “Founding Fathers”—was a viable goal for African Americans (and other non-whites) in the second half of the twentieth century. Consider for a moment, if you will, Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, with its scattered references to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence (M. L. King 1986, 217).

  King undeniably critiqued “the architects of our republic” (i.e., the wealthy, white, slaveholding men who are recognized as America’s “Founding Fathers”), but he also passionately embraced their American dream. As a matter of fact, King’s dream—to use his own words—was “a dream deeply rooted in the American dream” (219). For several of the unsung soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement, such as Ella Baker, Malcolm X, James Baldwin and Robert F. Williams, King’s articulation of the American dream did not sufficiently differentiate between white America and non-white America’s conflicting conceptions of the American dream. As Britta Waldschmidt-Nelson’s brilliant Dreams and Nightmares: Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and the Struggle for Black Equality in America (2012) emphasized, the militants of the Civil Rights Movement were not as interested in the American dream as much as they were concerned with ending the “American nightmare”—to employ Malcolm X’s infamous phrase—in which black America continued to be ensnared in the 1960s.[34]

  In this sense, Berry Gordy’s efforts to upset the white male-dominated music industry of the 1960s by drawing from the successful business models of white America was not out of the ordinary and perfectly mirrored the integrationist and middle-class mindset of most of the black bourgeoisie during the Civil Rights Movement years. In the 1960s most African Americans were, as they remain today, largely working-class and working-poor. What Gordy and Motown provided the black masses with were sonic slices of African American life and culture, not necessarily as they actually were at the time but as the black bourgeoisie and the black masses wished them to be, and it was these, literally, phantasmagoria or surreal songs that both black and white America danced, romanced, partied and politicked to during the Civil Rights Movement years.

  Working-class and working-poor black folk—those humble human beings frequently treated like second-class citizens in segregated 1960s America—knew that Motown’s music grew out of their loves, lives, and struggles. In short, they could genuinely relate to Motown music’s timeless, clever, often tongue-in-cheek, and passionate stories of love, loss, loneliness, heartbreak, happiness, and community because in no uncertain terms these stories were their stories (as in the often heard refrain at African American dances, clubs, and house parties: “That’s my song!”). It really did not matter to them how Gordy managed to create one of the most successful businesses in African American history. Simply said, they did not care about the backstory with all of its tales of trials and tribulations. What was new, exciting, and inspiring about Motown in the 1960s was that it consistently presented African Americans in general, and African American youth in specific, in dignified and sophisticated ways that the white male-dominated music industry—indeed, white America in general—had never dreamed of.

  It could be said that Gordy challenged the mainstream American business model by deconstructing and reconstructing the received images of, and stereotypes about African Americans in general, and African American ghetto youth in specific. He, literally, refined, repackaged, and re-presented African Americans, and again African American ghetto youth in particular, employing business paradigms and procedures that were as far removed from African America, especially African American ghetto youth, as they were from the music business. Here, then, we have come back to our discussion concerning African American cultural adaptation or, rather, African American cultural appropriation, and the distinct ways in which black folk practice creolization and hybridization.

  No matter how far-fetched and mindboggling it might sound, the truth of the matter is that Berry Gordy meticulously modeled his record company on Detroit’s auto industry, selling a sumptuous black youthfulness, black hipness, and black sexiness employing one of the quintessential examples of mass production and consumption in America’s market-driven economy. The Motown Record Corporation was simultaneously new and familiar to most middle-class and mainstream-minded Americans, both black and white, because it utilized one of corporate America’s most revered models. As Gerald Early explained in One Nation Under a Groove: Motown and American Culture (2004), Gordy’s work on the assembly line at the Ford factory was pivotal:

  His job at the Ford plant, as Nelson George and other critics have pointed out, made him aware of two things: how production can be efficiently organized and automated for the highest quality. At Motown during the sixties, producers could also write songs and songwriters could produce, but artists—either singers or session musicians—were not permitted to do either. With this type of control, Motown put out a highly consistent product. . . . From his auto plant experience, Gordy also became aware that to keep his company going, it was necessary to provide a series of attractive rewards and incentives for hard work, as well as an elaborate system of shaming for laziness. A record company, like an auto company, requires an almost unbearable atmosphere of competition. Gordy believed in competition with the fervor of a fanatic. (This intense sense of contest not only created a celebrity system within the company but became a point of celebration about the company, a virtual mark of internal and external prestige.) Thus, producers with hit records at Motown were given more studio time, and the others had to fight for what was left. The ho
ttest songwriters were allowed to work with the hottest singers. At company meetings, Gordy bluntly criticized any song or performance he considered inferior, not permitting the song to be released, thereby angering his producers and songwriters, but also spurring them to do better in order to curry his favor and approval. This system produced an unprecedented number of hit records in relation to the number of records released. (53–54)

  Here we have a black record company owner utilizing the production techniques of a white car company owner, Henry Ford, to mass-produce a smoother, more or less white folk-friendly form of black popular music. It was not only ingenious, but it was also indicative of the desegregationist and integrationist ethos sweeping across African America in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By recreating and recasting African American ghetto youth in the anodyne and angelic image of mainstream and middle-class white youth, Motown was increasingly given entry into mainstream American popular culture at the exact same time that African Americans were desperately struggling to integrate into mainstream American society. In short, 1960s Motown music was implicitly Civil Rights Movement music without explicitly espousing traditional Civil Rights Movement themes, politics, and slogans. This is where we come back to the double entendres and cultural codes contained in black popular culture in general, and black popular music in particular. Motown’s implicit politics mirrored the Civil Rights Movement’s explicit politics and, what is more, contemporary black popular music’s implicit politics continues to mirror contemporary black popular movements’ explicit politics. In essence, whether we turn to the rap or neo-soul soundtracks of the Hip Hop Movement, classic rhythm & blues in general, and Motown in particular, continues to serve as a model for black popular music or, rather, the politics of black popular music.

  It is not my intention to argue that Motown agreed with or supported each and every social struggle, political campaign, and cultural movement afoot in black America in the 1960s. I am well aware of Berry Gordy’s infamous reluctance to associate Motown with any organization or movement that could potentially negatively impact his company’s commercial success. For instance, somewhat overstating his case I believe, in Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power (2002), Gerald Posner went so far to say that Berry Gordy “had no interest in politics or history. He did not read newspapers or books and had little sense of social destiny or moral responsibility stemming from his remarkable success” (172).

  However, it should be quickly pointed out, Posner’s interpretation directly contradicts Brian Ward’s brilliant work in Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm & Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations (1998), where he revealed that Gordy actually viewed “his own economic success as a form of progressive racial politics” (268). Bearing this in mind, it is not surprising that Gordy “did not wish to jeopardize his position” and the lucrative middle-of-the-road Motown brand by becoming “too closely associated with a still controversial black Movement for civil and voting rights.” Hence, Posner’s interpretation flies in the face of the facts and is quite simply untenable, if not outright wrongheaded. Like most African Americans at the time, Berry Gordy was not free from “double-consciousness” and seemed to be an expert at code-switching for capital gain (including cultural capital gain), frequently saying one thing in public, and another thing in private (à la most successful black folk in white supremacist societies).

  In addition, Posner’s analysis negates the simple fact that although Gordy was the chief executive officer of the Motown Record Corporation, it was, indeed, a “corporation”—which is to say, “a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law,” as defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Can Posner not comprehend that Gordy often purposely played the role of mysterious point man or chief executive officer, and allowed his surrogates to, even if only implicitly, mouth via Motown’s music African American aspirations and frustrations during the Civil Rights Movement era? Can Posner not comprehend that legendary Motown singer-songwriters, producers, and musicians, such as Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Harvey Fuqua, William “Mickey” Stevenson, Richard “Popcorn” Wylie, Clarence Paul, Johnny Bristol, Norman Whitfield, Holland–Dozier–Holland and, of course, the Funk Brothers were forced to dance with the dialectics of “double-consciousness,” and even still felt deeply and often differently about the civil rights struggle than the big boss Berry Gordy? Autobiographical works by, and biographical works about Motown singer-songwriters, producers, and musicians in most instances reveal that Motown was not completely out of touch with or, worse, dispassionate about and divorced from the Civil Rights Movement.[35]

  Ward’s painstaking research revealed that Gordy and Motown actually contributed to several 1960s civil rights organizations and causes: from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), to the Negro American Labor Council (NALC) and the 1963 March on Washington. In the liner notes to the compilation, Power To The Motown People!: Civil Rights Anthems and Political Soul, 1968–1975 (2007), Peter Doggett observed that Motown’s support of the Civil Rights Movement steadily, even if subtly initially, increased as the Civil Rights Movement 1960s gave way to the Black Power Movement 1970s. He matter-of-factly stated, “Motown never set out to be a political force” (2). In fact, he went on, “it was simply a stable of incredible musical talent, which earned its reputation as Hitsville USA” and “the Sound of Young America.” However, Doggett importantly commented further,

  during that time of civil rights marches and ghetto riots, liberation armies and black martyrs, all African Americans were inevitably sucked into the conflict. Motown Records was no exception. Berry Gordy himself was a strong supporter of the prince of the non-violent Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King; Motown even issued several albums of his speeches. As the racial heat increased, and Motown’s home city of Detroit erupted into blazing riots in the summer of 1967, it became impossible for Gordy and his artists to avoid the call of the times. Over the next six years, Motown not only founded a subsidiary label entirely devoted to the struggle for Black Power (Black Forum Records); it also allowed its artists to comment directly on the situation of black people in contemporary America. For the first time, you could hear the nation changing shape in the sounds that came out of Hitsville USA. (2–3)

  What needs to be emphasized here is essentially a point that I made in the last chapter concerning gospel artists in relationship to the Civil Rights Movement, and that is that “all African Americans were inevitably sucked into the conflict”—“the conflict,” meaning the struggle for human rights, civil rights, and voting rights during the Civil Rights Movement era—whether they were active members of the movement or not. As Doggett sternly stated, “Motown Records was no exception.” As a matter of fact, as the moderate Civil Rights Movement 1960s evolved into the unapologetically militant Black Power Movement 1970s, “it became impossible for Gordy and his artists to avoid the call of the times.” To reiterate, during the Civil Rights Movement Motown put into play the very same “we can implicitly sing what we cannot explicitly say” aesthetic as the gospel artists discussed in the previous chapter. Perhaps summing up Gordy and Motown’s Civil Rights Movement moderatism best, Nelson George (2007, 54) wryly noted:

  Though he never spoke about the issue overtly, Berry’s rise in the early 1960s linked him with the Civil Rights Movement. (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once visited Motown briefly, and Berry would release his “I Have A Dream” speech, along with a few other civil rights-related albums throughout the decade.) Naïvely, some saw Motown as the entertainment-business equivalent of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. To them Motown wasn’t just a job; it was part of a movement.

  This means, then, that I am not alone in conceiving of black popular music, in this instance Motown, as having deeper, implicit political meanings and being connected to the explicit
political expressions of a broader social and cultural movement. No matter how “naïve” I may appear to be to those folk who have little or no real relationship with the history, politics, sociology and musicology of black popular movements—besides what they can glean from ultra-conservative critics such as Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage, and Mark Levin, among many others—similar to the African American youth of the 1950s and 1960s, I understand black popular music as more than merely music. To paraphrase George above, among other things, Motown was “part of a movement,” the Civil Rights Movement and, therefore, civil rights music. If, indeed, the African American youth of the 1950s and 1960s conceived of their popular music as part of a movement, then, to strike while the iron is hot, isn’t it highly hypocritical of them—now that they are parents, grandparents, and honored elders—to snicker at and chide their children and grandchildren (i.e., the Hip Hop Generation) for conceiving of their most beloved black popular music as part of an extra-musical, social, political, and cultural movement: the Hip Hop Movement?