During a brisk walk before dinner, I noticed that the city-centre population on the streets of Atlanta seemed to be mostly black. The only places I saw white people were in big flashy cars or expensive hotels. When I remarked on this at dinner, my producer explained that all the rich white people that used to live in the city had moved further out into the suburbs after the Civil Rights Act had been passed. This resulted in a three-tier living arrangement: run-down, inner-city black housing, middle-class black suburbs and on the outermost edge white middle- and upper-class suburbs. As long as nobody forgot their place and tried to move into each other’s areas, then the unspoken ancient apartheid of the south remained intact. Such thinking seemed at odds with electing a black mayor, but at least he was a successful first step in a long process.
On my first day there I interviewed America’s first democratically elected black mayor, Andrew Jackson. Mayor Jackson appeared personable enough, but I was not used to the slick style of black American politicians. We had nothing of their ilk in Britain. The closest counterpart we had were a few black MPs who were not yet media savvy, such as Paul Boateng and the late Bernie Grant. Mayor Jackson knew how to perform in front of a camera, his unctuous charm oozed from every pore as he deftly fly-swatted my questions about positive discrimination and black voter registration in the rural areas. He had been an important part of the civil rights movement and must have wondered why a British TV channel was allowing me to ask confrontational questions in what probably appeared to him such an unpolished way. Unpolished in terms of what black news presenters were like in America. I had seen several on the local US TV news the night before while channel surfing in my hotel room. Without exception they were a cut above their British counterparts, Trevor McDonald and Moira Stewart.
After the interview, Mayor Jackson politely suggested that he would ask one of his daughters to take me on a shopping trip to Neiman Marcus to look for suitable clothes. He obviously didn’t think much of the brand new white suit I was wearing. He also suggested that I get my hair relaxed and styled. My restrained, natural Afro and Top Shop outfit had unfortunately not passed muster. Presumably my hair should have been poker straight in a neat bob and a padded-shouldered Dallas power suit should have hugged a gym-bunny body. He probably meant well, but his suggestions made me feel as though I would be better suited to picking cotton!
After the interview, there was a mad dash to Atlanta airport, because a message had been sent by courier that Jesse Jackson would make himself available for a twenty-minute interview while he waited for his next plane. His face lit up with a broad, dazzling smile when he saw me. He was obviously a bit of a ladies’ man, but nonetheless he radiated a consummate power and fierce magnetism that seemed neither too slick nor over-contrived, and commanded enormous respect from all who surrounded him. He spent most of the interview admiring my legs between questions, even giving my left knee a bit of a squeeze before he left to catch his plane. I have to confess I was smitten. How I wished that I could have become one of his interns on his campaign trail. He was so much more relaxed than Mayor Jackson. He looked as though he was comfortable in his skin and wasn’t worrying all the time about ‘what the white folks thought of him’. I’m probably being harsh, but I can only form my opinions on the impressions that each of them gave me.
Until then I had always been conscious of a black/white divide in America, but now I was beginning to see that there were ominous gradations within black American society itself. I did not come from a culture where generations of black people had grown up in well-heeled, middle-class families, who had their own universities, their own strict moral codes, their own prejudices that were every bit as hateful as some white people’s.
Next we interviewed a young black family who were not just poor, but dirt-poor. Tony Ghee and his wife had three young children, all of whom had runny noses and running sores on their skinny arms and bandy legs. Their ramshackle wooden house was just a couple of rooms. A rickety couple of worn steps led up to a rubbish-strewn wooden verandah and a wide-open front door. I felt embarrassed to fetch up with a white camera team who were seemingly oblivious to the rank smell of real poverty that emanated from every nook and cranny in the house. Probably they had seen it all before, but I hadn’t. I was deeply shocked; this was the Land of the Free, the land of opportunity, Atlanta had a black mayor and these people still occupied humanity’s dustbin.
For Tony and his family, and the countless other families sitting on their verandas, who had hostilely peered at us as our car passed along the dusty, rutted road looking for the correct address, nothing had changed. County boundaries were still gerrymandered, which prevented too much inconvenient black voter registration for the upcoming presidential elections and ensured a Republican victory. It seemed to me that Mayor Jackson ought to shift his sorry black arse out to this side of the railway tracks rather than be hanging around City Hall savouring the sweet smell of personal success in his delicately flared nostrils, like so many of the other elected officials.
To make matters worse Tony insisted on addressing me as ‘Lady’, and treating me as if I was some visiting royalty. I had always found a sense of solidarity in being black among my own kind, so I was disturbed by his deference, it was almost as if he considered himself less than I was. The inequality of the situation forced me to look at what I was doing through his eyes, and I didn’t like what I saw. After the interview I would go back to the pleasant, air-conditioned splendour of the Ritz Carlton Hotel on Peachtree Street, whereas the Ghee family would spend their evening and all the evenings that were to follow in this stifling, squalid, cockroach-infested house. For the first time in my life I felt deeply ashamed.
Tony managed to clear a space in the kitchen area so that the cameraman could set up for the interview which, after a couple of false starts due to wailing children, finally got under way. Immediately, the tables were turned. Tony, who had been relatively monosyllabic until then, realized his moment had arrived and, ignoring my first question, just launched into a vigorous, anger-fuelled tirade about the iniquity of the white man and the hypocrisy of the rich blacks who were trying to keep him down. To make matters worse, he delivered this political onslaught in a southern states dialect as thick as the pot of molasses on the kitchen table. I couldn’t understand a word that he was saying. If you have ever tried to conduct an interview with somebody who speaks a foreign language in the absence of an interpreter, then you will have a pretty good idea of the dilemma that faced me.
I didn’t want to appear patronising by asking him to repeat every sentence; after all, I used to get pretty pissed off with white people who tried that ignominious tactic on me. Somehow we got through the interview, probably without either of us fully understanding the other. I left it largely up to him to say what he wanted and made it the editor’s job to decipher what was actually being said. My main contributions were some half-arsed questions and some judiciously placed nods and liberal usage of the words ‘really’ and ‘wow’, all said with a sincere note of incredulity in my voice. Throughout the interview local neighbours kept popping in to listen to what Tony said, sometimes nodding sagely or whooping a ‘Hallelujah, tell it like it is, brother’ at intervals. As the visitors left, they nodded to Tony with a new look of respect on their faces. Our visit had made Tony a ‘somebody’ in his neighbourhood. I dearly hope that Tony managed to capitalise on his brief moment in the limelight in the ensuing years.
The director, cameraman and PA couldn’t wait to leave. I was in a catch-22 situation. I wanted to get out of the stifling house too, but Tony just couldn’t stop talking even though the interview had long since finished and the camera equipment had been packed away. Slowly I tuned into his impenetrable accent as he told me about how he stood by the side of the main highways with a cardboard placard with ‘Work Wanted’ written on it, hoping to be hired as a day labourer by passing motorists, just so he could earn enough money to feed his babies.
How could I tell him that Mayor Andy Ja
ckson was more interested in where his daughters shopped or got their hair straightened than in those black brothers and sisters that still lived in the south’s insurmountable poverty trap? That evening the crew and I dined on venison, buffalo and wild boar at Aunt Pittypat’s Porch. When the bill arrived and was paid for on our LWT expense account, I couldn’t help thinking that the price of the meal would have kept Tony and his family for a good few months of the year. This may sound naive, but it was my first taste of the inevitable dilemma that all journalists probably encounter when sent on assignments to impoverished parts of the world. But I wasn’t in Ethiopia or a war-torn, sub-Saharan African country, I was in the land of plenty where the ‘American Dream’ reigned supreme. It seemed that civil rights had given black folks the vote, but those who had lifted themselves out of poverty were not eager to use their new-found power to lift those who got left behind.
The following day, the crew and I were invited to a ‘Men’s Day Breakfast’ at the imposing pillared colonial West Hunter Baptist Church on the outskirts of Atlanta at the unholy hour of 7 a.m. I had no idea what to expect. On arrival, we found our vocal interviewee Tony on the sizeable, manicured lawn in front of the church, hollering and berating the constant stream of Cadillacs and Buicks purring up the church driveway containing men and their sons in their best silk suits with their wives and daughters in furs and diamonds in the back seats, their hair tonged to shiny, straight perfection. The Academy Awards red carpet has less bling on Oscar night.
A concerned church elder approached Trevor Hampton, our director, and told him that Tony had said he was part of the TV crew. Was this true? The situation was explained to him, whereupon he asked whether we could discreetly do something about removing him, because his foul language and antagonistic demeanour were upsetting the parishioners. Unfortunately Tony was roaring drunk. How he had found out where we would be the following day was a mystery, because he lived nowhere near this affluent black suburb. Tony obviously had profound detective skills. The director had a brainwave. He suggested that I quickly interview Tony again and let him have his say. Then he would give him some money to go away. This strategy worked and within five minutes Tony unsteadily ambled off into the morning, while we got on with the business of interviewing the well-heeled black cognoscenti of Atlanta.
My interviewees were mostly urbane businessmen who were eager to tell me how they had profited from the positive discrimination or affirmative action, as Americans called it, that was now mandatory in Atlanta when it came to doling out the jobs. They told me their stories over liberal helpings of fried catfish, collard greens, biscuits (which were more like bread rolls), hominy grits and lashings of thick gravy. The size of their appetites and large waistlines attested to the fact that they and their families enjoyed the good life. When I asked some breakfast diners what they thought about Tony’s plight, most of them looked vaguely embarrassed, some raised a quizzical eyebrow at my interest in such a seeming low-life, but mostly the rejoinder was: ‘Some people just don’t want God’s help.’
I could have understood this rejoinder if Tony had been an anomaly among the Atlanta black poor, but I had seen street after street of people in similar circumstances to him and their lot in life looked just as grim as if the Civil Rights Act had never been signed. A glance from my director told me that I had better calm down and stop antagonizing the assembled company, although I hope my questions gave them a bout of indigestion.
The views held by the parishioners were all the more surprising because the pastor of the church was the internationally famous Reverend Ralph Abernathy, who had stood shoulder to shoulder with Dr Martin Luther King during the civil rights years and even cradled King’s dying body after his assassination in Memphis. I briefly interviewed Reverend Abernathy, who proved to be a humble, gentle soul, who fully supported Reverend Jackson’s brave run for office. His lined face and expressive eyes gave testament to that old spiritual ‘Nobody Knows the Troubles I’ve Seen’. His spirit shone brighter than the bling of his assembled church brethren. To have had the opportunity to speak to him was a profoundly moving experience.
Next stop was San Francisco, where Jesse Jackson would attempt to be elected as presidential candidate at the Democratic Party Convention held in the Moscone Center. We stayed at the historic Sir Francis Drake Hotel on Powell Street, close to Union Square, where Jesse Jackson was due to hold a ‘Rainbow Coalition Rally’ the following Saturday evening. The grand, Italian renaissance decor of the foyer was somewhat at odds with the Beefeater-attired doorman. I assumed that, since Americans had a short history, they didn’t have to worry when they muddled up the histories of other countries. The breakfast dining room was full of Democratic delegates, mostly from the southern states judging by their accents. They enthusiastically tucked into large stacks of pancakes dripping with molasses and what seemed like a bucket of cream. They were mostly white and wore trousers with elasticated waists to accommodate their ample girths. I didn’t give Jesse Jackson much of a fighting chance in the election if these people were representative of the voting delegates.
I will never forget the electric atmosphere in Union Square the night Jesse Jackson spoke to the members of the Rainbow Coalition, who filled every available inch of the famous palm tree-lined square. The effortless cadences of his speech, the rise and fall of the rhetorical questions that he threw out to his enthusiastic audience, were thrilling and captivating. Every disadvantaged social group was present: blacks, Arab Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, gays, lesbians, small farmers, disabled veterans, youth, union workers; anybody who was pissed off with or suffering from Reaganomics was there that night.
I grabbed every badge or piece of memorabilia that I could. I did not want to forget the feeling of camaraderie that night. It was as though all my life had been leading up to this singular moment: a black man was raising his head above the parapet and wanted in to the most powerful job on the planet. Not only that, but all the people who surrounded me were sure that he could pull off this superhuman feat. Even the Ku Klux Klan who had marched in a nearby street that afternoon couldn’t dampen the spirits of the faithful. On that night, anything seemed possible, even a future black president. No one was more disappointed than me when 2,191 Democrat delegates voted for the colourless, shabby and ineffectual Walter Mondale as their presidential candidate. Jesse Jackson got a very respectable 466 votes. It is worth noting that Joe Biden, a fellow candidate and Vice-President of the USA since 2008, only managed to poll one delegate vote in 1984!
I consider myself very lucky to have interviewed Coretta Scott King, Reverend Ralph Abernathy, Mayor Andrew Jackson, Senator Julian Bond and Mayor Marion Barry in a live televised debate for Black on Black from a studio in the landmark Trans-America Pyramid building in San Francisco. These were the movers and shakers of the post-civil rights movement. These people had struggled against murderous odds to achieve voting rights for black people in America. They had been my idols for the past twenty years and here I was sitting among them and being allowed to ask them questions. The word ‘humbling’ doesn’t begin to tell how I felt.
Project forward twenty-four years to the night when Barack Obama made his unforgettable presidential acceptance speech in Chicago. In the small hours of the morning I watched tears stream down the face of Jesse Jackson as he stood in the front row of the audience. I wondered what he was feeling at that moment. A small part of him must have felt defeated after so much personal struggle. I hope not, because his bold stand in 1984 probably showed a young Obama that anything was possible if fought for hard enough.
August Darnell, aka Kid Creole, and me
Soon afterwards, on a more light-hearted note, Granada TV cast me as Kid Creole’s (aka August Darnell) love interest, Mimi, in a musical extravaganza, Something’s Wrong in Paradise, aired on Boxing Night 1984. It was filmed during the summer hiatus between series of Black on Black. The whole cast stayed in the Britannia Hotel for the duration of filming, so we all got to know ea
ch other by the end of production. Unfortunately, Kid Creole was an inveterate womanizer, who touted his nightly conquests under the very nose of his wife, one of the trio of Coconuts, in the hotel bar. Needless to say, I was not surprised when she divorced him in 1985. The boss-eyed Hollywood actress, Karen Black, star of the movie The Great Gatsby, was also in the cast and at every opportunity enjoyed asking me how come we had the same surname. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I had changed mine by deed poll!
A third series of Black on Black began in January 1985. The elegant, reserved Beverley Anderson had returned as co-presenter having lost her BBC job when her news programme had been axed. I was relegated to ‘youth’ and light entertainment issues again, while Beverley dealt with the political stuff. I knew I was treading water as the year progressed. I had lost all heart for making music. The ’80s synth sound was all-pervasive and the British reggae scene was now dominated by ‘Lover’s Rock’, a softer kind of reggae prone to excruciatingly sickly love songs. The only alternative was the poppy, reggae soundscape of all-girl bands like Amazulu or The Belle Stars – the latter was essentially a rebranded Bodysnatchers, but without the truly talented Rhoda Dakar.
To make matters worse, I was summarily dropped from my recording contract by Chrysalis and then I discovered that Black on Black was to be axed by the new media executive with the grandiose title of ‘Channel 4 Commissioning Editor for Multicultural Programming’, Farrukh Dhondy, the man who had written the first play I had acted in, the critically mauled Trojans. It was no secret that Dhondy considered Black on Black and its sister programme Eastern Eye ghetto television. He advocated more diverse black programming with more advantageous time slots. These were very laudable aims, but Dhondy’s assertions implied that black people could have a choice in programming, which in reality did not exist in 1985.
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