Thinkin' About Curtis Mayfield

Lately I've been listening to your early works from the days in Chi-town, when you and the Impressions sang your hearts out with all the soul you could muster.
The dreamy images and metaphors that you used, how it felt the pulse of America , raised our consciousness about what was really important to us all, although I believe most of us didn't even know it at the time.

How did you know what to say to us and how to say it so that we understood the plights and problems that you suffered from?
Endure you did, along with all of your brothers and sisters through the ignorance, racism, bigotry and hatred of a society that held you down for hundreds of years.
Yet you spoke with such class and reverence, to me at least (and I am sure millions of others) about the problems of being a man of color in a mostly all white world that just refused to let up. Oh how you opened my eyes to the inhumanity that was unwarranted, so unjustly placed on you and yours.

I was just 13 at the time and your words and music changed my life. You helped me to understand what oppression really is not just a word in the dictionary but what it meant from a personal level. How ashamed I was at the things that transpired in the deep south and in my own upbringing. As my father and the fathers' of many others scowled and cried out to their young sons and daughters "stop playing that God damn jungle music in my house". They failed to realize the beauty of the music through their own hatred and ignorance, how sad that is.

My guess is that as a young person even though you have the ideas and ideals of your parents thrust upon you it is through the sheer joy of rebellion that you find your own way. That is not to say everything that my parents told me was wrong but it was not all right either. I believe it is a learning thing that happens to us that allows us to throw the shackles of ignorance off and thus allowing us to think freely and perhaps change.

As a youth growing up in the projects in the early 60's it was a far different world. The projects where we lived were semi integrated back then. The best way to explain that is that both blacks and whites lived in the complex. The blacks lived exclusively in buildings # 1 and # 2 while the whites filled the other 25 buildings. The blacks had their own playground and basketball court although we did share the only baseball field. I spent most of my days playing on pickup teams where color made no difference. We did not have a swimming pool in my town so that was not an issue as in so many other communities. I even remember a local amusement park that had one of the largest pools in the USA closing it up and paving it in the name of progress when we all knew it was because the black community was starting to exercise their rights and it was politically expedient to do so to pacify the white community by eliminating a symptom, not treating the disease of racism thus allowing the cancer that racism is to continue.

As a young boy I lived with, played with, walked to school with and visited the homes of my friends in buildings # 1 & # 2. We smoked each others cigarettes as we stood on the corner and goofed off. We drank from each others wine bottles later in my teens, we remained friends all through school. We were simply friends who shared each others lives. No pretenses allowed, wanted or needed.

In the mid to late sixties things started to change as the movement became
stronger, the black community started to flex their newly won rights. There were some drawbacks for those of us who grew up together sharing these things. The movement although good, fractured some relationships that we had enjoyed. It drove us to a "them and us" kind of thinking that now placed roadblocks where I had never seen any before. It certainly confused me and I am sure others as well.

The projects were run with an iron hand by the mayors brother. It was certainly the good old boy network at its' finest back then. There were strict rules and harsh punishments for anything that did not comply with the local Democratic party. Expulsion was not unheard of for not complying.

The walls that were being torn down were being replaced by new ones . I am sure that the new walls were being constructed by both sides. The projects became more desegregated as time passed. My family's financial position became a little better and we moved away to a more normal housing situation.

I lost contact with a lot of those friends that I grew up as the last 40 to 45 years have passed but the lessons that Curtis taught me have served me well over the years. I raised my children to think differently than what I was taught as a child by my parents. They are far better off because of the things that Curtis and the Impressions conveyed to me over the radio or a seven inch magic disc that music poured out of when it was placed under a needle, turned in a circular motion at a controlled speed and amplified.
Thank you Curtis for your insight, grace, love, perseverance and mostly the gift of your soul.