by Herb Boyd
Traveling abroad was to prove beneficial for Malcolm X, though it happened after his years in prison. His confinement in prison harnessed Malcolm’s restless, intrepid spirit. He had time to reflect and redirect that energy in more positive directions. He was fortunate to have a loving family who were members and active participants in the Nation of Islam. Malcolm Little gradually evolved into Malcolm X, and later El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. “My going to Detroit instead of back to Harlem or Boston was influenced by my family’s feeling expressed in their letters,” Malcolm recorded in his autobiography. “Especially my sister Hilda had stressed to me that although I felt I understood Elijah Muhammad’s teachings, I had much to learn, and I ought to come to Detroit and become a member of a temple of practicing Muslims.”12
Malcolm’s odyssey is one of the best-known stories in the American canon, but much less known is Charles Diggs’s pilgrimage to Mississippi to witness the trial of the men accused of killing Emmett Till. In the summer of 1955, Diggs was in his first year as Michigan’s first African American congressman, having been elected in November 1954. He arrived at the trial accompanied by attorney Basil Brown and businessman James Del Rio. A rather reserved personality, unperturbed by the chaos around him, Diggs, without swagger or defiance, moved through the racist hostility that permeated the town of Sumner, where the trial was held. Simeon Wright, Till’s first cousin, who was sleeping next to him in the bed when he was abducted, said he remembered seeing Diggs enduring the “hot and humid courtroom with the rest of us. He was the only elected official from the North and he stood up to the courtroom officials who at first tried to block his entry.”13
A counterpart to the black nationalism expressed by Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam was emerging: black Christian nationalism. The Rev. Albert B. Cleage Jr., the son of an outstanding physician in Kalamazoo, Michigan, would be among the leading proponents of black theology and self-determination. Cleage Senior was one of the founders of the black-owned Dunbar Hospital and was appointed the City Physician in 1930 by Mayor Bowles. Cleage Junior graduated from Northwestern High School and earned his bachelor of arts degree in sociology from Wayne State University in 1932. Before taking a job as a social worker in the city’s Department of Health, he studied briefly at Fisk University under the eminent sociologist Charles S. Johnson. From the Oberlin Graduate School of Theology he earned his bachelor of divinity degree in 1943, the same year that he married Doris Graham and was ordained in the Congregational Christian Church. His first pastorate was at the Chandler Memorial Congregational Church in Lexington, Kentucky. Before returning to Detroit in 1951, he pastored several churches in other cities. Two years later, there was an amicable parting from Saint Mark’s Community Church, when he led a group of followers to form the Central Congregational Church. It was around this time that his concept of black Christian nationalism and the Shrine of the Black Madonna began to emerge. His Black Christian Nationalist Covenant stated:
Declaring ourselves to be God’s Chosen People, created in His image, the living remnant of the lost Black Nation, Israel, we come together as brothers and sisters in the Black Christian Nationalist movement. We are disciples of the Black Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, who by His life and by His death upon the cross, teaches us that nothing is more sacred than the liberation of Black people. We covenant together, and pledge our total commitment to the task of rebuilding a Black Nation with power, here on earth. We will do whatever is necessary to achieve self-determination for Black people. We will fight the injustice, oppression and exploitation of all Black people. As members of the Black Nation, we are bound together in an inseparable sacred brotherhood. To the service of His sacred brotherhood, we pledge our lives.14
At the same time that the Rev. Cleage was heeding the call of black Christian nationalism, another minister, the Rev. C. L. Franklin, who had assumed the pulpit at New Bethel in 1946, was increasing his congregation. There was no nationalistic inclination in his church, but rather meetings that brimmed with the old-time Baptist religious fervor and rousing gospel music that he had absorbed in Memphis. With each one of his fiery sermons, Franklin’s flock seemed to increase, and none of his sermons was more popular than his version of “The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest.”
In this famous sermon, the eagle symbolizes God and his care and concern for his people. “The eagle has extraordinary sight,” Franklin preached. “Somewhere it is said that he can rise to a lofty height in the air and look in the distance and see a storm hours away. . . . I want to tell you God has extraordinary sight. He can look behind that smile on your face and see the frown in your heart. God has extraordinary sight.”
This sermon was recorded by Franklin in 1953. Author Nick Salvatore describes how, after a few more metaphors, Franklin, more than warmed to his topic, spoke of how the eagle built its nest and prepared the eaglet for the world. “It was at this juncture that C.L. shifted gears,” Salvatore wrote. “In place of that conversational tone, a musical expressiveness emerged to carry the message forward as [he] whooped, or chanted the remainder of the sermon. He sang in key modulating his voice from near-falsetto to guttural rasp, creating a dynamic cadence both with his words and the interplay created by his voice, the audience’s response, and the occasional percussive beat of his hand hitting the pulpit.”15 This powerful and popular recording is one of the reasons black Detroiters lined up outside his church to attend his services.
Whenever she could, Katherine Brown would visit the church. During the mid-fifties her days were consumed with keeping a roof over her head and making sure her four children ate a balanced meal each day and had decent clothes to wear to school. By 1956, she was among the lucky few to get an apartment in the newly built Jeffries Projects, named after the father of the mayor who had been ineffective during the Sojourner Truth Housing debacle that sparked the riot of 1943. From her sixth-floor apartment in building 601, she could see Poe School (now Edmonson), partially concealed by several other fourteen-story buildings in the complex. In many respects, the Jeffries, with its thirteen towers and 415 low-rise units capable of housing more than 2,100 families, resembled the Brewster Projects, and the younger inhabitants of each saw the others as mortal enemies. There was basically a turf war between the two gangs based in the two projects. They contested each other in sports and entertainment, but much of their animosity would soon be mollified with the advent of cultural programs and development of the music industry, which would thrive as a result of their mutual cooperation. The merger of their aspirations was personified by the working relationship between Diana Ross from Brewster and songwriting geniuses Lamont and Reginald Dozier from the Jeffries projects. Later Lamont combined his talent with Brian and Eddie Holland, and they wrote a trove of top hits, a soundtrack for their generation. In fact, many young performers from both projects trekked over to Third Avenue, to Fortune Records, owned by Jack and Devora Brown, to make inexpensive demos in hopes of matching the popularity of Nolan Strong and the Diablos or Andre Williams, whose recording “Bacon Fat” was a hit in 1956. At that time, another big hit record was Little Willie John’s “Fever,” which may have provided John with the money to leave Jeffries for greener pastures, the newer projects on Six Mile Road. Little Willie starred in football and could run with the best in the games between Jeffries and Brewster teams, many of which occurred in the trench where the John C. Lodge Freeway was under construction. Mack Avenue was the street connecting “the bricks,” along which the boys from Brewster probably loosened up during the stroll to the Lodge.
The Chrysler (I-75), John C. Lodge (M-10), and Edsel Ford (I-94) freeways all came with the force of destructive tornadoes to black neighborhoods. By 1958, the building of the Lodge alone had taken out more than two thousand homes and other buildings. Even more were demolished to make way for the Ford Freeway.16 Out of the destruction of longstanding neighborhoods emerged the vertical communities, high-rise buildings with relatively affordable rents. For a moment, the change seemed to forecast a bright future. Black
Bottom became a veritable Camelot.
From the mid- to late fifties, the city of Detroit was in a state of transition; the black community was watching large portions of it being dramatically transformed. The altering of neighborhood grids was something most black Detroiters had grown accustomed to, like poverty, discrimination, and being often deprived of federal and municipal assistance. Being shortchanged was nothing new for them, though cultural ingenuity was always in abundance. Three notable black artists were seemingly undaunted by the expected uncertainties in their communities. Playwright Ron Milner, when not excelling at baseball or basketball at Northeastern High School, was at his old typewriter working on the great American novel or one of the plays that one day would make it to Broadway. As a teenager he had already received some recognition in the Michigan Chronicle for his creativity and writing ability, which came as a stunning surprise to his teammates.
Painter Al Loving, three years older than Milner, graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1951 when he was sixteen years old. In 1955, he traveled to India with his father, a professor of education administration at Wayne State University, who had received Fulbright and Ford Foundation grants. The images Loving saw there, especially the array of brilliant colors, profoundly affected his artistic outlook. Bassist Ron Carter, like Loving a graduate of Cass Tech, was just beginning to learn the fundamentals of his instrument but already acquiring the recognition that one day would place him in that great ensemble formed by Miles Davis. They were exemplary of the talented young men on their way to ensuring that the city’s rich cultural tradition in music and the arts extended into future generations.
Three young women were also on the verge of wider recognition. Carlene Hatcher Polite, the daughter of UAW officials, began her artistic career as a dancer at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance with professional performances in New York and Detroit from 1955 to 1963. Always an aspiring writer, she put her creative impulses on hold and worked in the civil rights field with the Detroit Council for Human Rights and the NAACP. Then it was time to follow her heart to Paris and into the world of literature. In 1966, when she was thirty-four, she published in French The Flagellants, her first book. It was later translated into English. By that time, she was back in the States, teaching at the University of Buffalo. The title of the book worried a few Detroiters, who feared that it would be unflattering to the city or its denizens. But only the first chapter had any reference to the city other than calling it the Bottom. New York City got far more attention. Her female protagonist, Ideal, abandoned the Bottom because it was too provincial. Her hope was that New York City would satisfy her craving for a broader spectrum of opportunities.
While Polite was touring with Martha Graham and writing, Shirley Woodson Reid, a graduate of Chadsey High School, was blending colors on an easel and earning the first of her degrees in fine arts, which she received in 1958 from Wayne State University. As an education specialist in the Highland Park school system, she blended her artistic talents with her love of teaching young people. Art history also commanded her time and attention. She was invited as a member of the National Conference of Artists to lecture or participate as a panelist at countless exhibitions and seminars.17 Her artistic gifts were not limited to oils and canvases, and her predilection for jazz and literature was nurtured by her husband, Edsel, who maintained an intimate connection to Detroit’s jazz community.
Detroit’s jazz scene in the early 1950s was a hothouse of bebop. One of the style’s progenitors, Charlie “Yardbird” Parker, was a regular performer in the city and a magnet attracting a retinue of hopefuls, particularly alto saxophone players intent on capturing his searing lyricism. There were singers, too, such as Betty Carter, who sought to emulate Bird’s swift arpeggios and intervallic leaps. Lionel Hampton was so impressed with her ability to swing and scat that in 1950, when she was twenty-one, he contracted her to tour with his band. Their appearance at the Paradise Theater with Illinois Jacquet’s powerful tenor sax up front rocking the balcony was particularly memorable for the Northwestern High School grad, who had honed her natural gifts at the Detroit Conservatory of Music. Hampton’s wife, Gladys, also deeply admired Carter’s rhythmic finesse and unique harmonic acumen, and dubbed her Betty Bebop, an apt sobriquet for her intuitive feel for the complexity of the new music. It was a brief and bountiful stint that Carter had with the temperamental Hampton, who fired her numerous times before she decided to embark on her own solo career. By the 1960s in duets with Ray Charles, she received greater recognition.18
When she wasn’t on the road, Carter was a dynamic member of a coterie of jazz notables who honed their skills at a bevy of nightspots from Black Bottom to the North End, from Baker’s Keyboard Lounge on Livernois near Eight Mile Road to the El Sino on Saint Antoine Street, the once-fabled thoroughfare of Paradise Valley. The regulars, the city’s numerous jazz aficionados, were up front at the Blue Bird Inn on the west side, or at Klein’s Show Bar on Twelfth Street, or at the World Stage on Woodward near Davidson, particularly on Tuesday nights, when many of the performers were associated with the New Music Society, under the direction of guitarist Kenny Burrell. The society’s members, which at times numbered more than five thousand, were among some of the finest musicians in the city, from the young to the veterans. It was there that Pepper Adams, Roy Brooks, Donald Byrd, Lonnie Hillyer, Charles McPherson, Bernard McKinney (Kiane Zawadi), and Lucky Thompson first enthralled standing-room-only crowds.19
On the weekends, jazz lovers, most of them young beboppers, filled the Blue Bird Inn, eager to get as close as possible to the bandstand to hear tenor saxophonist Billy Mitchell, featuring either Barry Harris or Tommy Flanagan on piano with Elvin Jones on drums. Ernie Farrow, Will Austin, Paul Chambers, Doug Watkins, or Ray McKinney were among the fabulous bassists on the stand on any given evening. No matter the ensemble, it was always quite able to provide an invigorating vehicle for such guests as Bird, Curtis Fuller, Thad Jones, Wardell Gray, or Miles Davis, who was a frequent guest during that period, when he struggled to overcome his heroin addiction. “There were some good musicians in Detroit and I was starting to play with some of them,” Davis recalled in his autobiography. “That helped me and a lot of them were clean . . . and they looked up to me because of all the things I had done . . . and since they were clean it made me want to stay that way.”20 Davis said that people were packing into the Blue Bird to hear them play, and it wasn’t unusual for Betty Carter or Yusef Lateef to drop by and sit in.
By the mid-fifties, Lateef could do that only occasionally, because he was fronting his own group at Klein’s Show Bar. Taking the gig at Klein’s meant that Lateef could no longer keep his part-time job at Chrysler. Playing almost nightly at the bar gave the band—Lateef on saxophones, oboe, and flute; Hugh Lawson on piano; Austin or Farrow on bass; Louis Hayes on drums; and Curtis Fuller on trombone—a lot of experience in a short time. In the spring of 1957, Lateef got a call from Ozzie Cadena of Savoy Records, who expressed an interest in signing the group based on the recommendation of a friend. Thus began Lateef’s long and productive career as a recording artist.21
In 1959, while Lateef was adding more recordings at Savoy and later at Prestige Records to his discography, bassist Ron Carter was finishing his classical studies at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. A graduate of the renowned Cass Tech High School that had produced such musical stalwarts as Roland Hanna, Donald Byrd, Kenny Burrell, Paul Chambers, and a host of others, Carter was well aware of the awesome responsibility of carrying on that tradition, though it took him a while and a few unexpected setbacks to settle into the jazz sphere. There was also a solid family legacy to uphold, particularly from a father who had come to Detroit in the early fifties, when he was one of a very few blacks employed as a bus driver by the Detroit Street and Railways Company. Carter’s father had spearheaded a breakthrough in employment for black workers in the DSR, but his son was unable to make similar inroads into Detroit’s classical music world. Th
is later proved to be a boon for his many jazz fans. At the dawn of the 1960s, as jazz was experiencing a variety of styles, from Charlie Mingus and Ornette Coleman to Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck, an innovative leap by Miles Davis ended one era and set the stage for the next. He chose Carter as his bassist as they took the music to a new and exciting plateau. “I arrived at the right time,” Carter told his biographer, Dan Ouellette. “After all, it’s all about timing.”22
Timing is essential for all musicians, and in the mid-fifties, Detroit was overflowing with them. Other than the Blue Bird Inn, owned by Clarence Eddins, there were no black-owned clubs. Eddins became sole owner of the Blue Bird Inn, located on the city’s west side, when Buddy Dubois was shot and killed in 1956. Within a year, Eddins began to transform the Inn, which had been operating since the early thirties. The renovation was geared to the development of jazz, in which bebop was gradually supplanting swing. The club was expanded with redesigned seating to increase its capacity. The stellar house bands were always a draw for local and nationally acclaimed musicians, and the club’s reputation increased with occasional performances by Miles Davis, then living in Detroit. Davis recalled playing at the Blue Bird for “several months as a guest soloist in Billy Mitchell’s house band.”23