Sojourner Truth's Epic "Ain't I A Woman" Speech (1851)

by Barry Michael Cooper

Check it: if there was no Sojourner Truth (former slave turned-abolitionist and human rights activist from the 19th Century), there would be no Fannie Lou Hamer, no Shirley Chisholm, no Bella Abzug, no Betty Friedan, no Angela Davis, no Gloria Steinem, no bell hooks, no Hillary Rodham Clinton, no Sonia Sotomajor, no Oprah Winfrey, no Michelle Obama. Sojourner Truth was the blueprint for their skyscraper of empowerment, the rocket fuel in their socio-cultural jet-packs.

Ms. Truth was the truth; an eloquent Mistress of Historical Ceremony, whose "Ain't I A Woman" speech stands as a extemporaneously magnificent monument to her powerful emcee skills. "Ain't I A Woman" is a testament for all Americans--Black, White, Latino, Asian, Native American, men, women, young and old--who believe that freedom is a Providential right. Not a racially or gender-bound aristocratic privilege.

Marius Robinson--an abolitionist who worked with Ms. Truth and attended Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio, where Ms. Truth gave this stirring oration on 29 May 1851--recounted the historic event for the 21 June 1851 issue of the Anti-Slavery Bugle. Mr. Robinson wrote:

"One of the most unique and interesting speeches of the convention was made by Sojourner Truth, an emancipated slave. It is impossible to transfer it to paper, or convey any adequate idea of the effect it produced upon the audience. Those only can appreciate it who saw her powerful form, her whole-souled, earnest gesture, and listened to her strong and truthful tones. She came forward to the platform and addressing the President said with great simplicity: 'May I say a few words?' Receiving an affirmative answer, she proceeded:"

"I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman's rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal. I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now. 

Whitney Houston (1963-2012): I Know Why The American Nightingale Sings

By Barry Michael Cooper


"While I live will I praise the LORD: I will sing praises unto my GOD while I have any being." Psalm 146:2

"Nightingales are named so because they frequently sing at night as well as during the day. The name has been used for well over 1,000 years, being highly recognizable even in its Anglo-Saxon form – 'nightingale'. It means 'night songstress'...Its song is particularly noticeable at night because few other birds are singing..." 


-Wikipedia entry for Luscinia megarhynchos, better known as the "Nightingale."


Less than twenty-four hours before the Grammy's, Whitney Elizabeth Houston--the pride of Newark, N.J., and the greatest singer of her generation--was found dead in a luxury suite at the Beverly Hilton hotel. Houston was 48-years-young.

GOD Rest her soul.

The cause of death at the time of this writing, is unknown and when it is known, it will still hold mystery. Mystery that the gossip (or sloppit, as I call them) mongers will try to unravel by rumor, innuendo, assumption, and ignorance. And even then, they still won't know.

However, Whitney Houston's death will still be our loss.

Like Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Billie Holiday, Richard Pryor, Don Cornelius, Kurt Kobain, the painter Francis Bacon--and countless others--Whitney Houston died from a broken heart. Not drugs, not suicide, not a gunshot, not an Aston Martin gunning through a Laurel Canyon barricade into the twilight expanse of a callous Hollywood night. That detail is set aside for coroner reports, which in turn feed legal issues, mortuary documents, and gossip. The heart is another story altogether. The heart is the fleshy, fragile, and percussive trophy case of passion. A myocardial trophy case not built to withstand the arbitrary crosswinds of instant adoration, wealth, and ultimately, rejection.

They Shoot Black Movies...Don't They?

Pioneer African American Filmmaker, Oscar Michaeux

They Shoot Black Movies...Don't They? 

(The Realization of a Hustlerz Ambition)

By Barry Michael Cooper

At the dawn of the Black Hollywood Renaissance of the '90s, the sodality of filmmakers like Spike Lee, F. Gary Gray, The Hudlin Brothers, Bill Duke, Stan Lathan, John Singleton, The Hughes Brothers, George Jackson, Doug McHenry, Mario Van Peebles, Robert Townsend, Keenan Ivory Wayans, Kevin Hooks, Fred "Fab Five Freddy" Braithwaite, Charles Stone, III, Nelson George and this writer, to name a few, felt like the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. We--like Rossetti, Millais, and Hunt at the height of their artistic revolt in the U.K. during the late 1800s--were cinematic reformers, rejecting the cartoonish mythos of African American life, as depicted in the Black Exploitation flicks of the 1970s. In the 1990's we were Dr. Martin Luther King, we were Malcolm X, we were Gordon Parks, we were Melvin Van Peebles. We were insatiable American Dreamers, like Oscar Michaeux; albeit with limos, first-class, transcontinental transport, five-star luxury hotels and cuisine, Armani-Brioni-Versace-Zegna-Valentino-Ferragamo gear, expanding bank accounts, and cell phones. We had Been To The Mountaintop and had G.P.S.'d that noble glide-path while tracking the Realization of a Negro's Ambition, guided by the voice from an ancestral control tower which intoned, By Any Means Necessary. 

We just knew The Dream would last forever.

Twenty years later Spike Lee--one of the most talented and prolific directors this country has produced in the 20th Century--can't get a green light for the sequel to Inside Man, despite the fact that the original film grossed nearly $200 million dollars worldwide. Twenty years later, two supremely talented actresses--Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer--are given Oscar nods for their portrayals of wise but weathered Mississippi domestics in a highly praised film titled The Help. 

Twenty years many black filmmakers (including myself) haven't had a movie financed by a major studio in over twenty years.

Twenty years later and America has its first African American President of the United States, seeking re-election for a second term at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Twenty years later, African American filmmakers navigate a course that is slightly sticky, smelly, and saggy, the aftermath of an exploding Dream deferred by Hollywood's Grand Illusion of Inclusion.

Twenty years later, is this the way it's supposed to be?

James McBride: "Being a Maid"

The late, great Oscar-winning African American actress, Hattie McDaniel

This is a powerful and thought-provoking essay written by the brilliant screenwriter and Spike Lee collaborator James McBride--his produced work includes "Miracle At St. Anna, and current Sundance Film Fest lighting rod "Red Hook"--regarding Hollywood's retrograde state-of-affairs, when it comes to African American film. It almost seems as if Hollywood--like the GOP--is lobbying for a new "Jim Crow" in Hi-Res HD. McBride's commentary is a most cogent and brutally honest assessment of life on the celluloid plantation, in the era of a Black Commander-In-Chief.

Being a Maid

by James McBride

Last night, President Obama, our first African American President, delivered his third State of the Union address. On that same day, the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated two gifted African American actresses, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer, for Oscars for playing maids in The Help. This is 73 years after the first African American to win an Oscar, Hattie McDaniel, garnered the award for the same role – as a maid, and a slave maid at that, winning the Oscar in the Best Supporting Actress category on Feb. 29, 1940.

And here we are, in the year of our Lord, Jan 25, 2012. Maybe I’m getting old, but the irony of this is too much. Or perhaps I’ve heard this song before. In the 1970’s, when I was a freshman at Oberlin College, my white friends and I used to sit up and talk about racism and solving society’s problems all through the night until the sun rose. Not much good came from these talks, the least of which is I hoped to get laid, which rarely happened. But on those cold nights, I was convinced that when I walked out of college, racism would be just about finished. Instead, it smashed me across the face like a bottle when I walked into the real world. Now, 33 years later, I find myself talking about the same thing I talked about when I was a college freshman.

I have no take with Ms. Davis and Ms. Spencer. They’re outstanding actresses. But the nomination of these two women by the Hollywood community 73 years after Hattie McDaniel won for the same role speaks for itself. As co-writer and co-producer of Spike Lee’s newest film “Red Hook Summer,” and his previous feature film “Miracle At St. Anna,” I have a clear eyed view of what the cultural display of African American life means to hearts in Hollywood, a land of feints and double meanings and as tricky to navigate as anything inside the Beltway. I wish someone had told me this when I was a freshman at Oberlin.

America is a super power not because we make the biggest guns. We’re a superpower because our culture has saturated the planet: Levis, Apple, Nike, Disney, Coke, Pepsi, McDonald’s, Jazz, Rhythm n Blues, Rock ‘n Roll, and Hip Hop. Our culture dominates the world far more than any nuclear bomb can. When you can make a person think a certain way, you don’t have to bomb them. Just give them some credit cards, a wide screen 3D TV, some potato chips, and watch what happens. This kind of cultural war, a war of propaganda and words, elements that both Hollywood and Washington know a lot about, makes America powerful beyond measure. The hard metal of this cultural weaponry, much of it, emanates from the soul of Blacks, the African American experience in music, dance, art and literature.

"The Peace Sign" (Barry Michael Cooper's 1990 Directorial Debut)

By Barry Michael Cooper

"The Peace Sign" was the first film I ever directed. Watching Mario Van Peebles--who was not only gracious enough to invite me to the set of "New Jack City," the screenplay I wrote for Warner Brothers in 1987, which became a hit film in 1991 and ignited the careers of Van Peebles, Wesley Snipes, Ice T, Allen Payne, and Chris Rock--but he allowed me to watch him work as he set up shots with the DP Francis Kenny, block scenes with the actors, and masterfully helm a movie that became a classic. 

photo still of David Mills, "The Peace Sign," 1990

After "New Jack City" wrapped production in early June 1990, I took a two-week crash course in filmmaking at the School of Visual Arts on 23rd Street in Manhattan. I began to read books like Andrew Sarris's The American Cinema: Directors and Directions. I also picked the brain of a man who I consider a cinematic mentor, the prolific director and TV producer Stan Lathan, in addition to devouring up to three films a day.

photo still of Eric Daniels, "The Peace Sign," 1990

"The Peace Sign" was the result of this intense celluloid immersion. Visually, I was influenced by a lot of the British New Wave's "Angry Young Man" cinema. Two films come to mind during this time; Jack Clayton's powerful "Room at the Top" (starring Lawrence Harvey and Simone Signoret; I am going to post a more in-depth essay on this film at a later date, GOD Willing), and the legendary Sidney Lumet's striking "The Hill" (an American director's take on the British New Wave), underscored by the knockout performances by the late, great Ossie Davis and a very un-James Bond-ish Sean Connery. 

photo still of Derrick Roberts, "The Peace Sign," 1990

I loved the iconic camera artistry of the UK DP's like Oswald Morris ("The Hill"), and Freddie Francis ("Room at the Top"). The clinical beauty of their B&W photography, in tandem with their use of E.C.U's (extreme close-ups) turned their coverage of the actors, into a psychic X-Ray of their souls. The work of these filmmakers--then and now--had a great impact on me.

photo still of Brent J. Cooper, "The Peace Sign," 1990

I had a lot of help on "The Peace Sign". I am forever grateful to a group of amazing first-time actors--David Mills, Derrick Roberts, Eric Daniels, and Brent J. Cooper--who effortlessly brought the characters I scripted on the page to life in ways I never dreamed possible. I learned a lot from my cinematographer, Tim Naylor, who is one of the most sought-after DP's in the business. Working as my tenacious assistant director, was a super- talented Spike Lee protege named Jeff Byrd--who kept the shooting schedule of "The Peace Sign" on time and within the budget--who would later go on to become a great director and filmmaker in his own right. Tracy Daniels, my co-producer, did a phenomenal job of turning a $5,000 investment (the entire budget of "The Peace Sign") from Steven Starr (who was my first agent at William Morris), into an ambitious, seven minute film about how different people can bring radically different points-of-view to a single object. I had a great time creating "The Peace Sign." It was and still is, a project very close to me.

Be sure to pick up my new anthology, "Hooked On The American Dream-Vol.1: New Jack City Eats Its Young," available exclusively on Kindle/Amazon. Amazon/Kindle has a free, downloadable app for all computers and mobile devices. Click here to go to the "Hooked On The American Dream-Vol.1:New Jack City Eats Its Young" Kindle store site.

More Video From The Planet Rock Panel@The Paley Center-12.September.2011:Melle Mel

By Barry Michael Cooper

Melle Mel:

"Child is born/with no state of mind/blind to the ways/of mankind..."


Melle Mel is to Hip Hop/Modern American Music, what Miles Davis is to Jazz, what Bob Dylan and William "Smokey" Robinson are to Rock&Soul, what Huddie William "Leadbelly" Ledbetter and Woody Guthrie are to Folk and Blues, and what Beethoven is to Classical; Melvin "Melle Mel" Glover--of the storied Hip Hop collective known as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five--is a composer of unparalleled excellence. Melle Mel is The Blueprint for an MC. Melle Mel represents The Beginning. If there was no Melle Mel, if there was no Hip Hop Rosetta Stone known as "The Message," there would be no Jay-Z, no Yeezy-Weezy-Jeezy, no KRS-1, no LL Cool J, no Rakim, no Big Daddy Kane, no Biggie, no Tupac, no nothing. In the grand hall of cultural mirrors that comprise The Great American Songbook, "The Message" reflected the dark light which cast shadows from the inner city's abyss. It was an S.O.S. at the crack of the dawn of the dead, in President Reagan's Mourning In America.

More Video From The Planet Rock Panel@The Paley Center-12.September.2011: Azie Faison

By Barry Michael Cooper


Azie "AZ" Faison.


Former street entrepreneur/coke dealer, intelligent MC, author, screenwriter, filmmaker, urban griot, survivor. Azie Faison has lived a lot of lives in his young 47 years. He has seen death up close and personal; he was shot nine times back in 1987, when his drug stash house in the Bronx was robbed. The botched robbery quickly dissolved into a bloody massacre which left three people dead, and three people fighting for their lives, including AZ. Three years later, Azie's best friend and fellow drug dealer Rich Porter--along with Rich's little brother Donnell--was kidnapped and brutally murdered, in a horrifically tragic story, that commanded front page bold print, and took the lead on nightly newscasts across the country.

More Video From The Planet Rock Panel@The Paley Center-12.September.2011: Nelson George

By Barry Michael Cooper

Nelson George.

Prolific author, prescient cultural critic and American historian, visionary filmmaker, director, and television producer. For over thirty years, Nelson has not only established himself as a preeminent composer of American Literature (from the Amsterdam News, to Billboard, to the Village Voice, to the New York Times, Playboy, best selling books, including his latest masterpiece, a novel titled "The Plot Against Hip Hop"), but he has also inspired a generation of African American writers to literary excellence.