Black Power Mix Tape
The Afro-Latino Exonian Society (ALES) launched into Black History Month with their showing of “The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975” last Friday night. Students gathered in Mayer Auditorium to learn about the Black Power Movement as told through the interviews of the revolutionaries that pushed it forward.The film was released in 2011 after thirty-year-old footage was found in the basement of Swedish Television. It consisted of one-of-a-kind footage from the aforementioned years, attained by Swedish journalists in America. When it was rediscovered, the videos gave director Göran Olsson exclusive access to gritty testimonies from Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis, Eldridge Cleaver and more.
“Our goal was to remind all that Black history is American history.”
The movie takes place in a broken America. It exposes a nation reeling from the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy. The country is facing up to centuries of division and hate-fueled actions and laws. Stokely Carmichael, leader of groups such as Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, The Black Panther Party and All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party explained how the Black Power Movement evolved after Martin Luther King Jr: “[Dr. King] is a man who could accept the uncivilized behavior of white Americans and their unceasing taunts and still have in his heart forgiveness. Unfortunately, I am from a younger generation. I am not as patient as Dr. King, nor am I as merciful as Dr. King. And their unwillingness to deal with someone like Dr. King just means they have to deal with this younger generation”.ALES used this film as a starting place for Black History Month. Math instructor Sami Atif, advisor of ALES, said, “We’ve tried to highlight the innumerable but often overlooked contributions that Blacks have given to our society.” This film displays the wide range of people that have stood up for equality, many of whom have received very little recognition for their struggle against a consistently oppressive society. Dr. Atif asks students to, “question why [it] is that so much of what they are hearing is new?” and to wonder, “Why isn’t this in our curriculum or part of our collective psyche?” Similar questions are being asked right now over social media around the globe.ALES has planned several events for the following month. Atif said, “The ALES board has worked hard to engineer events and programming that draw attention to the history and reasons for a Black History Month.”ALES hopes to bring overlooked American history into the forefront of students’ minds this month—and the message has already reached students. In reference to the African Americans who fought for their rights, prep Gabby Brown, who attended the event, said, “I’ve always heard about what they had to go through, but seeing it was a whole different experience. I understood better what they sacrificed to give black people their rights.”Brown added, “The most interesting part is that the film was made by Swedish journalists who wanted to show what effects the Black Movement had on America. This makes the film unbiased and honest.” This aspect is at the heart of ALES’s goals: to communicate that story of the search for justice is not just the story of a fraction of our society.Atif said, “Most importantly, our goal was to remind all that Black history is American history.”