Page 90 - 1619 Project Curriculum

The 1619 Project

Sept. 16, 1979: During the 1970s, hip- ⬤July 1984:The Rev. Jesse Jackson gives a hist
17

,

hop evolves as an art form in the South in San Francisco, where he describes the need for

Bronx. Often performed at street parties, minister who was the most prominent black cand

the phenomenon goes mainstream with lose the Democratic nomination to Walter Mond

Sugarhill Gang’s ‘Rapper’s Delight.’

Was it the loud distorted bass of a speaker rattling my windowpanes,
beckoning me from my bedroom to a late-afternoon party in the school-

yard at P.S. 38? Or maybe it was the exuberance of teenagers streaming

down my block toward what promised to be the end-of-the-summer jam.

Following the laughter, I found myself at one of those pop-up parties

where everything felt improvised. The turntable was powered by jumper

cables winding from the lamppost to the sound system, and the sparkling

concrete was an unlikely dance floor. The schoolyard was so packed with

hot, sweaty black and brown bodies that I had to scale the chain-link fence

just to get a glimpse of the D.J. spinning the vinyl and the silky-smooth

M.C. straining to punch his voice above a crowd hungry for his home-

spun rhymes. Everybody was dancing with a furious urgency, driven on

by the spontaneous bursts of inspiration that tumbled from the M.C.’s lyri-

cal tongue. Plucking records from a stack of milk crates, the D.J. worked

overtime to keep his twin turntables pumping a continuous groove, decon-
structing and repurposing the disco beats to meet our youthful energy.

Scratching and mixing, his hands created syncopated rhythms that hit our
ears like musical bombs.

Said
Hey! Ho!
Hey! Ho!
The M.C. led us through a call-and-response like a master conductor.
His words, a provocation to be loud and unapologetically ourselves. How

could we know that the braggadocio of this young black M.C. was the
beginning of a revolution?

Rumors were flying that the Crazy Homicides, a Puerto Rican street

gang, were going to battle the Tomahawks. The danger added an edge of

excitement, but the music brokered the peace — no one dared interrupt the

reverie. Hard rocks, B-boys and B-girls in coordinated outfits
wore the names

of their crews proudly splashed across their T-shirts, the lettering rendered

in thick graffiti markers or colorful iron-on decals. Jockeying for space, they My older sister, Rae, makes me write 500 words every night before I

formed spontaneous dance circles to show off go to bed. Tonight, I want to write five million because of this speech by

their intricate moves. Popping

and rocking, their bodies contorted in impossible and beautiful shapes that Jesse Jackson, a black man with big, beautiful eyeballs.

at once paid tribute to their African ancestors and the rebellious desire to be While we were working on the Barnett house tonight, Rae kept saying

seen and heard in a city that had overlooked the majesty of their presence. that Jesse’s speech was going to do for us what Ronald Reagan’s speech did

Then a dancer lost in the moment bumped the D.J.’s folding table, for white folks at the Neshoba County Fair four years ago. Ronald Reagan

sending the needle screeching across the vinyl. An argument ensued — came to the fair and said some words about ‘‘states’ rights.’’ Those words

tempers that had been simmering throughout the evening threatened to made a lot of white folks at the fair happier than Christmas Eve. Those

bubble over. But the D.J. didn’t lose a beat, off ering a funky fresh musical words made Rae, Mama, Granny and our whole church so scared we had

salve to ease the tension. to leave. When we got in the van, Rae told me that Ronald Reagan came to

er white folks an all-you-can-eat buffet of black suffering.
Rock it out, y’all Mississippi to off

Don’t stop, y’all I asked Rae if white folks left full. She sucked her teeth.

Said hip hop Dafinas, who worked on the house with us this summer, stayed to watch

Dance ’til ya the speech, too. He’s from Oaxaca, Mexico, and his grandmother was just

drop, y’all

Just as the M.C. resurrected the party, the power to the street lamp was stolen by police and sent back to Oaxaca. I don’t know if Rae and Dafinas

shut off , and darkness brought a close to the festivities. Someone used go together, but they look at each other’s hands like they do. Jackson: Paul Sequeira/Getty Images; Getty Images

a wrench to turn on the fire hydrant, and we all ran through the water All of

us watched Jesse Jackson say the names of people I never heard of at

to cool down our overheated bodies — the ritual cleansing marking an school. He talked about Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner. He talked about

official ending to the party, but not the movement. Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin King and Rabbi Abraham Heschel. He talked

about Hispanic-Americans, Arab-Americans, African-Americans. He talked

By Lynn Nottage about lesbian and gay Americans having something called equal protection

under the law. He talked about powerful coalitions made of rainbows.

84 Photo illustration by Jon Key