A Circle of Friends: Ali, Malcolm X, Jim Brown and Sam Cooke

Greater forces were concerned about what these friendships meant

'What If?': Black Visionaries, Cultural Icons and a Circle of Friendship
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21.com

The recent documentary A Night in Vegas directed by Reggie Rock Bythewood highlights a little known personal relationship between the late actor and rapper Tupac Shakur and boxer Mike Tyson. Shakur was murdered in Las Vegas after a Tyson boxing match fourteen years ago this September 13th. That the two men—iconic figures in the 1990s and two of the most visible representations of Hip-Hop generation masculinity—maintained their friendship beyond the glare of celebrity journalism, even as they were also linked by their criminal convictions for sexual assault and rape, was the most amazing aspect of their relationship.

The friendship between Tyson and Shakur raises questions about what other historical figures had relationships that remain largely unknown to the general public, but offer insight to how such figures envisioned translating their fame, wealth and relative political influence into meaningful engagements on behalf of Black communities.

At the height of the Civil Right Rights Movement in the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. emerged not only as the titular head of the movement, but the most well known freedom fighter in the world. When King was weighed down by the challenges of his vocation, there were few, if any, who could have fully understood what he was going through. The isolation that King experienced because of his unique role in history is not unusual for those who are essentially peerless—the reality that those of us who can readily locate our peers, often take for granted.

The lack of a legitimate peer-group, for example is what fueled comedian Steve Harvey’s meltdown last fall on Donnie McClurkin’s show, as he tearfully admitted that he simply didn’t have anybody to talk to. Earlier in Harvey’s career, the King’s of Comedy tour with the late Bernie Mac, Cedric the Entertainer and DL Hughley perhaps allowed him to find a community of peers, but given the demands from family, individual career goals, and even personality conflicts, such networks can be difficult to sustain over long periods of time. What if, for example, Lauryn Hill had access to such a network a decade ago?

Ironically for King, his most logical peer in the early 1960s was the man that was publically positioned as his ideological opposite, Malcolm X. The men were hyper aware of each other—King’s non-violent strategy was regularly targeted when Malcolm X played the ideological dozens—and also understood how they each benefitted and were limited by each other. In other words they needed each other—King more so than Malcolm X—in order to effectively reach their constituencies.

We can only imagine how the two might have developed a real friendship and understanding of each other’s political passions if they would have had access to the technology that we take for granted now, like text-messaging. Indeed would such a relationship been allowed to exist, given the political implications of the two most well know Black leaders of their era, working in concert with other, even behind the scenes?

Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21.com

In a Circle of Men...

Neal Contrasts 60s' Leaders to Today

by Gary James '10

How do Malcolm X, Facebook, and Muhammad Ali relate to each other?

Before the 21st century, the question would have been difficult to answer. But with the rise of social networking, Mark Anthony Neal, Professor of Black Popular Culture at Duke University, has been able to revisit the history of black social and political figures like Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, Muhammad Ali, and Jim Brown within the context of modern-day possibilities for communication.

Neal has been on campus since Wednesday as the College’s Owen Duston Visiting Minority Scholar. He has visited nearly half a dozen classes, and faculty, staff, and students have been holding weekly round table discussions of Neal’s book New Black Man in preparation for his visit. He delivered the annual Malcolm X Institute Lecture Thursday on the friendships among different civil rights leaders in the mid-20th century and how those friendships could form and mean today.

Neal told the story of how four men were brought together by their mutual relationships with Muhammad Ali and divided by the vicissitudes of life and politics in the 1960s.

Malcolm X was a social theorist political activist representing a fringe element of the civil rights movement.

Sam Cooke was an R&B singer and entrepreneur.

Jim Brown was a professional football player and actor, perhaps best known for the records he set as running back for the Cleveland Browns back in the 1950s and 1960s.

And Cassius Clay, who later changed his name to Muhammad Ali, was a famous – or imfamous – boxer known for saying whatever came to his mind.

Neal panned the unique bond of this “quartet,” how it developed and what possibilities could have arisen out of their continued friendship.

“One reason we’ll never know how this friendship developed is because three weeks [after they all spent time together in Miami] Malcolm X leaves the Nation of Islam,” Neal said. “A day [later] Muhammad Ali announces to the world that he’s no longer Cassius Clay…and is instructed to sever all ties with Malcolm X. I often wonder what might have happened to that relationship if, in the face of all this public stuff, Ali and Malcolm X could have texted each other, if they had had Twitter or Myspace or Facebook or a way to communicate outside of the public.”

Read the Full Article @ Wabash College

Bobby Womack Inducted into The Rock Hall of Fame

from The Root

Now that the last “soul man” has been honored by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he can finally put his demons behind him.


The Secrets of Bobby Womack
by Mark Anthony Neal

Mention the phrase “soul man,” and a litany of names runs through your mind: Otis Redding, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Al Green, Isaac Hayes, Marvin Gaye, Jackie Wilson, Teddy Pendergrass and, of course, Sam Cooke. Even newbies like Anthony Hamilton and Jaheim are likely to make the cut, particularly for those who like their contemporary soul, down home and gritty.

For far too many, Bobby Womack is unfortunately an afterthought. But that should change with Womack’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on April 4. Womack joins the ranks of many of the aforementioned legendary soul men including his late friend and mentor Sam Cooke.

At the height of soul music’s popularity in the 1960s and early 1970s, the male soul singer’s status rivaled that of his “race man” peer. The soul man icons of that era congealed grand narratives of tragedy—shot dead in a motel; shot dead by your father; shot dead in a game of Russian Roulette; killed in an airplane crash; scorched by a pot of boiling grits—wedded to even more complicated personal demons—physical abuse of wives and girlfriends; sexual assault of younger female artists; sex with underage girls.

So, at a time when Martin Luther King Jr. and others presented African Americans as the moral compass of American society, the soul man signified a noble and decidedly secular struggle against good and evil.

Bobby Womack’s path to the Hall of Fame is filled with such battles. Did God punish the singer for abandoning gospel music? Did Womack betray his mentor Sam Cooke by marrying his wife? In the end, was he “commercial” enough to crossover?

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