When I was in my last year of high school, 1970-71, I joined an open classroom class (technically a writing class) in which one of my classmates posted prominent posters and quotes by Malcolm X around the room. Her outspoken politics ignited many a passionate discussion in the classroom. Her goal was to get her classmates to rethink our understanding of Black America — an understanding that was based on the by now familiar racial tropes that blamed African Americans for their situation and assumed all the bad stuff that was happening was their own doing.
The Netflix film Remastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke shows an iconic scene in which Sam and Malcolm had a get-together with Jim Brown (who was a hero in Ohio as the star of the Cleveland Browns) and Muhammad Ali. This happened just after Ali, who was at that point still known as Cassius Clay, won the heavyweight title. It is the high point of the film: 4 powerful Black men who defied systemic racism and white supremacist violence, meeting in respectful solidarity and support of each other. This kind of success at that point was extremely rare; the four men were pioneers.
Many of us know Sam Cooke’s reputation as the “father of soul music”. What most people are not aware of is that, in addition to his soaring success in defiance of Jim Crow, the Klan, and the more subtle but ubiquitous obstacles that Black people in America still face, he was all about empowering Black musicians. Cooke started a record label, SAR, and a publishing company with that exact purpose in mind. Taking a page from Malcolm’s book on Black empowerment, he wanted African American artists to be able to bypass the white-owned record companies and to have ownership of their music. The concealing of this essential aspect of him is what the film refers to as his “second killing”.
Sam Cooke’s life ended tragically in 1963; the details of his murder are still disputed. The film spends some time, near the end, on this debate. What is noteworthy and powerfully moving about this film, in my view, is that it blends Cooke’s iconic soulful music with an intense scrutiny of American history at that time. I really want people to see this movie. It moved me deeply; the music itself is powerfully moving in its historical context.
I wish we could all look back at this era and say, “Thank god that is over.” Recent events are testimony that the struggle for racial justice is nowhere near its end. What we can say that is positive is that our indefatigable Black social justice movements — especially Black Lives Matter in the present — have moved the needle. 49% of Americans across all ethnicities now support Black Lives Matter, compared with 38% who oppose them. This is not anywhere near good enough, but it does represent significant progress over the past 3 years.
Barack Obama once said that African-American culture is not an add-on to American culture, it is an essential part of it. The same must be said of African-American history. The contributions of people like Sam Cooke and Malcolm X to this struggle are an important part of our history, and we should all know and celebrate those contributions.