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The Spectacular Story of Harlem’s Black Woodstock
Questlove’s new documentary ‘Summer of Soul’ is an in-depth look into the soundtrack behind Black American life during the fiery summer of 1969
The year 1969 was one of those touchstone periods in United States history. As the ’60s came to a close, the worlds of American science, politics, and music, to name just a few, would never be the same. The decade produced a marine coast of watershed moments. For people of color, though, many were unforgettable tragedies. The most powerful advocates and heroes of the disenfranchised — along with their hope — were killed.
The first half of the 1960s saw President John F. Kennedy and Malcolm X plotted against and assassinated. In 1968, Robert F. Kennedy announced to the country that Martin Luther King Jr. had been murdered. Two months later, on the brink of becoming presidential balm for a nation in great pain, Kennedy met the same fate. Fred Hampton didn’t survive the close of the ’60s, but the Black Panther chairman lived to see the summer of 1969.
Although the entire nation was on fire, few burned and fumed more than inner-city Black people living through the middle of the decade’s final year. To fully comprehend the racial temperature of the final summer of the ’60s is to…
