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Dedicated to the Struggle:
Black Music, Transculturation, and the Aural Making and Unmaking of the third World
Njoroge Njoroge
But the black musician, he picks up his horn and starts blowing
some sounds that he never thought of before. He improvises, he creates,
it comes from within. It's his soul, it's that soul music…. Well,
likewise he can do the same thing if given intellectual independence…
. He can invent a society, a social system, an economic system, a political
system that is different from anything that exists on this earth. He will
improvise, he will bring it from within himself. And this is what you
and I want. —Malcolm X
On February 15, 1961, Adlai E. Stevenson Jr., Kennedy's new ambassador
to the United Nations, rose to defend the Security Council's handling of
the crisis in the Congo, less than forty-eight hours after the news of Patrice
Lumumba's execution was made public. Since independence in 1960, ethnic
strife, neocolonial machinations, and political turmoil had devastated
the former Belgian Congo. Lumumba appealed to the United Nations for
help; however, the world organization was unable to persuade the Belgian
forces to disarm and evacuate. Lumumba then turned to the Soviets for
assistance. Rebel forces, with the aid of the Central Intelligence Agency,
captured Lumumba and assassinated him in January of 1961 (his death was
kept secret until the following month). As Stevenson began his remarks, a group of between fifty and sixty African Americans, clad in all black in
testament to the slain leader, stood in the gallery in silent protest. A fight
("riot") ensued as security personnel attempted to suppress the protestors,
setting off "the most violent demonstration" in U.N. history (Walker and
Gosset 1961).
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Content in Black Music Research Journal (ISSN 0276-3605) is intended for personal, noncommercial use only.
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