Post-Soul Nation The Explosive, Contradictory, Triumphant, and Tragic 1980s As Experienced by African Americans (Previously Known As Blacks and Before That Negroes

Introduction: Affirmative Actions For centuries the word isouli was (pardon the pun) solely employed by religious leaders and philosophers to describe manis spiritual core. The soul could be cursed to eternal damnation. The soul could rise up to heavenly salvation. God and the Devil have sparred over the soul of man since before the very devout Bible was written. The soul has always been that region of consciousness that truly defined us, not the temple of flesh we walk around in. To this day the soul is, in popular consciousness, associated with oneis spiritual dimensions, as the ubiquitous best-selling Chicken Soup for the Soulbooks testified to at the turn of the century.It was no coincidence then that those black singers of the i60s began describing the popular music as isoul music,i since its musical base (rhythm, melody, vocal arrangement) all harked back to the sounds heard in the Christian churches that nurtured them. Though the subject matter of soul music was secularousually love, lust, and lossosoul was descended from gospel, and when performed by a queen like Aretha Franklin, the music possessed the devotional intensity of a Sunday sermon. From this simple linguistic transfer came a wider use of the word. As the sixties progressed, soul signaled not simply a style of pop music but the entire heritage and culture of blacks (or Negroes or colored or Afro-Americans, depending on the year and context). We became isoul sistasi and isoul brothersi who dined on isoul food,i exchanged isoul shakes,i celebrated with isoul clapsi as isoul childreni marching for isoul poweri while listening to isoul brother number one,i James Brown. This social use of soul quickly became commodified, resulting in soul magazines, soul barbershops, soul hair-care products, and an enduring TV show called Soul Train. Motown records founder Berry Gordy, never a man to miss a trick, even copyrighted the word and released records on the Soul label.References to the i60s soul still pop up in music videos, commercials, and movies with great regularity. But they usually just skim the commercial surface of an era that for the black community had depth, substance, and edge. The sixties werenit about fried chickenothose ten years were the apex of the struggle of blacks for full citizenshipoa battle that began the day President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but that took on a new urgency after World War II. Thatis when Americans of many hues (and too many foreign observers for the governmentis comfort) began pointing out the hypocrisy of a nation that battled Nazi hate but practiced institutionalized racism. With a biblical ferver born of a desire to bring this countryis everyday reality in line with our Constitutionis soaring rhetoric, the civil rights movement remade America. Through legislation and marching, moral suasion and bloodshed, from 1946 into the 1970s, official barriers were smashed with the legislative and moral apex of the sixties. I was a child during the i60s and I remember that iWe Shall Overcomei energy with great affection. For me this historic period was absolutely about soul in its deepest spiritual meaning. It was about faith in the human capacity for change and a palpable optimism about the future. Itis not necessary to recite the huge list of accomplishments of that epoch to say that period was witness to dramatic concrete action and a sense of commitment that defined the life of Martin Luther King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, and thousands of others. And that hard, visionary work was all about soul. The term ipost-souli defines the twisting, troubling, turmoil-filled, and often terrific years since the mid-seventies when black America moved into a new phase of its history. Post-soul is my shorthand to describe a time when America attempted to absorb the victories, failures, and ambiguities that resulted from the soul years.George, Nelson is the author of 'Post-Soul Nation The Explosive, Contradictory, Triumphant, and Tragic 1980s As Experienced by African Americans (Previously Known As Blacks and Before That Negroes' with ISBN 9780670032754 and ISBN 0670032751.