Earlier this week on TV One I watched “Wattstax”, a 1973 documentary by Mel Stuart that focused on the 1972 Wattstax music festival and the black community of Watts in Los Angeles, California. The 1972 concert was held at the Los Angeles Coliseum to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the Watts riots. Tickets were only $1, yet it featured some of the top black entertainers of our time.

It was an interesting documentary, but there was one part that really stuck with me. At the start of the concert the National Anthem was being sung. But no one stood and no one cheered. People just sort of sat around until it was done. It wasn’t until the “Black National Anthem” was being sung that people proudly stood with fists in air. This was a time when black people felt like the country they helped build didn’t show them the respect they deserved.

Now go back fifty plus years to to the “New Negro Movement”. A time where Harlem Renaissance hot spots like the Cotton Club showcased some of the best black performers that New York City had to offer. Musicians like Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday graced the stage for an audience that didn’t see them as equals. It was a time when black authors like James Weldon Johnson and Langston Hughes wrote poems and songs that told of the struggles Black Americans faced in a society separated by race.

Due to the literary and musical genius of those who contributed to the Harlem Renaissance, we are able to see what it was like to be black in the 1920s.  The books, poetry and music written are just as much of the black culture today as it was back then. We owe them our gratitude and need to make sure their legacy is never forgotten. There’s a lot of history in Harlem and there’s no time like the present to learn more about the impact it’s had on our culture. All you have to do is open a book and read.