This commentary originally appeared
on the web site of CKLN Radio, Toronto, Canada.  When Ray Charles first performed in Paris in the
60s, the Algerians sent him a message that he was safe despite
the fact that they were fighting a war against French colonialism.
It's the kind of ambiguous tale that looms large in the legacy
of the brilliant genre-bending artist who died last June, just
missing the buzz over Ray, the recently released flick starring
Jamie Foxx.
Charles may have been a musical and business genius, but on the
political front it's an altogether different matter. He liked to
get paid and laid – and I'm
afraid he allowed this aspect of his personality to cloud his political judgment.
 His best-known transgression was performing in South Africa when the United
Nations-sanctioned cultural boycott was in full effect – a boycott supported
by the African National Congress and all the liberation movements.
When Charles played there in 1981, the Black Consciousness Movement (of AZANIA)
made it clear that they loved him but that this was not the time to appear
in that racist state. The appeal didn't faze him, and as a result he faced
pickets in South Africa and 15 cities in North America, including Toronto,
Albany, New York City and Los Angeles.
All that the UN asked for was a simple apology and a pledge not to return
to South Africa until apartheid was abolished. But Charles wouldn't utter
the "sorry''
word and instead told his detractors that they could "kindly kiss the
far end" of his anatomy.
 Other stars got it right: Curtis Mayfield, Frank Sinatra, Tina
Turner,George Benson, Eartha Kitt, Jimmy Cliff and many others.
Even Sammy Davis Jr., a card-carrying Republican, appealed to then president
Ronald Reagan, one of the pariah state's greatest supporters, to reverse his
position.
Charles described himself as a Hubert Humphrey Democrat, meaning a left-moderate
Democrat in the parlance of the times. But when he was offered $100,000 to
perform America The Beautiful at Reagan's second inaugural gala in 1985, he
softened his stance on the Republicans. He had recorded a version of this patriotic
song back in 1972, in the days when black activists were hostile to the symbols
of American nationhood and on principle wouldn't stand up at public events
when the national anthem was played.
At Reagan's celebration, Charles sang and played piano to a taped orchestral
background, without a band, and he and long-time manager Joe Adams pocketed
all the money. Adams was proud of the contract. When he met with Ron Wilkins
of the Unity and Action Network (Los Angeles chapter) and actor Robert Hooks
on the issue, Adams boasted that "for that kind of money we would have
sung America The Beautiful at a Ku Klux Klan rally."
 I always blamed Adams for turning the race-conscious Charles into a puddle
for the Republican party. Adams had been an L.A. radio personality, entrepreneur
and actor who starred in many Hollywood films, including Carmen Jones, with
Lena Horne, and the original Manchurian Candidate, in which he played Frank
Sinatra's psychiatrist. He managed Charles at a time when African-American
artists were almost exclusively handled by Euro-Americans. So Charles made
a brave choice in hiring Adams.
Still, I've come to believe over time that most of the political gaffes
belonged to Charles himself. There's no other way to understand his chronic
insensitivity
to the dreams and desires of black America.
In the end – sadly – it appears that the "Genius of Soul" was
unfailingly his own man. Norman (Otis) Richmond is a news commentator
at CKLN Radio, Toronto, Canada. CKLN’s web address is http://www.ckln.fm/.
Mr. Richmond can be reached at [email protected] |
