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Life & Times Transcript

01/16/06

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

It's a federal holiday, but does Martin Luther King Day get the respect it deserves?

Saul Lankster>> My worst fear is that this holiday will be recognized by fewer and fewer businesses each year and will be recognized by fewer and fewer individuals each year and, when we lose that, we lose some of the richness of what America is all about.

Val Zavala>> And then, their acrobatic moves took the art of tap dancing to new heights. We look at the career of the fabulous Nicholas Brothers.

Those stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> He changed the course of United States history and was honored with a national holiday, but seem people feel that Martin Luther King Day is losing its luster. It may be a legal holiday for government workers, but only about a quarter of all businesses observe Martin Luther King Day and, as Gay Yee tells us, some people are calling for a renewed commitment to this great civil rights leader.

Gay Yee>> The National Alliance for Positive Action fears Martin Luther King Day is fast becoming a forgotten holiday.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson>> "We're calling on businesses to do several things. Number one, if you're not going to give your employees the day off, at the very least let your employees know what this day means and what the civil rights movement represented."

Martin Luther King, Jr.>> "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal."

Gay Yee>> Forty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King raised the consciousness of millions of baby boomers. Murray Burns was just out of graduate school when King was assassinated.

Murray Burns>> And it got me to thinking about race relations in our country and it converted me politically forever.

Gay Yee>> Sitting in this Larchmont coffee shop, Burns believes the problem is more generational than political.

Murray Burns>> You know, if you were politically active and aware at that time, it was something.

Gay Yee>> So, what do you think has happened to this holiday?

Murray Burns>> I think it's died a natural death.

Saul Lankster>> I was a seventeen year old college kid in Selma and it was wonderful and, at the same time, it was kind of scary.

Gay Yee>> Long Beach State civil rights professor, Saul Lankster, marched with King in the 1960's.

Saul Lankster>> My worst fear is that this holiday will be recognized by fewer and fewer businesses each year and will be recognized by fewer and fewer individuals each year and, when we lose that, we lose some of the richness of what America is all about.

Gay Yee>> Richard Harris and his twin brother, Ron, own Lucy Florence Coffeehouse, a Leimert Park Village gathering spot and performance space. The coffee bar is open. The difference is, it will be offering a full array of festivities honoring King.

Richard Harris>> I feel that it is a total disregard for history actually because, without Dr. King and Rosa Parks, no black person walking this earth today would be where he or she is today.

Gay Yee>> Customers like retired County Health Services deputy director, Larry Roberts, uses this time to remember and reflect how far we've come and how far we still need to go.

Larry Roberts>> There certainly is an indication of why we need to get out and vote and, unfortunately, many people feel that they were disenfranchised then in not being able to vote. That's something that this man really gave his life for.

Gay Yee>> Doors of opportunity opened to many Americans because of Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. It's why some say we cannot and must not make this hero of a man into a stepchild of a holiday.

Martin Luther King, Jr.>> "We've got some difficult days ahead, but it really doesn't matter with me now because I've been to the mountaintop."

Val Zavala>> The history of African-American freedom is one of America's most dramatic stories from slavery to emancipation to the ongoing fight against discrimination. But now one provocative black thinker says it's time for a whole new stage to begin, one that's not based on the idea of oppression. Her name is Debra J. Dickerson. She's a Harvard-educated lawyer and journalist. Her book is called "The End of Blackness". I talked with her at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Now you've said some pretty provocative things that go a little bit even beyond that point. You've said, for example, "Now blacks are the white supremacists." What does that mean?

Debra J. Dickerson>> You know, I wrote this book very pugnaciously and very ferociously because I really wanted to jolt people out of their comfort zones. Because I needed to be jolted out of my comfort zone and I did that by writing this book. Some of this is just an attempt to get us to look at things that, on the surface, seem like ugly and uncontemplatable and really are not once you sort of peel them away.

What I mean by that is, this notion, this implicit, unstated notion or sort of the black conversation about the problems we're facing, that we sort of exalt -- we put white people into situations where they're completely irrelevant and we keep them at the center of our decision-making and of our agenda-setting.

Val>> Give me an example.

Debra J. Dickerson>> One example is when I took my nephew to be on the basketball team at his black Catholic church. When the lay minister, not the white priest --it's an inner city Catholic church -- when the lay minister is talking to them -- this is his pep speech to them, a bunch of ten year old black kids. You know, telling them that they were going to face all this racism from the white churches and they were going to be cheated and people were going to be mean to them and basically telling them, you know, you're going to lose your games, but you know what, that's okay.

Now who thinks white people are like super-humans in that situation? You know, they're always plotting against us, they're always out to get us, and they're always going to win. So isn't that like sort of what the Klan thinks? He's teaching these kids, you know, paranoia and a weird sort of ego centrism, but he was also more importantly teaching them to accept defeat.

Val Zavala>> You draw a lot on W.D. Dubois and others who have really, you say, hit the right nerve way back in history.

Debra J. Dickerson>> Right. And it's telling that I had to go back a hundred years and more in the case of Frederick Douglass to figure out how to be black in 2004 because I wasn't getting it today.

Val Zavala>> What essence, what message did he have that you think works better for today?

Debra J. Dickerson>> Their message is a message of transcendence. Here are the principles that are transcendent, that are not time and place specific as opposed to you can't fight for a segregated army, that sort of thing. Especially Dr. King was talking about not a struggle between black and white, but a struggle between justice and injustice. That's a crucial difference because white people are not America. Black people are not America. All of us together are America and to sort of frame it as a struggle against white people is, again, white supremacist, you know.

Frederick Douglass who was a fugitive slave was beyond all this race stuff. I mean, he was totally trans-racial and he was looking toward the time where we were through with all of this. And the contribution that black people make to that is to be willing to participate in a conversation that isn't just about, you know, the struggles of black people. So I had to go back in time to figure out -- and I went back to those things to make my peace because I figured all those classical documents, those are these eloquent denunciations of white people and racism. So those things will comfort me and I'll be able to, you know, like be prepared to lose like this minister was doing and I'll have these wonderful high-flowing phrases to do it with.

Absolutely not. These documents turned out to be intra-communal critiques, almost all of them. It was like, of course, there's racism -- duh. The issue is, what is our response to it? The response, to be timeless, to be transcendental, to translate the way that the goals of the movement translated all over the country such that you had Chinese kids in Tiananmen Square quoting Dr. King. You know, that minister is never going to be quoted anywhere outside of his own church except to condemn him.

What they were saying and what they pointed out to me was that these messages are for everybody. This isn't just how white people need to live. The standards that these guys set applied to everybody. Dr. King wasn't just lecturing white people. It's about humanity. It's about justice. It's not about exalting black people over white people. So it seems to me that's where we've lost our way and that's why those thinkers in those books have stood the test of time.

Val Zavala>> Debra Dickerson, you are going to get, I'm sure, a lot of response if you haven't already from this book. I want to thank you very much for your very gutsy opinions.

Debra J. Dickerson>> I guess I'm not smart enough to keep these things to myself (laughter), but I know I'm not alone. Thank you.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> Forty years ago today, the Watts riots broke out, but out of that violence came The Watts Prophets, a group of poets that are, in many ways, the fathers of modern rap music, but none of them live in Watts today. Toni Guinyard tracked them down to find out what they think of Los Angeles then and now.

Richard Dedeaux>> "To light up Los Angeles, Detroit, Philadelphia and most major cities of the world, it takes trillions and billions and millions and millions of watts. To light up Los Angeles, it only took one and I remember Watts."

Toni Guinyard>> Poet Richard Dedeaux found his creative voice in the wake of an event that grabbed the nation's attention: the Watts riots.

Richard Dedeaux>> In 1965, I was a kid on fire. See, with my poetry, I went to the white establishment with my poems. They said you got really nice work, but it's a little vicious. You know, you're talking about white people a little harsh.

Toni Guinyard>> Two years after the riot in the summer of 1965, Dedeaux and fellow poets, Otis O'Solomon and Amde Hamilton, united to form The Watts Prophets. The group was part of the acclaimed Watts Writers Workshop and now, forty years after the collective anger of one community sparked day after day of violence, The Watts Prophets look back.

Otis O'Solomon>> The white presses called it riots and the black presses called it a rebellion, but it was not until it happened that I began to understand.

Toni Guinyard>> Many still find it tough to comprehend, nearly a week of violence leaving thirty-four people dead and more than one thousand injured, four thousand people arrested and six hundred businesses destroyed. But people who lived through the summer of 1965 say the numbers don't tell the full story.

Richard Dedeaux>> The lid on the pressure cooker just exploded.

Otis O'Solomon>> There was a lot of conflict between the community and the police department at that time.

Richard Dedeaux>> The incident that caused it was pushing this kid in the street and his mama got involved and all that, but what the underlying thing was, all this creativity in Watts with no area of expression.

Toni Guinyard>> 116th Street and Avalon Boulevard. This is where the kid, a young black man suspected of drunk driving, struggled with a white police officer during a traffic stop. The incident sparked nearly a week of violence, but it also marked what was supposed to be a community's cultural and artistic rebirth.

Amde Hamilton>> It's the perception of what Watts was in 1965. In 1965, Watts was a beautiful, creative, vibrant village that had problems just like black communities all across America has.

Toni Guinyard>> Long-time residents say it's the part of Watts that gets lost when you look back and talk about what happened and what failed to happen.

Amde Hamilton>> After the riots, no one consulted the Watts leadership here.

Otis O'Solomon>> But over the years, you began to become almost depressed when you start to look around and see a lot of these things that was talked about that never really materialized.

Toni Guinyard>> A lot was expected. In 1965 when many people wanted to stay as far away from Watts as possible, this is where Academy Award-winning screenwriter, Bud Schulberg, felt he had to go.

Richard Dedeaux>> And he saw a completely different Watts than what was being broadcast on television. He met people who he considered very talented.

Toni Guinyard>> He formed the Watts Writers Workshop providing an outlet for the community's artistic talent.

Otis O'Solomon>> When I first came to the Watts Writers Workshop, it was like you spend like eighteen hours a day and, once you left with it on your mind, you couldn't wait to get back.

Richard Dedeaux>> We came out of a lot of chaos. We came out of the Watts rebellion in 1965, the "I'm black and I'm proud" movement. There was a lot of bitterness, a lot of poison, inside. I'm speaking for myself. A lot of poison inside of me. Hate this, kill that, whitey this, you know.

Otis O'Solomon>> He had a poem that was very -- it was called "Kill, Kill, Kill" and we went a lot of places. It cost us a lot of jobs because when we go up and do that poem, the people would look at us and they would like, okay, we shocked the audience. We left them in shock. When we got through, the guy that owned the club come up and said "You guys are going to make a lot of money, but not in this club (laughter)."

Amde Hamilton>> I remember that poem. He's talking about hot-rod policemen zipping through the ghetto streets, trampling babies, killing people. You know, I already said it. I don't have to say it over and over and over again. It's been said many, many years ago and not much has changed in this community except all the wonderful and good people have been run off.

Toni Guinyard>> Ask Hamilton anything about Watts and there's a good chance he'll have an answer, but he no longer lives here.

Amde Hamilton>> This is all I loved. I never wanted to leave. All my people. This is my rhythm. I never wanted to leave it, but I can't stand it anymore.

Toni Guinyard>> What can't you stand?

Amde Hamilton>> I can't stand the leadership that's still here that were part of the destruction of this community. I can't stand the people to continue to exalt them. I can't continue to see their success over this in a game that they continue to play in this community.

Toni Guinyard>> But you have such a passion for this community. Conventional wisdom would say you would stay, that you would make a mark, that you can effect change.

Amde Hamilton>> I haven't been able to so far.

Toni Guinyard>> But he hasn't stopped trying.

[Film Clip]

Toni Guinyard>> The Watts Prophets still take to the stage a little older and wiser perhaps and they still attract an audience.

[Film Clip]

Richard Dedeaux>> "And I remember Watts. With her eyes saddened with hunger and her empty pots, a place where winos and have-nots took their treasured possessions to pawn shops on 103rd and other spots, and I remember her old men sitting around on boxes in front of pool halls and in alleys and in vacant lots drinking wine and playing checkers and telling each other how this young generation was going to pot, crack and stuff like that. Yeah, I remember Watts." You start looking in the audience and realizing that the majority of our audience was little white poor kids and then you starting realizing the power of words. You can use them to hurt or you can use them to heal.

Toni Guinyard>> And so they heal, their words serving as reminders of how it used to be. They've written books and they teach and they continue to recite poetry.

Richard Dedeaux>> "It really doesn't matter where you go. As long as you're poor, it's still the Ghetto. You can be poor and white, it's still the Ghetto. They're all the same. You can be born brown. It's still the Ghetto. They're all the same. You can be born black. It's still the Ghetto. They're all the same. They're all the same. The only difference is in the name, and I remember Watts."

Toni Guinyard>> I'm Toni Guinyard for Life and Times.

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

Life and Times
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Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Val Zavala>> Mikhail Baryshnikov called them perfect examples of pure genius. He was talking about the Nicholas Brothers and, in the 1920's and 1930's, this tap dancing team raised the art to new levels. They made scores of films and blended acrobatics with classic tap. I got a chance to meet Fayard Nicholas and talk with him about his amazing career.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> The crowd turned out for a party at the Hollywood Museum. Inside, the rooms were covered with photos and Hollywood memorabilia.

Fayard Nicholas>> "Hey, how you doing there?"

Val Zavala>> But tonight the center of attention is a living legend, Fayard Nicholas. Fayard is one-half of the famous Nicholas Brothers tap dancing team.

Fayard Nicholas>> "We were known as the Nicholas Brothers and we made a lot of movies."

Val Zavala>> Fayard is being modest. He and his brother are arguably the best tap dance team of the twentieth century. Just take a look.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Fayard and Harold were born into the world of music, entertainment and vaudeville.

Fayard Nicholas>> My parents were in show business and I used to go to the theatre every day to hear them play and watch all the entertainers on stage. I looked at them and I said to myself, "They're having fun up there. I would like to be doing something like that."

Val Zavala>> Fayard learned by watching and then taught his younger brother everything he knew. As young boys, their father had them audition at a theatre in Philadelphia.

Fayard Nicholas>> So we got up on the stage, we sang the song and then we went into a little dance, and the manager said, "Stop it, that' enough. You guys are great. You're booked here next week (laughter)."

Val Zavala>> Word of the talented twosome spread and, at the ages of eighteen and eleven, they were booked at Harlem's renowned Cotton Club.

Fayard Nicholas>> And Bill Robinson was there, Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Lena Horne. At this time, Lena Horne was just one of the dancing girls there. Beautiful. Herman Stahl introduced us to everybody and they said get up on the stage and do a little dance or something for everybody. So we got up on stage and sang a song and did a little dance and, after we finished, Duke Ellington said, "These boys are original." Well, I said, "Thank you, Mr. Ellington, you're original too (laughter)."

Val Zavala>> Their first movie role came in 1932 and launched a long succession of silver screen performances. One of their most famous is this number from the 1943 film "Stormy Weather".

[Film Clip]

Fayard Nicholas>> There was something special about "Stormy Weather" and everybody liked it. All dancers like "Stormy Weather", but "Down Argentine Way"? Did you see that one?

Val Zavala>> No.

Fayard Nicholas>> Oh, you must go see that one too. That's a good one. Have you seen "Orchestra Wives"?

Val Zavala>> No.

Fayard Nicholas>> What? How about "Sun Valley Serenade"?

Val Zavala>> Nope. The only one I saw was "Stormy Weather".

Fayard Nicholas>> That's the only one?

Val Zavala>> Yes.

Fayard Nicholas>> Well, you should see these too.

Val Zavala>> Okay.

Fayard Nicholas>> And "Sun Valley Serenade" --

Val Zavala>> "Sun Valley Serenade".

Fayard Nicholas>> Yeah. We introduced a song called "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" with the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

[Film Clip]

Val>> That's Dorothy Dandridge in the middle. Later she would become Harold's wife and the song would become the brothers' signature number.

Fayard Nicholas>> "Pardon me, boys, is that the Chattanooga Choo-Choo", and I'm listening to this thing and I said, "What the hell is that? (laughter)" Glenn Miller was sitting right beside me and I said, "What do you think of this song, Glenn?" He said, "It stinks (laughter)." But you see, you never know what's going to be a hit or a miss. It was a great record for Glenn Miller and it sold millions and my brother and I couldn't get off the stage all over the world until we sang and danced that song, "Chattanooga Choo-Choo".

Val Zavala>> What distinguished the Nicholas Brothers was their gravity-defying acrobatics. They combined leaps, cartwheels and flips in ways that were unmatched then or today.

Fayard Nicholas>> My brother and I used our whole bodies, our hands, our personalities and everything. We tried to make it classic. We called our type of dancing classical tap and we just hoped the audience liked it.

Val Zavala>> And they did. Audiences were often left gasping. Even after the popularity of musicals subsided, the brothers traveled the world performing on stage and in nightclubs. In 1994, they were given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. By then, they had won every dance award imaginable. They had performed for the King of England and seven presidents.

Fayard Nicholas>> And I think President Clinton was my favorite.

Val Zavala>> Really?

Fayard Nicholas>> Oh, yeah.

Val Zavala>> How come?

Fayard Nicholas>> I liked him because he was so full of life.

Val Zavala>> Really?

Fayard Nicholas>> Yeah, and I loved his wife too, Hilary. Oh, she was great, yeah (laughter).

Val Zavala>> Later in Fayard's career, movies re-emerged although the roles had changed a bit. In "Night of the Golden Eagle", Fayard plays a once-famous dancer living in a once-grand hotel.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> At age eighty-three, Fayard suffered a stroke. That same year, his beloved wife died. A longtime friendship with dancer, Katherine Hopkins, helped him get through the hard times.

Fayard Nicholas>> Oh, she would come by and cheer me up and take me out, so we kept in touch with each other. All of a sudden, we started looking at each other and I was falling in love (laughter).

Katherine Hopkins-Nicholas>> Well, first of all, when I met him, I didn't have a clue who he was (laughter). I mean, I used to see these films when I was a little girl, but I didn't know it was the Nicholas Brothers. I'm sitting there watching these film clips and he didn't know that I didn't know. I just said, "Oh, that's wonderful, Fayard." He didn't have a clue that I was like in shock (laughter).

Val Zavala>> Katherine and Fayard were married in 2000, the same year that Harold Nicholas died.

Fayard Nicholas>> Oh, he was wonderful. My brother and I were such great friends. We were crazy about each other. We never did fight or anything like that. Sometimes when I'm on stage by myself and I'm doing a little something, I look over like he's really there with me. Yeah, he's still there (laughter).

Val Zavala>> Today Fayard and Katherine live in a small apartment in Burbank. A recent People Magazine issue featured Fayard and requests for autographs have piled up.

Fayard Nicholas>> Now I'm really right-handed. I had this stroke and that's why I had to learn to write with the left hand.

Val Zavala>> Though he's slowed down physically, some things haven't changed. He's as quick as ever to laugh and he's got a contagious nonstop smile.

Fayard Nicholas>> I've always been happy, all my life. I'm just as happy as the day is long. I like peace. I think if everybody would just love each other, we won't have all these wars like we're having now.

Val Zavala>> And a little dancing and music along the way?

Fayard Nicholas>> Oh, yeah (laughter). And have a little dancing and music.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Since that story first aired, we're sorry to say that Fayard Nicholas suffered a stroke at age ninety-one. He's resting in a nursing home, but like a lot of performers of his day, he did not end up a rich man and he's facing some very steep medical bills. If you'd like to find out more about his condition and how to help, you can go to rustyfrank.com and click on the Fayard Nicholas Fund. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Sponsored in part by:


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