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Pulitzer Prize for Book on Malcolm X Stirs Fond Memories of N.O.I in D.C.

Posted on by sonsyrea

Previously published in The Washington Post

When I heard the news that Manning Marable’s book, Malcolm X: A Life Reinvented, received the Pulitzer Prize for it value as “a work that separates fact from fiction and blends the heroic with the tragic,” I was reminded of growing up in the N.O.I. here in the nation’s Capital, where much of what we learned as “fact” turned out to be philosophical fiction. Some of the teachings were little more than black nationalist non-sense.

 

At age three, I was enrolled in Muhammad’s University of Islam, a school for grades K-12, located in the temple that still stands at 1519 4th Street, N.W. There, I began memorizing what we called, “Actual Facts,” and “Student Enrollment Rules of Islam.” The indoctrination was intense. I was little Sonsyrea X at the time, one of hundreds of children in Nation of Islam schools around the country. We were little girls dressed in N.O.I. head scarfs, and knee-length dress tops over ankle-length pantaloons. The little boys sported close haircuts, dark suits, white shirts and dark bowties to school everyday.

 

Some of the “facts” we learned turned out to be harmless. “The earth is inclined at 23.5 degrees in its orbit…The average man breathes 3 cubic feet of air per hour,” we would recite in class. Standing like mini-soldiers, we recited these “facts” on command. They drilled us on the dimensions of the planets to give us an understanding of the universe and of our place in it. A noble undertaking.

 

But some of what we committed to memory was borderline dangerous. “The original man is the Asiatic black man, the maker, the owner, the cream of the planet earth, God of the universe…the colored man is the Caucasian white man, or Yacub’s grafted devil, the skunk of the planet earth,” older students recited. “Why does Muhammad and any Muslim murder the devil? What is the duty of each Muslim in regards to four devils? What reward does the Muslim receive for presenting four devils at one time?” The answer was spit rapid-fire. “Because the devil is one-hundred percent wicked and will not keep and obey the laws of Islam…each Muslim is required to bring four devils, and by bringing and presenting four devils at one time, his reward is a button to wear on his lapel, also a free trip to the Holy City Mecca.”

 

(No, this is not all from my memory. I still have the original documents my paternal grandmother, who was an original N.O.I. member in D.C. bequeathed me.)

 

Some of what was perpetrated as fact was outright foolishness. “The average original man weighs 150 pounds,” we were taught. The Nation of Islam charged members a “penny tax” for each pound they were deemed overweight during random weigh-ins. The belief was that being overweight meant taking up too much space, using too much of the earth’s natural resources. But really, tt was a fund-raiser of sorts.

 

Malcolm X led the N.O.I. during its most prosperous years – when it opened Muslim bakeries, restaurants, and schools in cities around the country. Malcolm X had left the N.O.I. before I was born, but the Nation of Islam he helped inspire and popularize was thriving when I came along.

 

In Washington, D.C., we had an N.O.I. bakery on Martin Luther King Avenue in Southeast, and a popular restaurant on 14th Street N.W. Several of my uncles, who were part of the N.O.I.’s famous “F.O.I.” (Fruit of Islam, the N.O.I. “soldiers” of sorts), worked in the N.O.I. restaurant. I fondly remember the carrot fluff, the bean pies, the fish burgers and fish loaves served there. The whole wheat donuts and gingerbread with chocolate icing were distinct and delicious.

 

Muslim brothers breezed through D.C. neighborhoods on “the fish truck” selling frozen fish. The popular “Whiting H&G” (Whiting fish headed and gutted) were produced through an N.O.I. connection with foreign leaders before African Americans were engaging large-scale in international trade.

 

Muslim men and women took pride in building an all-black nation at a time when Blacks were legally marginalized from mainstream America. Many of the N.O.I. members in the District and around the country later followed Malcolm X’s conversion to orthodox Islam, but they credit the N.O.I. with personal training, religious discipline, and philosophical perspectives that propelled them to excellence.

 

One of the brothers, who considered his years in the N.O.I. his “boot camp” initiation into manhood, would go on to become one of the nation’s first Muslim judges. Some of the brothers who worked in the restaurant and bakery created lucrative careers in food service. Muslim women, who attended “M.G.T.” (Muslim Girl Training) classes Saturday mornings at the temple, learned to take home-making and parenting seriously. Some of them pursued careers in education and excelled in academia. Many of my peers from the Muslim school have had successful careers in media and government and private industry despite our initial indoctrination against mainstream America. The first African American Muslim in Congress, Rep. Keith Ellison, had been in the N.O.I. at one time.

 

Malcolm left the N.O.I. and denounced black nationalism in favor of a universal brotherhood after his pilgrimage to Mecca. He remains a shining exemplar of strength, courage, conviction, and independence despite controversial personal revelations in the book crowned by a Pulitzer Prize committee this week. His speeches, available on YouTube, offer timeless (yet debatable) insights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy7M3x7Ll7g.

 

A popular YouTube video, “Stuff M.G.T. Girls Say,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVkma2U8EVg, indicate that some of the N.O.I. foolishness is still being taught, but the N.O.I. has definitely evolved. The history of the Nation of Islam is still unfolding. Minister Louis Farrakhan’s curious alliance with the predominantly Caucasian Scientology church and the increasing visibility of N.O.I. women as seen in this YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhuryC-cbqI hint at another compelling historical account just waiting to be told.

 

The Pulitzer Prize reminds me of the need to preserve the history the Nation of Islam because of its historical impact in – and on behalf of – the African American community.

 

Sonsyrea Tate is a Washington Post blogger. She is also author of Little X: Growing Up in the Nation of Islam (Harper) and Do Me Twice: My Life After Islam (Simon and Schuster). Friend her on facebook for more stories and insights. 

Nikki Giovani’s “Ego Trippin”

Posted on by sonsyrea

Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)

Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)

I was born in the congo
I walked to the fertile crescent and built
   the sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
   that only glows every one hundred years falls
   into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad

I sat on the throne
   drinking nectar with allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to europe
   to cool my thirst
My oldest daughter is nefertiti
   the tears from my birth pains
   created the nile
I am a beautiful woman

I gazed on the forest and burned
   out the sahara desert
   with a packet of goat’s meat
   and a change of clothes
I crossed it in two hours
I am a gazelle so swift
   so swift you can’t catch me

   For a birthday present when he was three
I gave my son hannibal an elephant
   He gave me rome for mother’s day
My strength flows ever on

My son noah built new/ark and
I stood proudly at the helm
   as we sailed on a soft summer day
I turned myself into myself and was
   jesus
   men intone my loving name
   All praises All praises
I am the one who would save

I sowed diamonds in my back yard
My bowels deliver uranium
   the filings from my fingernails are
   semi-precious jewels
   On a trip north
I caught a cold and blew
My nose giving oil to the arab world
I am so hip even my errors are correct
I sailed west to reach east and had to round off
   the earth as I went
   The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid
   across three continents

I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended except by my permission

I mean…I…can fly
   like a bird in the sky… 

 
I was watching a re-run of an episode of “Different World,” and was particularly impressed by a rendition of this poem. So, I googled the poem and was further impressed reading it. It impresses me as a reminder of our connectedness to earth and all that is in and around it. 
 
As a Muslim girl in the Nation of Islam, we were drilled on the facts and dimensions of the universe. We were trained and encouraged to believe we commanded control of the universe, because we each were gods and goddesses. Life has taught me otherwise. 

Spirit in Nature – The Bible Says So

Posted on by sonsyrea

“Ask now the Beasts

And they shall teach thee;

And the fowls of the air,

And they shall teach thee; Or speak to the Earth,

And it shall teach thee.”

-Job 12:7-8

Instinctively, I’ve known this since my mother took us to rejuvenate in the park on Sunday mornings.

Marriage: A Living, Breathing Thing

Posted on by sonsyrea

(Previously published in The Washington Post.)

Marriage: A Living, Breathing Thing

 

By Sonsyrea Tate Montgomery

 

June is the month we romanticize marriage, right? Reception halls and churches are booked for elaborate ceremonies and receptions full of laughter and fun.  We look at the wedding cake, a mountain of confection, and privately hope marriage will be as sweet.  I joined my grandparents for their 73 wedding anniversary earlier this month, and finally made peace with the fact that love ain’t always romantic – and every year in a marriage won’t be sweet.  Unconditional, unwavering love can take a lifetime to achieve.

 

“Deac! You two have been married longer than most people in this room have been alive!” said their Pastor A.C. Durant, of Tenth Street Baptist Church in Northwest, as we celebrated the marriage of my grandfather, Deacon Clifford Thomas, 92, and his bride Deaconess Irene C. Thomas, 92.

 

Their church’s marriage ministry treated them to a feast at home.  Their home smelled of southern cuisine – macaroni and cheese, cabbage, fried fish, fried chicken, meatballs, and more – prepared by the marriage ministry. The table looked like Thanksgiving.  We ate and laughed for hours. I snapped photos for the family album.

 

One young woman in the church ministry joked with me privately, “when I saw those two couples on TV celebrating their 70th anniversary, I was in their yelling at the TV.” Unlike two couples celebrated in local news earlier this month when they reached their 70th anniversary, my grandparents have been married 73 years. They also are celebrated for their fierce independence. They live alone, taking care of each other.  At their anniversary celebration, I more fully appreciated the wealth of their strength and endurance.

 

I have long valued their grit and determination. Granddad likes to say, ‘If you see me fighting a bear, help the bear!” Grandma’s peaceful, patient –and prayerful – tolerance of granddad’s fussing spoke volumes.

 

I recorded video of the pastor and others reveling in the history of my grandparents’ marriage: when did you meet? How did you know she was the one? My Grandparents told stories of some of their newly wed escapades. They eloped when they were 21. The year was 1940.  They told of migrating to the District from Georgia. In the comfort of their home, they shared stories they had not shared last year when the marriage ministry hosted a grand anniversary celebration at church.

 

“Grandma you told me you pulled Granddad’s name out of a hat!” I said, seated with a small group in their living room. I had not realized that was privileged information, but Granddad laughed it off.

 

“You keep telling everything, and this marriage won’t make it to tomorrow,” the pastor laughed.

 

I delighted with everyone as a four-year-old girl recited Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise” and “Phenomenal Woman” from heart. It was a fitting tribute to my grandmother, whose memory remains sharp even as her day-to-day recall becomes more challenged.  My grandmother recited a poem she had learned in 11th grade, ending with . “Give me liberty or give me death.”

 

Bowling trophies around their living room reminded me of how they built a life together. They had joined a bowling league together. When Granddad took up golf, Grandma took up golf. They went fishing together. When Granddad joined the Masons, Grandma became an Eastern Star. When Grandma joined church, Granddad soon followed. They both joined the choirs. When Grandma took up gardening, Granddad joined her, and they gardened religiously for decades.

 

“Deac, let me ask you this. When you were standing there [73] years ago, did you have any idea…” before the pastor completed his question, Granddad was shaking his head and smiling.

 

“One day at a time,” I said. I had learned that much from them over the years.

 

They could not have predicted they would even live to be 73, but they had planned – and determined over and over and over again – to love each other as best they could for a lifetime. They have told me that in marriage you have bad days, bad months, bad years, but you hang on to the commitment you made to God.

 

I snapped more pictures of couples delighting in my grandparents’ milestone moment. I took a photo of my grandparents with the youngest couple in their church ministry, a couple married barely a year. I reflected on the pastor’s comment and considered that marriage, itself, must be loved, nurtured, protected, and raised like a child. I considered that each marriage, also, may be as unique as an individual.

 

“You two have been married longer than most of us have been alive.”

 

With the pastor’s comment, my judgments of my grandparents’ marriage – and marriage in generally, suddenly shifted. Expectations of my own marriage shifted, too. It can take a lifetime to achieve mutual understanding, trust, communication, and shared beliefs.

 

Sonsyrea Tate Montgomery is a contributing writer for The D.C. Root. She is also author of “Little X: Growing Up in the Nation of Islam” and “Do Me Twice: My Life After Islam.” Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/Sonsyrea. 

Celebrating the Earth in Our Own Backyards

Posted on by sonsyrea

Previously published in The Washington Post 

When I visited my grandparents at their home in Northwest, D.C. on Earth Day, they were priming a portion of their yard for gardening, unaware that around the world millions of people were celebrating the earth and its various natural resources. April is National Earth Month, and in the D.C. area celebrations were held on the National Mall, along the shores of the Anacostia River and at parks throughout the area. I found myself appreciating a lifetime of earth-bound memories at home in my grandparent’s backyard garden.

 

My grandparents, Irene and Clifford Thomas, have loved gardening ever since I could remember. Saturday morning, I sat on a step and watched Grandma plant seeds in rows Granddad carved for her, pressing his foot on a shovel to turn over soil that had become hardened through the winter.

 

Gardening had become their second occupation after Grandma retired as a nurse from Washington Hospital Center, and Granddad retired as a chef from Marriot.  Planting seeds, pulling weeds, watering plants, and harvesting vegetables in their backyard and a community garden near their home has allowed them to stay productive into their 90s. They grow tomatoes, white onions, spring onions, and chives. They grow lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers. They grow beets, potatoes, and carrots. I have helped pulled weeds from their rows of kale and collards.

 

We have talked about their gardening over the years.  Grandma has told me the garden is where she finds peace and balance. Granddad has told me he hated gardening as a boy, but he has been gardening with his wife of more than 70 years “to help her out.” It has been his love offering.

 

They have taught me lessons in gardening, and lessons about life based on wisdom gleaned while working the earth. Grandma taught me to pickle beets.  Be sure to make the sugary-vinegar juice extra strong so it retains its flavor even after absorbed by the vegetable.  Granddad taught me to make wine from red grapes they grew in their backyard, but reminded me that the Bible cautions against drunkenness.  They taught me that if you don’t pull weeds from the garden, the weeds will rob the soil of nutrients needed to grow vegetables.

 

I learned something new during my most recent visit. Realizing I must have looked lazy sitting on the steps as they toiled away in the garden, I insisted on helping. Granddad said I could use the rake to remove the dead roots he was digging up.

 

“Granddad, won’t these roots grow more veggies if you leave them in the ground?” I asked. He shook his head and explained that the roots he was digging up were roots from the tall oak tree standing a couple yards away.

 

“I have always loved that tree,” I said staring up at it, admiring its reach and the miraculous curves and twists of its branches. That tree had become, in my mind, a testament of endurance because it had survived Washington’s windiest winters and its scorching summers.  The tree had also been an annual reminder that harsh winters give way to bright summers. The tree had long been a source of inspiration for me. For Granddad, it has been a nuisance.

 

Granddad explained that the tree in question, a stately oak, had been only two feet tall when they moved into the house some 60 years ago. But as the tree grew, the reach of its roots threatened the vegetable roots underground and its heavy, looming branches pose a risk to electrical power lines.

 

“But it’s given you so much shade,” I reminded him.

 

He looked up at the tree. “I should have cut that thing down a long time ago,” he said.  “Ya’ll can get some money for it now, though. That’s good oak. That’s a lot of lumber somebody will pay for.”

 

Aaaah, there was a bit of common ground between us. We agreed that the tree has value. We simply did not wholly agree on what that value is – inspiration or income?

 

I have watched my grandparents keep their grocery bills to a minimum by gardening. They also canned and froze foods from their garden to sustain them through winter months. They shared fresh corn and corn-chowder they made with family and friends. They used greens and green beans from their garden for Thanksgiving and Christmas family feasts. I have watched them recycle egg shells, coffee grinds, and fruit and vegetable peels as compost to feed the soil that would continue to feed them, their friends and their family.

Saturday morning, I had gone to the Annapolis Wild Bird Center for an Earth Day celebration, but a personal celebration of the earth unfolded for me naturally back home in my grandparents’ own back yard.

 

D.C. has many community gardens where residents can enjoy and fully appreciate the earth. For a list of D.C.’s community gardens, click here: http://fieldtoforknetwork.org/community-gardens/.

 

Sonsyrea Tate Montgomery is a Washington Post blogger. She is also author of Little X: Growing Up in the Nation of Islam (Harper) and Do Me Twice: My Life After Islam (Simon and Schuster). Follow her on Twitter @Sonsyrea. 

When and Where Women Retreat

Posted on by sonsyrea

When and Where Women Retreat

Where is the next women’s retreat? I’d like to know. The one I went to last weekend was wonderful. About 100 of us met Saturday morning at the University Park Church of Christ in Hyattsville for their Annual “Ladies Day.” By late afternoon I felt nourished – mind, body, and soul.

After a light breakfast of fruit and pastries, Carolyn Muscar, the minister’s very modest wife, offered the first sermon. She spoke on the need to shift perspective and priorities in the midst of a storm. She used a personal story of getting caught in a snowstorm while driving a van full of church youth to a youth conference. When they began their journey, her priorities were playing the right music and making sure the young people had a good time. When the snow got so heavy she could barely see, her priorities quickly shifted. She clutched the steering wheel and focused on the road. Delivering the young people safely to their destination became her only priority.

“Isn’t that just like us? When we go through storms we have to slow down and re-evaluate our priorities,” Muscar said. She referenced Luke 7:32 (in the Bible) and we read along. “What if I spent my time looking at how God is working in my troubles rather than spending all my time trying to run away from these troubles?”

We nodded and mumbled “amens” around the room. The women had arrived from several churches throughout the D.C. area. I focused on the banner bearing the event theme: “The Invisible Woman: Revealed,” then thumbed through the folder I had received at the welcome desk. Inside the folder was the agenda for the day, paper and an ink pen for taking notes, a short story, a couple of poems, and a clever ABC list of Biblical passages for dilemma.

“Anxious? Take Vitamin A,” I read quietly with a smile. “All things work together for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28. Blue? Take Vitamin B. Bless the Lord…Psalms 103:1.” There

The next speaker, Cynthia M. Turner, a recent graduate of the Harding School of Theology in Memphis, engaged us further, guiding us through listing our invisible and visible characteristics. “We spend countless hours on our clothes and our hair. We spend countless hours working out to stay in shape. But do we spend equal time on our inner self?” she said. “Outwardly, we’re wasting away, decaying, stripped of our vigor. Inwardly, we’re being renewed.”

I glanced over at my grandmother who was falling to sleep and laughed. Nothing being said was new to her, I realized. When it was time to sing songs from the church hymnals, Grandma knew the words she could no longer see on the page.

After the initial sermons, we all split into assigned groups for workshops in classrooms. I was delighted with other stories and insights from the women in my group. Our group leader facilitated our discussion by posing questions. “What are some of the temporary things we focus too much of our attention on?” she asked. “What are some of the things we worry about?” Without thinking, I blurted out “Unemployment! Finding a job!” Immediately, I wished I’d kept my personal business to myself. But after some of the older women chimed in, I felt encouraged.

 

A woman whose nametag said “Rosa Lee” told of how she no longer worries about little things. At 77, she said, she trusts that she will always have what she needs. She’s retired, but continues to work at odd occupations she has taken up in recent years. Two years ago she secured a cosmetology license and she is currently in barbering school. She does hair in her home, she said, and plans to use her new skills as part of her church’s ministry. She will take her services to individuals who are homebound. She reached for my grandmother’s hand and asked her to speak. “You know the Scriptures say the older women in the church are to teach the younger ones,” she said. Grandma smiled but didn’t open her mouth. “You know, we keep growing into our 90s,” Rosa Lee added. “What you hear or experience will either put a stamp on what you already know or give you a new perspective on things. I bet you have a lot of wisdom to share.”

I was reminded of what I have long loved about women’s retreats. It’s where we can discuss matters that are unmentionable in mixed company. It’s where a woman minister might address menopause symptoms or a mate’s midlife crisis. It’s where older women tell younger ones to just hold on.

By the time we streamed into the fellowship hall for a hearty lunch, I was full in other ways. The grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls and thick servings of assorted desserts were just icing on the cake. If your church has a women’s retreat coming up, please post the information in the comments below.

 

Sonsyrea Tate Montgomery is a Washington Post blogger. She is also author of Little X: Growing Up in the Nation of Islam (Harper) and Do Me Twice: My Life After Islam (Simon and Schuster). Follow her on Twitter @Sonsyrea. 

Here’s To You Granddad: For the Battles You Won Back Home

Posted on by sonsyrea

Previously published in The Washington Post. 

Dear Granddad,

I thought about you when I watched the new hit movie Red Tails that gives a long-overdue Hollywood tribute to the glorious Tuskegee Airmen you used to tell me about. Whenever Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day prompted me to ask about your military service, it always came down to your witnessing those unheralded Tuskegee Airmen.

“Those boys could some mo’ fly,” you used to tell me.  “Those boys would get up there in them planes and really show out. They had all kinds of tricks and dips…The Germans were scared of ‘em.”

As an Army man in the infantry, you were content to serve on the ground. I remembered your stories of drinking and playing cards, patrolling the bars keeping other American servicemen out of trouble. Nothing spectacular.  You were not a glory-seeker, in no way driven to excel in battle.  Your highest hope, your daily goal, was getting home to your family.

“I had Baby to get back to,” you would say, referring to your bride, who would be your wife for 72 years. You are definitely a hero in my life, and in our family.

As the movie began, and I wondered which of the war heroes would get killed before the movie ended. I felt suddenly more grateful that you had made it home. I remembered you bringing my first bike, a little red two-wheeler you taught me to ride without training wheels.  I remembered the life skills you taught in Dominoes marathons at your dining room table.  Play the hand you get. Adjust. Strategize. You can win even after a losing start. Stay in the game. Enjoy! I remembered the Christmas feasts, and the $20 bills you slid under the plate of each of your ten grandchildren. (That was a lot of money back then – especially to a kid sharing parents’ limited resources with nine siblings!)

I am so glad you made it home.

Looking at the youngest pilot in the movie, I was reminded that you were very young when drafted to serve in WWII.  You and your bride having migrated to the District of Columbia from Georgia just a couple of years prior to your draft, meant Grandma was left, pretty much alone. For two years she did not know whether her husband was coming home.  She laughs about it now. Says you told her, “if you can’t be good, be careful.” But the loneliness must have been challenging for her at the time.

When the movie depicted one of the pilots falling in love overseas, I considered how the war tested, but obviously strengthened, your marriage in ways neither you nor Grandma could know at the time.  Your 72-year marriage is your medal of honor in my mind.

You and Grandma conquered the years of loneliness and doubt, the disagreements, mistakes and misunderstandings. You built your lives together. Maintaining your individual careers by day, playing in bowling leagues, rising through the ranks of the Masons and Eastern Stars together, making ordinary marks of modest achievement on your way to an extraordinary milestone.  I bet there are fewer 72-year marriages than there are war heroes. So, here is my salute to you – you and Grandma.

Using modest means, you built homes together, raised your children together. You danced till wee past midnight, then got up and went to church – together. You sang in church choirs, served as deacon and deaconess for decades together. You worked your backyard gardens into your 90s together.  You enjoyed and nurtured your grandchildren together. So here’s to you Granddad.

The movie did not depict your experience in the war.  It missed the nuances of the ordinary men determined simply to make it home, but one movie cannot herald all the heroes.  You are my hero. I am glad you made it home. I am sharing this letter with the public because I am sure there are a million more granddaughters – and grandsons – who feel absolutely blessed just because you made it home.

Chuck Brown and Marion Barry

Posted on by sonsyrea

Chuck Brown fans welcomed D.C. “Mayor for Life” Marion Barry as a folk hero. “You the last one standing1” a woman shouted.

Chuck Brown fans waiting in line for the public viewing of his body at the Howard Theater Tuesday morning welcomed D.C. Councilman Marion Barry like a folk hero. They clamored to shake Barry’s hands.

“You the last one standing!” someone shouted. “Back up Bruce! Let the man get some air!” someone else yelled, chiding WUSA news reporter Bruce Johnson as he closed in on Barry for an interview.  “We love you Marion Barry!” Chuck Brown fans sang. “Weeee looooove you!”

Chuck Brown – like Barry – validated them.  Fans standing in line included hard-scrapple D.C. residents with missing teeth and well-fed residents in business attire, a glamor girl in a swanky long dress and sisters in blue work shirts and suits.

Some fans waited in line for hours to get inside the recently restored Howard Theater to pay respects. Linda Boyd had arrived at 6 a.m. She was the second person in a line that would swing around the corner. Fans laughed, chatted, joked, and sang Chuck Brown tunes occasionally. When Boyd spotted swirling police lights escorting a dignitary, she stirred the crowd into an old Chuck Brown song.

“The police man is on the premises. What is he doing in here? I said the police man is on the premises what is he doing in here!” They shared a hearty laugh and sang the famous refrain. “Run Joe, run Joe, run Joe, run Joe the police man’s at the door….”

Chuck Brown acknowledged a community’s conflict with the establishment. His song, “Run Joe,” gave lyrics to a popular experience of outcast young people hustling to survive, using an underground economy – and an underground mental health care system – drugs.

I gazed at the various expressions of love, got a whiff of funnel cake wafting from a vending truck across the street, noticed a woman munching on French Fries drenched in ketchup, and marveled at a parade of vendors selling everything from Chuck Brown buttons, tee-shirts, and hats, to cold water and what some were calling “Chuck Punch,” plastic quarts of red juice in ice.

“Chuck Brown would appreciate a good hustle,” I thought, as I looked around, tuning in and out of other people’s conversations, chatting with a guy standing next to me.

“This is like when Michael Jackson died. It’s not somber like when an official dies. Chuck brought so much joy to people. It’s a celebration at the same time you’re mourning,” said Darrell Johnson, a Ward 1 resident who co-produced a few Chuck Brown tunes. A nine-hour public viewing, to be followed by a funeral two days later, seemed sufficient. “This is appropriate. He was Washington’s Elvis.”

Other D.C. elected officials, including Mayor Vince Gray, Councilmembers Jack Evans and Michael Brown, and celebrities, arrived before noon to pay their respects.

“Chuck had the unique ability to make a thousand people at a time feel good, but also to make the individual feel good,” Rock Newman, boxing promoter and long-time Chuck Brown friend said. “Although he was onstage Chuck wrapped his arms around this city and just said ‘everything’s going to be alright’.”

Councilman Jack Evans said, “Chuck Brown was one of the most famous musicians to come out of D.C., right up there with Duke Ellington…He inspired a generation, all of us from when we were kids…He was a legend in this town, and he will be missed. Buy Chuck. We love you.”

Others spoke of the music man’s humanity. “Chuck was such a good person,” said, Sandra Butler Truesdale, long-time D.C. cultural activist and vice chair of the Howard Theatre Restoration Community Committee. Chuck Brown visited her dying husband and attended his funeral. “He means a lot to me, like he means a lot to so many,” she added. “Chuck Brown was D.C.”

Sonsyrea Tate Montgomery is a Washington Post blogger. She is also author of Little X: Growing Up in the Nation of Islam (Harper) and Do Me Twice: My Life After Islam (Simon and Schuster). Follow her on Twitter @Sonsyrea.

Remembering Chuck Brown

Posted on by sonsyrea

Previously published in The Washington Post

Chuck Brown: “I Became Deeply Inspired with Empty Pockets”

By Sonsyrea Tate Montgomery

“Wind Me Up” Chuck needed to wind down by the time he arrived for an afternoon interview with me at The Washington Informer in 2007. “Chuck Baby” had spent the previous two hours pumping up a capacity crowd at a free lunchtime concert outside the D.C. Lottery headquarters on Martin Luther King Avenue in Southeast. Chuck Brown “the Godfather of Go-Go” chatted with me for almost two hours about his life, his legacy – and his relationship with my dad.

Chuck was part of The Soul Searchers, when my father, the late Joe Tate, produced their album, “Salt of the Earth,” featuring the breakout tune, “Blow Your Whistle.” (Click here to hear a very young Chuck singing “Blow Your Whistle”: http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7339143). My dad had also co-produced Chuck Brown and The Soul Searchers on their first song that hit the Billboard R&B charts.  The song was, “We the People,” a hit in 1972. Chuck’s love for the people grew over the next four decades and the people reciprocated – filling clubs to capacity when he performed. Crowds swelled and cheered him wildly at summer concerts and summertime festivals.

I found his story inspiring. His love for music began when he was a tot. As a toddler, he sang and entertained his mother’s neighbors at picnics, cookouts and parties. “That’s how we ate,” he said laughing, during our 2007 interview. He leaned back in the fold up chair across the table from me and laughed heartily recalling his life and music career. “My mamma used to carry me around to different houses. Sometimes they passed a little hat around, take up a little collection for us…my mother took real good care of her little boy.” At seven-years-old, he learned to play piano in church. But, he began running away from home at 13, and left home for the last time at age14, he said. He landed in jail, and that changed his life for good. He learned to play guitar in jail. His friends encouraged him to join a band when he got out.

He recalled playing with Jerry Butler, the Earls of Rhythm and the Latino band Los Latinos in the 1960s, which prompted him to create a new sound fusing R&B, Latin beats and jazz. He tested his new sound at nightclubs and cabarets around D.C.  He noticed his crowd relax as he drove hard rhythms and engaged them in African-styled call-and-response. “People would come in there in minks and neck ties, but when I started that Go-Go thing, the mink coats disappeared, they started coming in more relaxed,” he told me. “The neckties and all that disappeared, and the tables and chairs disappeared off the floor and the floor was cool. I knew it was going somewhere.” They danced non-stop as long as the music kept going. The craze became known as Go-Go.

Chuck performed live and recorded – live and in studio.  He told me the heartbreak that followed the success of his third album, “Butsin Loose,” (which my father did not produce.). Bustin Loose hit the national charts, but Chuck felt cheated out of $13 million. “I just felt bad. I couldn’t do nothin’ for five years,” he said. He continued performing seven days a week around D.C., but he couldn’t write. Then in a snap one day, he wrote a song in 15 minutes.

“I was deeply inspired with empty pockets,” he said, laughing. “Guess what song I wrote in 15 minutes?”

The song he wrote in 15 minutes, “I Need Some Money” became a national hit. Meanwhile, he continued his fight with his previous record label, and prevailed after 27 years.

My favorite Chuck Brown CD was the one he recorded with Eva Cassidy. I loved his fusion of jazz standards and Go-Go beats. He introduced a couple of young generations to some old ballroom standards without them even knowing it. My favorite Chuck Brown tune: “Let the Good Times Role.”

At 71 years old, so much in his life had come full-circle. As a teen, he had sold Washington newspapers – The Washington Herald, and The Washington Afro – earning pennies. But in his 70s he had a lucrative Washington Post contract, starring in their commercials. He had played “the numbers” before there was an official lottery, playing two cents for a chance to win $3. But in the end he was paid big bucks to endorse D.C. Lottery. His career had begun for pennies as a little boy. In the end, Chuck included his children and grandchildren on one of albums that would do quite well in the market place.

I found Chuck Brown as entertaining up close and personal as he was onstage. On stage he was mesmerizing. I had not been to see him in clubs, but I enjoyed his magic on outdoor stages – the Stone Cold summer festival, at Fort DuPont Park.

Facebook and twitter began buzzing with well wishes for Chuck last week. Community activist Elwood Yango Sawyer (a.k.a. “Yango”) has been posting stories and insights from their 40-year friendship on his Facebook page, and last week launched a prayer vigil for his dear friend.

Thursday morning he posted recollections of a conversation he had with Chuck when the Go-Go Master returned from Japan, where people had paid $1,500 a pop to see him. Yango hopes Chuck’s tenacity and determination to succeed will inspire others. “Chuck shows us what can happen, if you give yourself a chance to enjoy the beauty of life,” Sawyer posted. “A guy made a guitar for him in Lorton, and he took that skill and became world known.”

Butterfly Inspirations

Posted on by sonsyrea

One Sunday evening earlier this month, I received what felt like direct inspiration from God. I was on the job at Barnes and Noble, learning my way around the children’s section, straightening books on the shelves when one book caught my attention.

It was “The Hungry Caterpillar”. I began reading the book, fascinated by its colorful illustrations, and found myself transported back to when I was seven-years-old. I remembered my delight at the neighborhood library, walking home with an arm full of books. But as I began reading the story, something else occurred to me. “Hey! This is the story of my career!”

The story told of an egg hatched one dark night. The sun shined on it and it hatched and grew legs. It began to crawl and eat. It ate fruit the first several days, then binged on a feasts of everything edible and got a stomach ache. It created a cocoon and hid a while then hatched again, this time a beautiful butterfly. This story hit me like a divine message put in my path to explain something I had been struggling to understand myself – much less explain to others in upcoming job interviews. In the moment, it made perfect sense:

* The egg – my idea, inspiration to pursue a career in journalism.

* The sunshine – encouragement from family, friends and mentors. *Growing legs and crawling – education, learning the skills and theory of the trade and moving through entry-level jobs.

*Eating fruit – the jobs where my innate talent and passion for communication was nurtured. Feasting on everything edible – after the journalism industry crumbled, I took any job available – some good for me, some frustrating and some down right traumatic.

*Stomach ache – I could not digest it all. Could not understand it all. I ached, felt like a failure.

*Cocoon – I withdrew, shunning party invitations and visits with my grandparents who I believed must be privately judging my failures.

*Cocoon breaks – I could see the light through my dark, self-condemning thoughts in this moment that Sunday. I can break out of the condemnation, old judgments, sense of failure.

*Wings – my beautiful appreciation of all the job experiences I’ve had and my bright optimism about new job experiences, including this seasonal job at a book store allows me to see me career as the big, beautiful butterfly that it is.

Ironically, by Tuesday I had decided against reading so much into the book about the caterpillar which had caught my attention. But, on my way to the post office (a message distribution center, right?), I noticed a caterpillar in my path. I could not ignore the irony.This wasn’t even caterpillar season. We mostly see caterpillars in the spring time, right?

The caterpillar on Oct. 11, crawling across my path could only have been a wink from heaven, right?