"Survival Kits on Wax": the Politics, Poetics, and Productions of Gil Scott-Heron, 1970-1978
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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses August 2014 "Survival Kits on Wax": The Politics, Poetics, and Productions of Gil Scott-Heron, 1970-1978 Donald Geesling University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the African American Studies Commons Recommended Citation Geesling, Donald, ""Survival Kits on Wax": The Politics, Poetics, and Productions of Gil Scott-Heron, 1970-1978" (2014). Doctoral Dissertations. 85. https://doi.org/10.7275/f61d-h858 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/85 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “SURVIVAL KITS ON WAX”: THE POLITICS, POETICS, AND PRODUCTIONS OF GIL SCOTT-HERON, 1970-1978 A Dissertation Presented by DONALD W. GEESLING Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2014 W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies © Copyright by Donald W. Geesling 2014 All Rights Reserved “SURVIVAL KITS ON WAX”: THE POLITICS, POETICS, AND PRODUCTIONS OF GIL SCOTT-HERON, 1970-1978 A Dissertation Presented by DONALD W. GEESLING Approved as to style and content by: ______________________________ Ernest Allen, Jr., Chair ______________________________ James E. Smethurst, Member ______________________________ Steven C. Tracy, Member ______________________________ Emily J. Lordi, Member ______________________________ John H. Bracey, Jr., Department Chair W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies DEDICATION In memory of my grandparents W.H. “Dub” Miller (1916-2004) and Marjorie Miles Miller (1921-2011). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Works of a scholarly nature are never entirely the result of the author’s efforts alone and this dissertation is no exception. Accordingly, I would like to acknowledge those whose contributions of time, talent, and support made this project possible. I am indebted to the members of my dissertation committee, Ernest Allen, Jr., Emily J. Lordi, James E. Smethurst, and Steven C. Tracy whose advice, guidance, and scholarly input has been instrumental to my project from conception to completion. Their critiques and recommendations over the course of researching and writing this dissertation pushed my analysis and fortified my scholarship. Were it not for their abiding enthusiasm and confidence in my abilities, I would not have persevered. The esteemed faculty of the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst likewise fostered my intellectual development. In seminar or conversation, Department Chair John H. Bracey, Jr. was a solicitous mentor and unparalleled resource regarding African American history and culture. The same could be said for Dr. Esther Terry and Professor Ekwueme Mike Thelwell, for whom without their tireless efforts and sturdy leadership the department would literally not exist. Additionally, thanks are due to Graduate Program Directors Manisha Sinha and A. Yemisi Jimoh who helped guide my travels through the administrative thicket of graduate study, ensuring my progress along the way. William J. Strickland who nourished my thirst for radical intellectual history and black politics, both in class and at the ‘Monk’; in fact, I still owe him two drinks, or is it three? A special thank you to Amilcar Shabazz, whose love for Gil Scott-Heron and support for this project helped bring me to Amherst. v My interviews and informal conversations with poets and musicians including Gil Scott-Heron, Sonia Sanchez, Askia Touré, Joe Bataan, Everett Hoagland, Ron Welburn, Randy Weston, and G. Love enriched my understanding of the complex interplay between history and cultural production, identity and aesthetics, and politics and art. I would also like to acknowledge the support of Scott-Heron whose correspondence and phone calls buoyed this project in its early stages. In addition to fielding all manner of inquiries, Mr. Scott-Heron kindly read a rough draft of the first chapter and offered critical feedback, steering me clear of several factual inaccuracies that had dogged previous authors. Needless to say, without his participation my study would have been severely impoverished and I owe him no small debt of gratitude for his attention and assistance. I wish to express gratitude to the department’s library liaison and research guru Isabel Espinal for acquiring digital resources pertinent to Afro-American Studies for the W.E.B. Du Bois Library. My scholarship also benefited from numerous discussions and jam sessions with my fellow Red Dirt refugee, Jon Hill. I would also like to give thanks to my fellow graduate students in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, especially Flávia Araújo, Savannah Carroll, Anthony Guillory, and Cynara Robinson whose camaraderie, laughter, and intellectual savoir-faire lit the way. Last but not least, I would also like to thank my family – Marcie Billy, Meagan Whited, Branford Billy, Amber Vail, Jacob Geesling, and Cassandrea Geesling – for their unconditional and seemingly unending reservoir of support. vi ABSTRACT “SURVIVAL KITS ON WAX”: THE POLITICS, POETICS, AND PRODUCTIONS OF GIL SCOTT-HERON, 1970-1978 MAY 2014 DONALD W. GEESLING, B.A., UNIVERSITY OF TULSA M.A., UNIVERSITY OF TULSA M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Ernest Allen, Jr. For over four decades, from 1970 until his death in 2011, poet, novelist, and musician Gil Scott-Heron served as an architect of artistic protest and a conduit of social consciousness. Often referred to as “The Godfather of Rap,” Scott-Heron was a formidable presence in postwar African American music and literature. This dissertation demonstrates Scott-Heron’s significance to the praxis of black cultural politics in the postwar era with a particular focus on his productions and activism during the 1970s. It examines the ways in which the late artist-activist’s poems and songs gave voice to historical events and intellectual currents that, in part, defined the black experience during that momentous decade. What is more, it positions Scott-Heron in the matrix of twentieth-century African American history and literary production, mapping his variegated connections to the Jim Crow South, the Great Migration, the Civil Rights/Black Power Movement, the Black Arts Movement, HBCU student protests, the Nixon Administration, anti-apartheid activism, blues poetry and music, transnational political struggle, anti-nuclear activism, Pan-Africanism, and popular culture writ-large. vii Aimed at raising consciousness and effecting change, Scott-Heron specialized in producing songs and poems that slyly exposed the contradictions of American democracy in regard to the historical experiences of African Americans. Much like the works of the West African griots with whom he identified, his narratives serve multiple purposes. On one hand, Scott-Heron’s recordings were designed to inform his audience about contemporary issues or impending events that might impact their daily lives. However, at the same time, these works were intentionally designed to archive, and more importantly, frame the history and cultural politics of his time. Scott-Heron, much like the Black Arts Movement as a whole, fundamentally undermined commonly held distinctions between the popular and the political, the artist and the activist, and the performer and the people. Accordingly, this dissertation analyzes Scott-Heron’s compositions as “aural histories” that documented key events, debates, and issues that reverberated throughout black America in the postwar era. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. v ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... vi INTRODUCTION: GIL SCOTT-HERON AND THE BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT ..................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1. "PIECES OF A MAN": THE CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY OF GIL SCOTT- HERON, 1949-1970 ......................................................................................................... 42 2. ANATOMY OF A BLUESOLOGIST ......................................................................... 92 3. "WINTER IN AMERICA": POETIC RESISTANCE IN THE AGE OF NIXON ............................................................................................................................ 141 4. "FROM SOUTH AFRICA TO SOUTH CAROLINA": THE PAN- MOVEMENT POLITICS AND PRAXIS OF GIL SCOTT-HERON ........................... 189 5. AND THEN HE WROTE "…AND THEN HE WROTE MEDITATIONS": THE COLTRANE POEMS AND SONGS OF GIL SCOTT-HERON .......................... 235 EPILOGUE: GIFTS FROM THE SPIRITS ................................................................... 280 APPENDIX: SELECTED WORKS BY GIL SCOTT-HERON .................................... 291 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 293 ix INTRODUCTION