Jimi Hendrix and Civil Rights

[Knowledge 6 6 6]

Ok I'm not sure if this goes in history, or music, so if this is in the wrong forum, can a mod plz move it? thx.

Anyways, i just wanted to know if Jimi Hendrix was involved in the civil rights movement of his time period. Did he have a strong social conscience?

[Hampton]

Taken from Al Hendrix's book:


Jimi was against prejudice, and he was offended by Jim Crow and the way blacks were treated in some of the places he visited as a musician. After he got out of the service, Jimi demonstrated for civil rights down South. He told me that he and some of the guys in his band went to clubs where they had a section for the whites and a section for the blacks. They'd sit in the section for whites, and then they?d get arrested and put in jail. The boss at the club where they were working had to pay the charges to get them out, and afterwards he took it out of their pay. Jimi said, "Dad, I did just what I figured you'd do. I hope I didn't do anything wrong.?

"Heck, no!" I said. "I agree with you. If that had been me, I'd be doing the same thing. As a matter of fact, I participate in a lot of the civil rights activities in Seattle, even though it isn't as bad as the South. You stand up for your rights." Jimi knew I had participated in marches.

After he became famous, Jimi told me he donated money to the NAACP and to Rev. Martin Luther King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Jimi liked Martin Luther King, but he didn't go for Malcolm X and some of the Black Muslims who believed that blacks should do their own thing. I didn't believe in that either. Jimi and I believed that there should be no color barrier for anybody.

There was also him distorting the Star Spangled banner at Woodstock and Machine Gun which is on the Band of Gypsys album that could be seen as anti war.

But all in all I don't think Jimi got that involved in politics. I think he was playing to a certain audience and could not corss that certain line in fear of losing much of it.

He also spoke at United Black Association Press Conference found here:

http://www.soul-patrol.com/funk/jh_speaks.htm

[1949]

Didn't the Black Panthers try to use his music?

[Hampton]

In the book Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience it was said the Panthers confronted Jimi and asked for money, but I don't think it was a love love relationship.

Of course there is always Bob Avakian's view on Jimi :lol:


Let me give a concrete example. At the time that he became a phenomenon, to put it that way, I had a very negative view of Jimi Hendrix. And I think my view was very similar to--I know it was similar to the Black people that I knew--and I think it was similar to a lot of Black people's view that Hendrix was, to put it sort of crudely, a Black guy playing for a bunch of white people; and what was he doing hanging around with these hippies, playing this tripped-out psychedelic hippie music! It's actually kind of ironic, because the music that really touched me where I feel, the music that I really related to, was rhythm and blues music, which came to be called soul music; and in fact Hendrix had a strong background in this--he incorporated at least aspects of it into what became identified as the Jimi Hendrix thing, musically, in the late '60s--but I didn't see that then. I only saw the fact that he had gone off in a different direction, that he was doing stuff I just took as tripped out--like I said, psychedelic hippie music for acid-head white people. Now, I listened to other music besides rhythm and blues or soul music, I was influenced by and I liked a lot of Bob Dylan and other things like that, but I just couldn't relate to the kinds of things Hendrix was getting into.

[1949]

Of course there is always Bob Avakian's view on Jimi :lol:

That's interesting. Where did you find that? The RW site?

[Hampton]

Yeah.

Link. (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:SD-nMy81GSoJ:rwor.org/a/1212/baback.htm+huey+newton+jimi+hendrix&hl=en)

[1949]

Thank you.