Dr. John Henrik Clarke’s Impact on the Hip Hop Generation
“…And it is the present-day socio-political genre of hip hop, known affectionately as the RBG Movement/ aka the Marcus Mosiah Garvey Revival /aka the Re-Afrikanization Renaissance that Dr. Clarke is the SPIRIT-FORCE of…”
The hip hop historian and writer Bakari Kitwana describes the "hip hop generation" as the generation born between 1964 and 1984. This group is to be distinguished from the so-called Generation X, since it mostly refers to Afrikan-Americans and New Afrikan urban communities. In sharp distinction from the generation that preceded them, the hip hop generation faced a new series of internal and external challenges and historical crises.
*Background
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Note * The Hip Hop generation experience in America is not separate from that of their parents, rather, they are linked in a chain of events which imposes socioeconomic, political and historical realities encompassing the criteria by which we can best appreciate Dr. Clarke’s present impact upon them, as we should be reminded, Dr. Clarke’s writings, teaching and mentorship reach as far back as the 1930’s. Of particular note; he was the history advisor to Minister Malcolm X. .The generation entering maturity in the 1950s and 1960s were known as the "civil rights and Black Power generation," since their sociopolitical activism and revolutionary mentality resulted in things like President Lyndon B. Johnson eventually signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voters Right Act of 1965. Segregation and institutional racism were outlawed. Things like passing literacy test in order to vote were now outlawed; but nonetheless, socio-structural and institutional racism (white supremacy) and police terrorism against Black people continued unabated. |
o Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965 essentially for his Black Nationalist ideology; i.e. his calling for self-reliance, self-respect and self-defense. Whatever the complicit elements in his murder were, it was his movement towards Afrikan Internationalism that made cointelpro physically eliminate him.
o Consequently, the Black Power Movement was born as an outgrowth of the failures of the civil rights movement’s “turn the other cheek, appeal to their Christian conscious” tactics.
o The BPM of the 1960s and early 70s resonated throughout the U.S. chocolate cities. It inspired black and radical white people (Students for a Democratic Society) alike throughout the United States and had a marked impact and positive influence on oppress people fighting for liberation throughout the world. Essentially, it was the teachings and assassinations of Malcolm X and, a few years later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that were the impetus and SPIRIT of the Black Power Movement.
o However, cointelpro and narcotization of our communities with heroin crushed revolutionary organizations like the BPP before our struggle and movement could reach a critical level of maturity. Youth that were feeding and educating our people due to the failures of the United States government; youth that were fighting for human rights and civil rights (to make the U.S. government live up the constitution of the United States and Bill of Rights where Black people were concern), and youth that were fighting against police terrorism and white world terror domination (the Vietnam War) were killed, falsely imprisoned and ran into exile. And many of them, as you are well aware, are still languishing in U.S. gulags to this very day.
o . The children of the Civil Right-Black Power generation, i.e., the "Hip Hop generation," experienced a different set of problems (repression) secondary to a 1980 white right-wing backlash and re-emergence of willful neglect under the auspices of so-called *Reaganomics. The exporting out of jobs meant skyrocketing inner-city crime and intrapersonal violence. These problems were facilitated and exacerbated by chemical warfare when the CIA threw crack-cocaine in the mix, thus establishing the pre-text for the “re-constitution of slavery in the form of the Prison Industrial Complex”. Also important to note is that they were also hit with biological warfare. HIV/AIDS has devastated us here in the U.S. and in Sub-Saharan Africa with millions of death and the fallout continues as I write. (See THE STRECKER MEMORANDUM) But, the hip-hop generation fought back with Hip Hop Culture.
Emergence of Hip Hop Culture
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Note *“From Reaganomics to Ebonics: The Urban Cultural Dissonance of Hip-Hop” A University of Utah study that seeks to understand the genesis of politically charged, or "conscious" hip-hop from a social, cultural, and political standpoint. |
Socio-political Conditions for the Hip Hop Generation
o Between the late 1970s and 1980s, cities such as Oakland, New York City and Detroit, Newark, Chicago etc. experienced a massive crime wave, with gang violence and murders becoming unprecedented; especially because of the rise of crack-cocaine. By 1980, the crack epidemic, which mostly affected the same African-American communities, was underway on East Coast as well as the West. As hip hop historian Bakari Kitwana writes in The Hip Hop Generation “hip hop was a way and opportunity for youths to avoid becoming involved with gang violence or heavy drug use.”
Global Spread and Socio-political Maturity of Hip Hop
o Now the oldest of the hip hop generation (40-45 years old) have children and grandchildren that are still going strong. Thus, hip hop represents the longest running Black Cultural Arts (and socio-political movement) in the history of America. It has found a global audience with counties as diverse as Nigeria to Albania having distinct hip hop sub-cultures. And what is most, it is the present-day socio-political genre of hip hop, known affectionately as *The RBG Movement/aka the Marcus Mosiah Garvey Revival / aka the Re-Afrikanization Renaissance that Dr. Clarke is the SPIRIT-FORCE of. And I am pleased to say that this conscious hip hop community and knowledge seekers are growing quite rapidly every day within this information and technology era.
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*Note: Harvard University professor Orlando Patterson has studied rap as a "cultural response to historic oppression and racism, a system for communication among black communities throughout the United States." Patterson also describes how rap has taken advantage of globalized systems of mass communication. Furthermore, Dr. Errol Henderson brought much clarity to the movement with his classic essay entitled “Black Nationalism and Rap Music” The SPIRITS of Dr. Ben, Dr. Clarke, Dr. Chancellor Williams, and Dr. John Jackson are the pillars of the RBG Movement’s foundation. Great ones like Robert F. Williams, Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party and Black Power Movement, along with their music and poets, like Curtis Mayfield, Dr. Amiri Baraka, Jazz, Gil Scott-Heron and The Last Poets are back in full affect. Raptivist like Tupac Shakur, Outlawz, Chuck D, Paris, Dead Prez and the rest of the New Age RBG Rap Music Crew are droppin madd science and uplifting our people consistently with beautiful and positive music and spoken word. Our Afri-centric scholars, all taught, influenced and mentored by Dr. Clarke in some formal or informal fashion have literally gone viral on the World Wide Web due to the work of the hip hop generation. Scholars like Dr. Wade Nobles, Ivan Van Sertima, Dr. Molefi Asante, Dr. Niam Akbar, and Dr. Jacob Curruthers, Dr. Asa Hilliard III, Dr. Leonard Jeffries, James Turner and many other RBG Movement professors are conscious hip hop heads new leaders, teachers and guides. For the hip hop generation and their children the Africentric knowledge element has broaden and coalesced with the activism and lessons of Afrikan revolutionary elders and ancestors like Chairman Omali Yeshitela, George Jackson, Nana Kunta (The War Correspondent, Del Jones), Dr. Amos Wilson, Dr. Marimba Ani, Assata Shakur, Dr. Imari Obedele, Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Sundiata Acoli, Jalil Muntaqim, Imam Jamal Al-Amin, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Dr. Kwame Toure, Dr. Huey P Newton, Dr. Khallid Abdul Muhammad, and many more, and become a more unified 21st century New Afrikan Revolutionary mentality and Black Liberation through Proper Education Movement (the New Afrikan Independence Movement). |
Criticisms and Concerns Regarding Hip Hop
(Hip Hop Culture vs. Hip Hop Industry)
See: Exposin' the Hip Hop Hood Hoax -TRUTH Minista Paul Scott
Hip Hop: The Culture vs. The Industry and The White Supremacy Factor, RBG Street Scholar
Resources for further study:
o Bakari Kitwana. The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture. Basic Civitas, 2003
o Youth Culture, Hip Hop and Resistance Toward Capital Globalization, Haworth et. al.
o Black Nationalism and Rap Music Dr. Errol A. Henderson
Conclusion
Dr. John Henrik Clarke’s Affect and Effect on the Hip Hop Generation
So, with all that being said, in order for us to fully appreciate and over-stand “*Dr. Clarke’s Impact on the Hip Hop Generation”, is to be clear on both his affect and effect. To affect is to have an influence on or cause a change in. Dr. Clarke has unquestionable been our modern day champion in this regard. His education for Afrikan Liberation paradigm is the conscious community’s order of the day. Dr. Clarke is presently influencing, moving and changing the Hip Hop Generation and their children for the better by touching their emotions with love of Afrikan people; with his knowledge, wisdom and over-standing of who we really are. As an Afrikan historian and uncompromising revolutionary scholar he has attack “The Great White Lie” that our history only commenced with slavery with razor sharp intelligence and peerless scholarship.
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*Note: Of course when I speak here of Dr. Clarke’s Impact on the Hip Hop Generation, I am referring to the conscious fold. Those seeking knowledge of self and those that realize the difference between Euro-indoctrination masked as education and true Education for Nationhood and Afrikan Liberation. The word effect has a different meaning. It means something brought about by a cause or agent; the power to produce an outcome or achieve a result, such as a drug. In this regard, Dr. Clarke is a Hip Hop change agent. Allegorically speaking, he is a new age drug, as the people are getting high off his teachings. Dr. Clarke and company have given the Hip Hop Generation, Black (New Afrikan) people in general and people of Afrikan ancestry throughout the world back our self-esteem, self-image and self-concept as Afrikans. Dr. John Henrik Clarke was a Black Nationalist Pan-Afrikanist warrior scholar, historian, prolific writer, educator and mentor of international proportions. His Education towards Afrikan Liberation paradigm and praxis has inspired for generations past and will continue to inspire for generations to come. Although he was Professor of African World History that in 1969 became the founding chairman of the Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College of the City University of New York, we must remember, he was one of our last self-taught scholars. He was the Carter G. Woodson Distinguished |
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Da Official Black History Mixtape Produced by BroCadence Visiting Professor of African History at Cornell University’s Africana Studies and Research Center. And in 1968 Dr. Clarke founded the African Heritage Studies Association. And with all that high–powered accomplishment, all that scholarship at his command; I can still vividly recall Dr. Clarke once saying “my greatest hour in education is not as a Chairman, not as Assist Dean, but in that classroom watching those eyes come alive as I pour out information and make it significant to them, so they could become different and better human being; giving them the strength to challenge that world out there.” |
So, as far as Impact is concern, “Dr. Clarke is a Hip Hop Phenomenon and Savior to Afrikan People.” I think!!!
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