Celebrating and Nurturing Solidarity Between the Black and Latinx Communities
they came
& they met
in the harrows of big apple slightslice
on the corners of lenox & third
down inside brooklyn harlem after hour grind spot
with their trumpets & axes
bongos & timbales
maracas & congas
chops & drums
bass & piano
bleeding needing emerging
mambo kings & bebop monarchs
mondongo fare & chitlin roast
like yuca
yuca
yuca tenango
yuca yuca yuca tenango
peas & rice
greens & grits
hocks & rinds
(from “Cu/bop” by Louis Reyes Rivera)
Two Wings of the Same Bird
Almost 20 minutes into the 2008 documentary film Soul Power, there is an astonishing moment where Celia Cruz and members of the Fania All-Stars are jamming with B.B. King and members of the Spinners and James Brown’s band while on an airplane headed to what was then still known as the country of Zaire. It is an electrifying moment miraculously captured for posterity, one with historical significance that presents a striking symbol: African American and Latin American musicians joyously playing music together 35,000 feet in the air as they are flying to Africa.
The passengers on that plane were traveling to perform at a three-day music festival that was to be a prelude to the historic Muhammed Ali vs. George Foreman fight (which was inevitably postponed six weeks. The music festival went on as scheduled). The concept for the festival was simply unprecedented: three days of music showcasing African, African American, and Latin American music on the same stage. Though the concert itself was a kind of first, the harmony between Black America and Latinx America exhibited on that plane and on the stage in Zaire was not, and is not, an anomalous occasion, though to the uninformed it might appear to be so. These musicians were sustaining and bolstering a bridge between Black and Latinx people that already had a storied history of cultural exchange and mutual support, a bridge that has often been maintained through music and art.
Back in 1912, Black American composer William Henry Tyers was inspired by the Cuban danza form, compelling him to compose the Jazz tunes “Trocha” and “Panama,” which is considered a Jazz standard. In 1920, when Puerto Ricans were forcefully drafted into the U.S. military, many of them joined the African American military marching bands, establishing a musical bond that has lasted more than a century. There was also Afro-Cuban musician Mario Bauza in the 1930s experimenting with mixing Cuban melodic structures and jazz rhythms. Soon after, Dizzy Gillespie made history when he brought Chano Pozo from Cuba to play Latin percussion in his Jazz orchestra. And there was Sir Duke, Señor Ellington, recruiting Puerto Rican trombonist Juan Tizol to play in and compose for his band. These events contributed to the birth of Latin Jazz, a sound that is now revered all over the world.
Beyond the realm of Jazz, there are countless other examples of sonic collaborations between African American and Latinx artists, such as Latin singer Graciela's duet with Harry Belafonte, Carlos Santana’s fusion of Latin music with rock (which, let’s not forget, is the creation of African American musicians), including his music project with African American drummer Buddy Miles. In the 1960’s, Bugalú (or Boogaloo) music was born in New York, a music that was a conscious fusion of Latin musical arrangments merged with African American Rhythm and Blues and Doo Wop. And of course, as writers Jeff Chang and Raquel Z. Rivera each point out in their books on the history of Hip Hop, the creation of Hip Hop was, in fact, a collaboration between Black and Latinx people in the South Bronx, a cultural project that birthed B-Boy collectives like the Cold Crush Brothers - which had both African American and Latinx members - and has led to other musical enactments of Black/Brown sonic unity such as Shakira recording with both Wyclef Jean and Beyonce, Enrique Iglesias with Sean Paul, J Balvin with Beyonce, and Bad Bunny with Drake, to name a few. Reggaeton as a genre is inherently an Afro-Latinx product born out of the blending of Hip Hop with Latin music. And these are just a few examples drawn from the music world.
These relationships born out of affinities, proximity (Black and Latinx people often find themselves living in the same neighborhoods or near to each other in major cities), and the awareness of common oppressors have served to create art and culture that has in the best of times brought about a unity and strength that all involved would not have on their own. Puerto Rican poet Lola Rodriguez de Tio once famously said that “Cuba and Puerto Rico are the two wings of a bird. They receive flowers and bullets in the same heart.” The same can be said of the African American and Latinx communities in the U.S.
The Bridge from Bolivar to Barack y Más Allá
together we say fire
(from “Word Making Man,” by Kamau Brathwaite)
It is important to make explicit, though, that this performance of cultural exchange and Black/Brown unity through music and the arts for more than a hundred years was a direct result of the intersectional social, political, and economic circumstances of these two populations. The many acts of solidarity and collaboration that have occurred and are occurring between these two populations were born out of both necessity and love.
This is in part due to some historical realities, such as the fact that five out of every six slave ships that left from Africa landed in South and Central America and the Caribbean. As Afro-Latinx scholars Miriam Jimenez Roman and Juan Flores make evident in their anthology, The Afro-Latin@Reader, “The earliest Africans in North America were actually Afro-Latin@s,” as the early North American colonies were actually Spanish, including St. Augustine (then San Agustín), which is the oldest city in the United States and was home to a considerable population of free Blacks.
Certainly, European colonialism and U.S. imperialism have been primary factors in bringing African Americans and Latinx people together - we have shared its impact and live its result on parallel and connected courses, a fact that has been acknowledged and acted upon for generations by members and institutions from both groups. Each groups’ battles against colonialism and white supremacy eventually led them to understand that their resistance to labor exploitation and the struggles for land rights, education, and health care are causes that are at times adjacent and at other times intertwining. Paul Ortiz, in his book, “The African American and Latinx History of the United States,” shares this editorial printed in 1915 in the African American newspaper The Chicago Defender. The Chicago Defender had this to say about the Black/Latinx connection:
The people of Latin America ethnologically are very little different from the
Afro-American of this country. They have Indian blood in their veins; so have
we. They have African blood in their veins; so have we. They have European
blood in their veins; so have we. It is only a difference in degree. (An African and Latinx History of the United States. Paul Ortiz. Beacon Press. Boston.
2018. P. 1.)
What The Chicago Defender, and many others, have known to be true is that not only is there a shared history and parallel cause between African Americans and Latinx people, but that the way forward in ending racial, economic, gender, and class oppression is through these two communities enacting solidarity and mutual support for each other.
This history of Black/Brown solidarity has taken shape in countless ways throughout history. During the age of revolution (1774 to 1849) African Americans who were fighting the slavery system in the U.S. celebrated and studied the work of Latin American and Caribbean revolutionary leaders such as Simon Bolivar and Vicente Guerrero, learning from their strategies and practices to be adopted for the abolition movement in the U.S. With Bolivar in particular, African American communities were inspired by his freeing of slaves in Venezuela, his efforts to create the Congress of Panama to unify oppressed Latin American countries, and his “Letter from Jamaica,” which called for a declaration of universal human rights, all of which they openly lauded and used as models for their own work.
This exchange of learning and support most certainly ran both ways. Even in the case of Bolivar, it was the President of Haiti, Alexandre Pétion, who inspired Bolivar to end slavery in Venezuela in the first place. Pétion pledged military financial support to Bolivar in his fight for Latin American liberation from colonial rule and expressed to Bolivar that ending slavery was essential if liberty is to be attained in his country. Bolivar throughout his life thanked Pétion for this counsel and support.
Acts of alliance between Black and Latinx people had also taken place within the bounds of North America. The Underground Railroad is historically ubiquitous. It is taught in school, countless books have been written and films and shows made about it. But telling of the Underground Railroad here in the states almost always comes with a crucial omission: it ran in two directions, as many slaves also traveled South for freedom. As Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, decades before it was abolished in the U.S., Mexican people helped runaway slaves escape from “El Norte” and harbored them, while their government openly declared Mexico a safe haven for runaway slaves, refusing to allow the U.S. to retrieve them from their country. In fact, this refusal to allow the U.S. to retrieve runaway slaves was a factor in the escalating tensions that led to the Mexican-American War. And this is why African American abolitionist Reverend Henry Highland Garnet praised Mexicans as “liberty loving brethren” and “ultra-abolitionist.” (Ortiz, P. 53).
But it was not only in Mexico where this kind of mutual support was taking place. Cuban poet and revolutionary leader José Martí was prominent among a number of Latin American leaders who called for solidarity and understanding of our common enemy in his lectures and writings such as his 1921 piece, “Nuestra America” (“Our America). Martí spent much of his life traveling throughout the U.S. and Latin America laboring for abolition throughout the Americas, railing against U.S. colonialism, which he identified as rooted in Eurocentric white supremacy, and praising the work of Black leaders such as the aforementioned Henry Highland Garnet and Ida B. Wells.
Martí and the Underground Railroad to the South are just two of many pillars of this Black/Latinx bridge. Another prominent example of Black/Latinx bridge building can be seen in the relationship between two of the most important political figures in African American history and in Latinx history. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez, a Mexican American labor leader and civil rights activist, had a reciprocal admiration they were both vocal about, and they publicly expressed their loyalty to each other and the respective movements they led. In a 1966 telegram to Cesar Chavez, Dr. King wrote:
“As brothers in the fight for equality, I extend the hand of fellowship and
good will and wish continuing success to you and your members. The
fight for equality must be fought on many fronts–in the urban slums,
in the sweatshops of the factories and fields. Our separate struggles are
really one–a struggle for freedom, for dignity and for humanity. You and your fellow workers have demonstrated your commitment to righting grievous wrongs forced upon exploited people. We are together with you
in spirit and in determination that our dreams for a better tomorrow will be realized.”
And on the 10-year anniversary of Dr. King’s death, Chavez paid homage to the civil rights leader in an article in Maryknoll Magazine which read:
“It has been our experience that few men or women ever have the
opportunity to know the true satisfaction that comes with giving one’s
life totally in the nonviolent struggle for justice. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
was one of these unique servants and from him we learned many of the lessons that have guided us. For these lessons and for his sacrifice
for the poor and oppressed, Dr. King’s memory will be cherished in the
hearts of the farm workers forever.”
This shared respect and understanding of common history and cause was echoed and amplified years later through the active partnership between the Black Panther Party and The Young Lords in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The two social justice organizations not only paid credence to one another, but they participated in the projects in the other’s organization. They also co-sponsored several conferences and public works events. The BPP’s Fred Hamptom and The Young Lords founder “Cha Cha” Jimenez were close collaborators and did speaking engagements together at social justice events, a partnership that was depicted in the film Judas and the Black Messiah. And while the Young Lords were majority Puerto Rican/Latinx in their membership, their ranks included several African American members such as Denise Oliver, one of the party’s prominent leaders.
In the 21st century, this bridge was illuminated in the Presidential campaign of Barack Obama, whose campaign slogan, “Yes We Can” was taken directly from the motto of the United Farm Workers of America: “Si Se Puede.” The motto was created by Cesar Chavez’s partner in the movement, Dolores Huerta, which was used as a rallying cry in their efforts for rights for farm workers, who were primarily (though not exclusively) Mexicans and Latin American migrants.
Unfortunately, the connection between Obama’s adoption of the slogan Huerta created often goes unacknowledged. In fact, though in this millennium the work that built this bridge connecting Black and Latinx people in the United States has not necessarily subsided, public recognition of this history of solidarity has certainly waned. The bridge may have eroded by degrees partly as a result of problems within the Latinx community concerning racism and colorism, a problem that reared its head very recently when Los Angeles city council president Nury Martinez made anti-Black comments that were leaked to the public (this is an issue that is increasingly being confronted by the growing number of Latinx people that identify as Afro-Latinx). That said, there are other factors at play that have threatened this beautiful bond. In particular, efforts by right wing ruling factions of leadership in the U.S. have actively worked to undermine this connection and create division between the African American and Latinx communities as a strategy to divide and conquer. Mass media has been used to this end by littering television shows, punditry, films, and social media platforms with messages that attempt to place the two groups in competition with each other. Omission of historical facts like those I have shared here also contribute to the act of erasure of Black/Brown unity efforts. These premeditated and incidental efforts to divide our communities and minimize the impact of our solidarity work certainly provokes a need to respond in the way that only poetry and music can.
Composing “A Beautiful Bond”
It was with all of this in mind that A Beautiful Bond was created. Conceived and developed in 2019 during the waning years of the T**** Presidency and performed and recorded between June 2020 and July 2021, this jazz poetry project curated by myself and Christian McBride for the New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s City Verses performance series was created to celebrate this bridge, this “beautiful bond.” The show takes its title from José Maria Morelos, who in the 1800s was an abolitionist and a leader of Mexico’s independence movement. In “An African American and Latinx History of the United States,” Paul Ortiz credits Morelos for using this term to describe his vision for a future in the Americas where the U.S. and Mexico could exist in harmony. For this project, poets from the Black and Latinx diasporas perform original works that draw from this history of Black/Latinx solidarity to imagine new fruits to blossom from the collective work of these two populations. The concert also honors another related "beautiful bond" to celebrate this one: the bond between poetry and music. This concert uses another kind of bind to celebrate this one: the bond between poetry music, as poets have always been at the forefront of this movement. Of course, Afrolatinx poets such as those quoted here (Luis Reyes Rivera and Tato Laviera), and those who took part in the concert (Willie Perdomo, Aracelis Girmay, and John Murillo), – are among the poets who have contributed to building this Beautiful Bond. And there are many other poets who have done this work, including June Jordan who wrote poems supporting the resistance movements in Nicaragua and Guatamela, Jayne Cortez who wrote poems lamenting the death of visual artist Ana Mendieta, and Kamau Brathwaite, whose poem “Word Making Man” is an extended ode to Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén. They are among the poets that influenced us as we worked on A Beautiful Bond. The show is a labor of love by a group of poets and musicians who wanted to not only honor the history that I have outlined here, but to also encourage everyone to take up the work of bridge building, that we may draw ourselves closer and see each other as compadres y familia!
the internal dance of salsa
is of course plena
and permit me to say these words
in afro-spanish:
la bomba y la plena puro son
de Puerto Rico que Ismael es el
rey y es el juez
meaning the same as marvin gaye
singing spiritual social songs
to black awareness
a blackness in english
a blackness in spanish
mixture-met on jam sessions in central park,
there were no differences in
the sounds emerging from inside
soul-salsa is universal
meaning a rhythm of mixtures
with world-wide bases
did you say you want it stronger?
well, okay, it is a root called Africa
in all of us.
(from “The Salsa of Bethesda Fountain” by Tato Laviera)
The world premiere of “A Beautiful Bond” occurred on November 8th, 2022. The concert can be viewed at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center website, www.njpac.org or on YouTube.
Sources
Manteca: An Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poetry, by Melissa Castillo-Garsow
Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, by Jeffrey Chang.
The Cross-Cultural Solidarity Website: https://crossculturalsolidarity.com/black-latino- solidarity-in-u-s-history/.
The Young Lords: A Radical History, by Johanna Fernandez.
Caliban and Other Essays, by Roberto Fernández Retamar.
The Afro-Latin@ Reader, edited by Miriam Jimenez Roman and Juan Flores.
Soul Power, directed by Jeff Levy-Hinte.
“The Little Known Underground Railroad That Ran South to Mexico,” by Becky Little.
History.com. Aug. 29, 2019.
The African American and Latinx History of the United States, by Paul Ortiz.
New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone, by Raquel Z. Rivera.
”Read the 1966 Telegram Where MLK Tells Cesar Chavez ‘Our Separate Struggles
Are Really One’”, Yara Simón, Remezcla, January 18th, 2016.
Contributor’s Notes
Vincent Toro is a Boricua poet, playwright, and professor. He is the author of two poetry collections: Tertulia (Penguin Random House, 2020) and Stereo.Island.Mosaic. (Ahsahta, 2016), which won the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award. Vincent is a recipient of the Caribbean Writer’s Cecile De Jongh Poetry Prize, the Spanish Repertory Theater’s Nuestras Voces Playwriting Award, a Poet’s House Emerging Poets Fellowship, a New York Council for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, and a New Jersey State Council for the Arts Writer’s Fellowship. His poetry and prose has been published in dozens of magazines and journals and has been anthologized in Saul Williams’ CHORUS, Puerto Rico En Mi Corazon, Best American Experimental Writing 2015, Misrepresented People, and The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Rider University, is a Dodge Foundation Poet, and is a contributing editor for Kweli Literary Journal.
