Booker T & the MG’s
I had a bit of an epiphany while sitting in my garage/man cave listening to Booker T & the MG’s a couple evenings ago. If you are not familiar with them, let me fill in the gaps for you.
A quartet having two white members and two black members whose genre could be called R&B/funk/soul/instrumental rock. They were heavily responsible for shaping the sound of the early 1960’s. Their most well known hit, “Green Onions”, reached #1 on the R & B chart and peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1962. It is basically a twelve-bar blues with a unique melodic riff played on a Hammond M3 organ that was characteristic to the MG’s sound. Various members shuffled in and out of the group but the mix always stayed two white and two black.
Remind yourself what the climate was in this country in the 60’s. I do not mean the weather; I mean the political temperament with the Vietnam war and protests on college campuses. It had only been a handful of years since Brown vs Board of Education had put a stop to racial segregation in public schools. At the height of the group’s popularity, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ending discriminatory voting practices adopted by many southern states during the post Civil War Reconstruction period.
It took 62 years for the last segregated public school in Cleveland, Mississippi to close. The lawsuit against the Cleveland School District was started way back in 1965. Imagine the attorney’s fees in that prolonged litigation?!
Why does something that seems so obviously unfair and morally wrong be so stubborn to go away? Is it due to naivete or true prejudice?
In my personal case, it would be the former and I will give you an example. During my senior year of high school in 1980, our basketball team traveled to Idaho Falls to participate in a Christmas tournament at Bonneville High School. Our first opponent was West High School out of Salt Lake City. A much bigger school than us and composed of a much more varied student body demographic. During warm ups, I focused on the team at the other end of the court trying to size them up. It was obvious to me, based on height, that my direct opponent was a tall, stocky black kid. About my same height but he looked stronger and heavier than me. This immediately gave me butterflies. My thoughts were, “He is going to eat me alive!. He’s gonna make a fool out of me”.
It only took the first few trips up and down the court for me to realize how mistaken I had been. He was indeed tall, but that was where his ability stopped. We got thumped but he was not the reason, I held my own against him. My pre-formed opinion of blacks, mostly the athletes I watched on TV, helped me make a fool of myself. I don’t want to say I was prejudiced, just naive and innocent.
We can get rid of naivete with experience and education. Prejudice can be reduced by not holding the past against those different from ourselves.
It astonishes me that more was not made of the interracial aspect of the quartet whose music was very popular and loved by many. Especially in 1962 and on through the decade most known for racial strife. The entire country could have learned the same lesson I did in that ball game from listening and observing how Booker T and his MG’s were in perfect synchronicity and harmony. Extend that feature and no court battles and riots would have been necessary.
Three of the four original members are still alive and jamming, in their late 70’s and early 80’s. It is very very doubtful they read the ISJ, but I do want to thank them for their great grooves and fine humanitarian example. JOB WELL DONE guys!!