Say Brother; 2319; James Brown '68: The Politics of Soul

We did OK but . Things such . As as I remembered the concert was held on a Friday evening and the actual concert would of fantastical GBH as it promised take from in the end. And the mayor. It would be great reluctance agreed to come over because I told him it be good for him to come in and make some remarks. It's going to have a captive audience and particularly of people who would be most prone to be concerned at the point of doing something acting out about King's assassination and that he should take advantage of

this so he came over. I introduced the mayor who was going to introduce James Brown. And the mayor came out and he made some excellent comments. Brown was happy because all this thing had been worked out no one seemed to know about all this. And James Brown the mayor and I were interacting on the on the stage as though we were you know triplets who had been separated at birth there were suddenly back together again at the concert when our beautifully Brown was fantastic. And during the first hour it was so clear from the reports coming in from the police. That this concert was like magic it was it was the city was was quieter than it would have been on an order of ordinary Friday night. Never let Never Never mind the big problems there was nothing happening nobody was on the street. So the mayor as I recall the mayor got the idea maybe maybe we could extend

this badge a little bit and get GBH to agree that at the end of the of the concert they would write it they would run the tape and just play the whole thing over and get well. So he called them as I recall Kevin called GBH and got their agreement that they would run the tape. Back to back with the program. And so it was announced during the concert that there were those who had missed any part of the program or want to see it all over again. Stay tuned because soon as a concert is over. The television station has agreed to run the entire thing from beginning to end. Well. So two hours of magic was now suddenly going to be expanded to four hours of magic which would have gotten this beyond of one which most people would be on the street raising hell. And that's what happened. The media coverage was extraordinary. There were so many cities that went up. AROUND THE KING

ASSASSINATION. I remember that I remember one story and I think it was in Time magazine that instead of tell the cities it did go feature Boston as a city that did not go. And in the course of talking about the city they did not burn. They told the story of the concert and how the concert had had drawn people inside and kept them off the street and the mayor got enormously good press. He was on cloud nine and I on the other hand was I had been out in the street trying to help with this commitment we had made to try to keep things cool. I didn't fool around with the stuff at the concert. And I got sick. By the end of the week and by Saturday I was just exhausted. And I literally was just knocked out so I checked into I was carried over to the Harvard Infirmary in Cambridge on Saturday night. And I was there Saturday night and Sunday and Monday morning I got a call

from James Brown. James is calling from but he called and I don't know how the hell he found me I guess maybe if my office at City Hall James called me at the Harvard Health Center to say that the city was trying to renege on the deal. So. We're talking about he said that he had just talked to some man named Gleason who said that the city had not signed any agreement to make up the gate and that's it. Gleason that's a that's a corporation counsel us in her will never I know her and he's an honorable man he would never do that . He said I just talked to this man and he said that there was no written agreement from the city to do this. I said the mayor personally gave me that commitment and I gave it to you only after I got it from him. So once again I'm sort of in the middle nobody heard this number but me. So if I was the only one who good who could refute that. So I called the mayor.

And he confirmed that the city that his recollection of events was not quite safe as mine that he agreed to the city that this city was going to do something and don't try to do something nice. But he didn't quite remember the city having committed to covering the difference between the expected gate and the actual gate because now they had the actual figures and a very big budget. But eighty five ninety thousand dollars and the mayor was a strange case of amnesia. So I said to the mayor Kevin I said you know what you told me . This is something that we talked about explicitly . It's no surprise I know that this is big money. We'll the only thing we didn't know was how big it was going to be but we knew it was going to be big. But you were committed to it in on the basis of your commitment. I committed I made this commitment for you to brown and that's

how this thing will he said. Tommy said I don't remember like this . I said Well. Kevin here's what here's what I'm going to do. I see we have a council meeting at 2 o'clock. If by the time I get to the council meeting you have not in writing committed to Brown that you pay this money. I am going to introduce a resolution on the floor of the council that will put the whole thing in public. I said this is this is not right or ethical and I'm not going to have anybody think that I played a role in it . I said I'm going to tell all of it. You are part of my party and everybody else is going to their opinion are going to he said. If you vote the voters of Boston that you and I agreed to pay eighty thousand dollars for a rock concert they were recall us from office this is I know you are going to do that as a Kevin I don't need the office. Do

you want to go go higher not me. I said I am going to do it. He didn't believe it. I had to get out from the hospital and I did and I went over to City Hall and I wrote this resolution. And I sent a copy of the resolution to the mayor. About one o'clock I said Kevin with a note that said. She would like to see this. This will be introduced. Two o'clock when the council meets about 15 minutes after after the regular call of the mayor and he said. He said. Did you write did you write this thing . I said yeah I told you I was going to do that he said is that if you introduced that you did and I did. We're both done in politics. And I said that's that's the way it's going to be. I said Kevin you made a commitment and I will not permit you to back out on it if I can help it if I can help it. At least I'm going to tell the truth about what

happened. He said You know I do. And he slammed the phone down. So two o'clock council meeting starts. I look around and there the mayor's people are in the chamber they want to know whether in fact this is going to happen. And after we have the o the general opening and invocation whatnot I rise and I asked the president the Council for a point of personal privilege and indicated that. I had a matter which was of an emergency nature and had therefore not been able to be completed in time to get on the regular agenda. But I ask unanimous consent to raise this at the appropriate time. I didn't say what it was and that was almost just pro forma that someone said that you agree. So nobody agreed and I indicated that Appreciate it. What this point to me is people ran from the council chamber because it appeared to

do it and I get the next thing I know is I get one of the mayor's people with the note. The mayor wants to talk to me. So I go to the mayor's office and he said. All right all right I had what he said here. He said I agree that's a given. That's not good. I said that's how we got to this point. Write it down write it down. I says I'm not going to believe you anymore. So he wrote something down and I that was reasonably credible. And I called Brown and told him that I had it in writing and he got paid.