In Black America; Actor Calvin Lockhart

I'm your friend. I'm your friend. Thank you. Let's go home. Okay. Okay. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. This is In Black America, Reflections of the Black Experience in American Society. I quit Hollywood because I am sick and tired of people telling me that they're not going to pay me what I think I deserve and then not give me the words I want to say. I will not say your words and not get the money too. I'm sorry.

No, sir, if give me one or the other, give me the money or give me the words they don't give you either. But how can I expect the master to take the slaves' point of view? It's an impossibility, it's like asking a Jew to talk good about Hitler. Impossible. How do you ever expect America to do good by you when America does not recognize your existence? Calvin Lockhart, the Bahamas-born actor, has made a career for himself in films. He has appeared in first artist production of Uptown Saturday Night at Silly Slim. He has also appeared in Cotton Comes to Harlem, Melinda, Myra Bracken Ridge, and Halls of Anger. Calvin Lockhart's first important role in film was in Joanna, a movie which established him as a star.

I'm John Hanson and this week a focus is on actor Calvin Lockhart in Black America. I do a lot of work these days with young children between the age of five and twelve. And one of the things I try to impress upon them is that there are two kinds of people in this workforce in America today. They are called the people who provide, who create jobs and the ones who look for a job. And until you get to the point where you can start creating a job, you are still the odd man out. Your community is still controlled by some white man somewhere. You don't even produce popcorn. And that is an unfortunate state of affairs. I don't know if any other group in this country who allows somebody else to walk in and control their community and you do it. We do it.

It takes no great genius to pop popcorn. That's a fact. And we do not even produce popcorn. It's about time you wake up and realize as long as some other man proves the means and the services by which your family lives, that man is your wife's husband and not you. Calvin Lockhart was eighteen when he moved to New York to attend school. Back in his homeland of Bahamas, he was a carpenter. Scott attended Rose Prep School and Cooper Union after arriving in New York. He later moved to London, England, where he developed his dramatic skills on the legitimate stage, playing roles, ranging from Shakespeare's Othello to Wally Lohman in Death of a Salesman. Calvin Lockhart has appeared in some eighteen movies, made in various parts of the world. Among them are, Cotton comes to Harlem, High Commissioner, only when I laugh, Leo the last, Uptown Saturday night, and let's do it again. In 1971, Lockhart was the world's sexiest man by the British movie going public.

Mr. Lockhart makes his home now in the Bahamas. I recently spoke with him at a communications conference held in Washington, D.C. Well, that's a name, you know, simply a human being who is trying the best to do the best that he can. But the question is very interesting when you say, who is? That's essentially, there's nothing else that you can say after that, can you? That's, I'm me, or becoming me, and it's a play in progress. Why did you become disillusioned with Hollywood and being an actor? I didn't become disillusioned, but anything at all. I just had to make it a season at some point, whether or not I wanted to go on malding, saying all the phrases, which had no meaning at all, because either you become a gangster type, you know, or you become a pimped type, or you become a prostitute type, or you'll be yourself.

You know, and I just decided that the price that I had to pay was not commensurate with the work I was doing at that point. Our Blacks making into minors, in roles, in Hollywood as far as producing films, writing their own words, training Black Americans as they truly are. You watch television, you tell me. I don't see no names up there, do you? I don't think anything like that is happening at all, not from what I can see. Also Black have a lot of economic power. Are we using that to the fullest extent in your opinion? You can look around your own neighborhood and answer that also. There are no, how many grocery stores do you see? How many, how many laundry, how many laundromats, how many, there are one or two bars here and there. But in terms of actual producing of things, like services, I don't see much of it. Very little as far as I can see, not certainly not in line with the monopolist and spending power that we have. Nothing near approaching that. Do you foresee yourself becoming a power solution to the problem of opening your own independent

field company or trying to get more young Blacks involved in the field ministry becoming writers and producers? There are many ways to be of service in this area, and perhaps at this stage I'm talking now. And I believe it's important to be able to boost the morale of the Afro-American today because this Reagan situation has really put us in a very bad spot. And I think we need some pampering and building up our ego now. So maybe that's what I'm doing right now. I don't plan it. It just comes out like that. Certainly my dream would be to have my own film company. I think every Black person would like to have your own film company. And that takes a lot of doing. And there's a simple way to do it also, which is just go out there with a camera and shoot stuff. But then you have to distribute it. So it's not just having a film company. What's the point in making a film if you can't get it shown? So you have to also own the means of distribution, you see? So that's as an ideal situation, yes. The answer to your question is yes.

I would love to have it. I didn't come here to pamper you. So I came here to tell you some cold facts and some cold realities. This is a slave society. You are the entertainers of the society so far. Martin Luther King said, if a man does not have an idea for which he's willing to die, his life is not worth living. And I wonder how many of us today would give a catalogue and decide to die for an idea. And I hear a lot of talk now down in Memphis about people up here in the east talking about things like how they're coloring themselves getting more white nowadays because they feel less the way to go because Mr. Reagan is in the White House. I know the time when there wasn't any black Catholics in this country. And suddenly somebody, John Candy, I think got to be present every black person I knew

was trying to be a Catholic. Forget biblical, all right? You sell your birthright for a mess of porridge every day. Let me draw you a graphic picture of what it is that I'm trying to get at. I wish there was a blackboard here that would do much better. Let's begin with the assumption that the slave system in America existed on a certain basis. The basis was economically speaking that the slave represented 50 percent of what the slave owner made for a living. In other words, his land, his having to buy seeds and all that other stuff was a 50 percent investment or 50 percent of what he put into it and the slave, the person, represented 50 percent of his income.

Let's begin with that. And let's put a zero here and 100 over here, all right? Let's say that this zero then represented 50 percent or let's put a 50 and 100. So the 50 percent was what he got in return from this slave as part of his 100. And let's keep multiplying it up to right now and you will find something very strange happening that the condition of slavery has not changed at all. You don't care how dressed up you are, you can cute in your little Howard University outfits, the condition has not changed except that now you got to buy your own food and you got to buy your own housing and you got to have a car. Nobody's paying for your gasoline or your notes and you're still making the same amount of nothing that you made before.

This is the median wage for the white America today is about $30,000 and the median wage for black America is 15,000, we're still at that 50 percent aren't we? Do you see what I'm talking about? Do you understand what I'm getting at? You are still in a condition of servitude in this country. I don't care how you dress up a monkey, it is still a monkey dressed up. And you are not American until you begin to understand that you can talk all you want about Wall Street and getting a job and all of that it means absolutely nothing. We sit around and we mouth the same old platitudes, study, prepare yourself to get a job with the Chicago Times or the New York Times or MGM or the Washington Post or 20th Century talks. Get a job. How all we're doing is traveling in circles.

You know there were more black newspapers in the America to turn up the century than there are today? Do you know that? And there were more films made by us in the 20s and 30s than at any time before or since. So all we're doing is traveling in circles. Clearly, we are a very abnormal race of people, I'm sorry, but we are. Whatever we do in America, it seems to me is perceived, conceived and marketed through the eyes of the master group. From laboratory studies, we have, on animals, we have found that repetition decides more

often than not what the truth is. If you repeat the thing long enough, people will believe it. So the repetitious non-inclusion of Afro-Americans in them, it is very carefully. So the repetitious non-inclusion of Afro-Americans in the media of this country has become institutionalized. It's almost normal not to see yourself on television. You got a little dwarf name on all the represents manhood in this country. You got a little, an often by the name of Webster, whatever his name is. He's about two inches tall. Then you've got a professor Bill Cosby. Then you can read on one finger in the back of jet every week who is going to be on television

this week. And there are 35 by the Census Bureau, 35 million of us in this country, we ought to be ashamed. Why don't we have our own television stations? Why don't we have our own film studios? Why not? Because you want a car instead. You better wake up, Mr. Reagan will not give you anything, I'm sorry. The dye is cast. There have been studies and studies done about the problem of media and the projected images of black people by second and third hand parties in this country. And only all this we have still not succeed in telling the general public, black public that is, what is being done to them and what plans we have if any to redraw and address the abnormality. And the role, a very decisive role they can play in affecting change.

But maybe we don't have a plan. If you have one, please tell me right now, because you're always thinking about the problem and never about the solution. And you know, we know what has to be done. But it's terrifying because drastic steps have to be taken. The lowest theme in which we are held in this country and in which we hold ourselves has a very direct link with the way the media projects us. Very direct link. And if the media has created that image, the media can also remedy that image. But the media will need to be prodded in order to act in some reasonable fashion.

I'm going to suggest to you that we begin a campaign of non-cooperation with the media. Now let's talk about this. A campaign of non-cooperation with the media. I'm suggesting a return to the nonviolent process of Dr. Martin Luther King. When you begin to understand that your patronage of the products advertised by the media is what keeps the media alive in just the same way if we could mobilize as an act of survival because that's what it comes down to. We might be able to mobilize our 35 million quote, people to refrain from watching one movie, ten movies, a hundred movies in any given cinema in any given city, or not buying

your cable subscription to any cable station for a trial run of say three months. Why don't we try that? Since we don't matter because the media says we're not even there, then they shouldn't miss us, should they? So let's all decide, as a matter of principle, that we will not buy a cable subscription for a period of three months and not go to one movie for a period of three months and let's see what happens. We seem to forget that it is the federal government which licenses the media in this country. And we pay the taxes which support and cause those federal agencies to function. You see, somebody has told us somewhere along the way that we are all on welfare in this country. Somebody has told us that we are welfare cases, all of us, all of you here, you're welfare

cases. Forget the fact that your father makes a hundred thousand dollars a year or your mother is an entrepreneur or she owns a business or whatever. You, categorically speaking in this country, have become a welfare case which means you don't pay taxes, right? So you're always asking what can the government do for me? You tell them what do you want them to do for you, but you don't have that attitude yet. You are still behaving in the slave market. You have a right to demand that they do it. And I say we seem to forget that it is the federal government which licenses the media in this country and we pay the taxes which support and cause those federal agencies to function. And by so doing, we charge them to protect our right to representation. I hope you can get what I'm driving at here. So by so doing, we charge them to protect our right to representation.

It's an all-dictum from the Boston Tea Party, no taxation without representation. So why should I pay the agencies that license the media when the media does not represent me, no taxation without representation? Everything that you need to protect your right in this country is in the constitution of this country, willingly or unwittingly, it's there. Do you understand what I'm talking about? It is right there in the system and you all you think about is finding a job. There ain't no jobs for you to find. The computer you served your job yesterday. Cold, hard fact. There are people who say in sincerity that now that Martin Luther King is dead, there is

no efficacy in nonviolent struggle or in passive resistance. It is the most powerful force on earth when systematically applied. Andy called it non-cooperation with what works against your best interest. We seem to forget some time that we do not represent the black population of this country. They're not inside this building, they're not in here. We seem to forget, we become elitist. If you go to clubs in Washington, I haven't seen the same people every time you go, every way you go. Haven't you noticed?

Every club you go to in Washington, you see the same guys, the same chicks, every time you go. This is a black city, but all you see are the same people in the same clubs every night you go. You do not have anything to do with the black population of this country. Let's get that straight. Thank God there are no more spokesmen living in some ivory tower who sends down dictums from now and then about what should happen, what should not happen. There are 35 million quote by the sense, you know, there must be about 65, right? Gandhi called it non-cooperation with what works against your best interest. This is what passive resistance is all about. Passive resistance is very active. Really asked the people of India to burn all their clothes made from English fabric and

to not buy English goods. How many of you saw the movie Gandhi? Is the greatest movie ever saw? Made you feel good, didn't it? But he was willing to die. That's what most of us are not willing to do because we're not even ready to live yet. To burn all their clothes made from English fabric and to not buy English goods, the net effect was the independence of India and the birth of the textile industry in India. You must remember that when Gandhi introduced passive resistance, it had never been tried before. The only person before Gandhi I know about who tried it was Jesus Christ. A Christ is born every day and one is killed every day because that's the guy who says,

no. And when Martin Luther King arranged this first sit-in and the bus ride in Montgomery, it had never been tried before. It worked. Did you hear me? It worked. On each occasion, it worked. What does that tell you? You better get it into your head. Nothing else works. When we burnt down America in the 60s, something happened. I am not advocating a war or violence in terms of destruction. I'm not talking about that.

But the only thing that works in this country we're concerned is non-cooperation, which is legally guaranteed in the Constitution. No taxation without representation. It is not the technique which is at fault. It is our fear of losing a few individual trinkets. But these little trinkets are not worth the price of the re-inslavement of the entire Afro-American race. And those little fortunate ones of ours who work in little banks and we're given this little prize and that prize.

We sell our other 35 million black Americans every day for a little trinket called a Cadillac with your education and your erudition and your justification. You sell it every day. Shame, shame, shame. We are here because we know the problem. It's not why we're here. If there's one thing that we do know, it's the problem, don't we? That's why we're here. I hope that's why I'm here. I think that's why you invited me here. Because we know and recognize that there is a problem. Otherwise there's no need for this meeting. There is no need for this if there is no problem. But I am not here for a tea party. I feel that you are as tired of this problem as I am. And so I feel that we are also here because we know the solution.

I have never asked the question in my life to which I did not already know the answer. You're about a good point. Do you think our colleges, particularly historically black colleges, who have fine RTL, film departments, are instructing their students that these are some of the black positions in the film industry and becoming involved in distribution? I don't think we are doing that at all. I think we are preparing people to work in the industry, not to create an industry. That's the difference. I think we need to create the industry. There is no black film industry. We are training them to do what we do with training them to do in all other fields. We are training them to get a job in the industry. That's the unfortunate part of it. What is Kalmulakar doing in the media future? I'm right now directing and producing James Baldwin's Amen Corner with a theatre group which I've just founded in Memphis, Tennessee. And that group is working through the churches.

And I have to deal with the church because I don't know any other way to do it. The churches and the schools. And from there we take the play into the legitimate theatre. So it's almost like going out of town in New York when you're doing a play in New York, you've got a town and tried out on the road. So I'm working that way in Memphis. I've done three plays down the last year. I did River Nigel and I did Sermon's in Dockleman and now I'm doing the Amen Corner. Being familiar with the atmosphere in Hollywood and people of intelligence such as yourself, our blacks, your contemporaries, aware of this problem, are they trying to actually make a difference for other young blacks to follow? I think they are definitely trying to do that. I think we were well on our way when we were doing the films called Black Exploitation. But what we don't seem to realize is that all film is exploitation. John Wayne, would you go all John Wayne, you know? But I don't know why we were singled out by organizations like unfortunately, like the NAACP and the Urban League and they actually picketed our films. This was a wrong thing to do because we should have, let us go through a growing pains,

at least we were learning something. And perhaps they would have had some sort of viable film industry going. I think every black actor in Hollywood today is aware of this. But he's caught in a trap and I don't think he's able to step back and look at it because he's too far in debt. Actor Calvin Lockhart, if you have a comment or like the purchaser who said copyright is program, write us, the address is in Black America, Longhorn Radio Network, UT Austin, Texas, 787-12. For in Black America's technical producer David Alvarez, I'm John Hanson, join us next week. You've been listening to In Black America, Reflections of the Black Experience in American Society. In Black America is produced and distributed by the Center for Telecommunication Services at UT Austin and does not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Texas at Austin or this station. This is The Longhorn Radio Network.