“It’s a funny thing how life can be a drag one minute and a solid sender the next.” — Louis Armstrong, in “Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans”
Louis Armstrong was a man of character. And that’s the most important thing about him. Granted, he was a genius, an impeccable composer of great hits and riveting trumpet solos. But his character was what made his genius work. Let me say from the jump: This is not some isolated, historically obtuse reminisce on a long-forgotten figure.
Always alive, always mortal, always there, because he’s multifaceted, a man to be studied, with much to be taken from his life; it holding complexity and simplicity in a pose of paradox. That maybe the most apt description of genius, which Armstrong personifies, or him. Whichever it is, it occurs to me there’s much for this community’s black teenagers to draw inspiration and purpose from in his early life.
Black History Month has its generic purpose, drawing attention to the lives of singular black figures, thus showcasing and celebrating the cultural contributions of black Americans. The month-long affair maybe archaic, a well-intentioned but still, poignant insult —black history being American history as its oft-said —and history being hard to pigeonhole in the first place. But it’s there, so why not use it. In this case, as a way of showing the enduring lessons a wonderful life, holds?
Before he became a cultural emblem, Armstrong was a poor teenager from the hood in New Orleans, living off red beans and rice, and the rich music of Joe Oliver and Bunk Johnson. His mother, Mayann, was a maid and whore, he moved around plenty, lived in dirty and tough circumstances, with no male example, in the Jim Crow South of the infant 20th century. Essentially, a pretty bleak existence, without the modern conveniences we take for granted, for example, in-door plumbing and electricity.
From a standard sociological viewpoint, he was the poorest of poor, but also suffering from the same sociocultural reality as black male teenagers face now. Like many black teens, he was unfocused, being raised by auto-pilot in a way, fooling and hanging around bad news —all which one day led to the event of his life: His arrest, and detention in a house for the wayward young, the Colored Waif’s Home for Boys, for violating local ordinances by staying beyond curfew and shooting off an 18 caliber gun, which belonged to one of his many “step-dads.” The home gave him what he desperately needed: a sense of order and direction.
Moreover, it gave him the great gift of discovering his genius. Immediately afterward, his life didn’t change much. He went to stay with his real father, Willie, and continued to move around a bit. A few years went by, he was often working two jobs —pushing coal carts, and playing blues for the whores and pimps in the infamous Storyville district honky tonks.
What noticeably changed was a sense of his self, a realization that he was someone, which became vaunting ambition, a burning desire to be like his idols Joe Oliver and Bunk Johnson: a serious jazz musician, playing at the best clubs. Eventually, he would. In addition, he would get a chance to play for Fate Marable’s band on a steamer, one of the best gigs for black musicians to get, as it gave a talented musician a chance to play in front of a sophisticated and rich white audience for a good amount of bread.
A character-defining incident (as a critic notes) would happen as Armstrong came back into town, following his several weeks on ship, at one of the night clubs. He was at the bar, ready to pay for his drink. Up came Black Benny, a neighborhood tough, carrying on in his usual way. He sees Armstrong with cash in his hand, and he tries to strong-arm Armstrong out of his money. To have Armstrong tell it, ” If he had not strong armed that money out of me, I would have given him lots more. I had been thinking about on the train coming home from St. Louis. I sort of felt like he should have treated me like a man, and I did not like the way he cut under me. But I did not want to jump him up about it.” This is the moment where his character shines. Instead of turning this into violence, he smiles and turns the other cheek, making a fair appraisal of Benny, and making a clear distinction between Benny and himself.
In a young life freighted with incident, distractions, fights, discrimination, poverty, Armstrong would take the side of hard work, persistence, pluck, developing a Booker T. Washingtonian view of things. And his life shows how gloriously it can pay off. He polished his talent, achieved his dream of playing with his mentor Joe Oliver up North (“I had hit the big time. I was up North with the greats. My boyhood dream had come true at last…”), international and everlasting fame. Nothing stood in the way. All he had, ironically, was the notions of right and wrong, good sense and consideration, “character” his mother gave him, as he said to her in a good natured reply, “With my good sense and mother’s wit, and knowing how to treat and respect the feelings of other people, that’s all I needed through life.”
The Leon County School system could do worse than making “Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans”, a slightly PG-13 book, but a wonderfully self-written classic, an annual Black History Month reading selection for students. The fight for the minds and hearts of black teenagers has in its arsenal the life story of Louis Armstrong.
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Chris Timmons shares his insights and conservative sensibilities in a featured blog for The Village Square. (Photo credit: Mait Jüriado)
If you missed Thursday’s “Our Town” meeting, you can watch it online HERE. From Friday’s Tallahassee Democrat, by Desiree Stennett (who also filmed the program):
“Men and women from all over Tallahassee and Leon County met at St. John’s Episcopal Church on Thursday evening with many questions but one goal — to talk to local elected officials about the day-to-day problems that affect them and their families. The Village Square held the event to give residents a chance to speak with city and county commissioners in an informal setting over pizza and soft drinks…”
The Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French & Francophone Studies
& the College of Social Sciences & Public Policy at
Florida State University
announce a public lecture by:
Alistair Cole
Professor of Politics, Cardiff University
Sarkozy’s Hyper-Presidency: France 2007-2012
Tuesday, February 21st
5:00 – 6:00 pm
The Pepper Center’s Broad Auditorium
636 West Call St. on FSU’s Campus view
Sponsored by the
Ruth K. and Shepard Broad International Lecture Series
Published in the Tallahassee Democrat, February 15, 2012 - There’s nothing more quintessentially American than a town hall meeting. It’s how the business of American community has gotten done from just about the moment the first disaffected European foot hit ground in the New World.
Even if you’ve never attended one, the town meeting is buried so deep in our country’s psyche that you can probably immediately call up its intimate details – rows of folding chairs, town council up front with only a school lunch table to define their status, a charmless but functional meeting room. Someone probably saw to it that there would be coffee and cookies. Overachievers might organize a potluck. (more…)
Did you have to miss Media Wars Dinner at the Square? The program will air tonight on WFSU 88.9 FM at 7pm. And our thanks to Bob Howard for these great photographs of the event!
Monday was a momentous day in FSU history. The university was visited by Vice President Joe Biden, who gave an impassioned speech on education and its rising costs.
He attacked the issue without a party slant, choosing instead to reach the audience through personal anecdotes and appeals to parenthood. He did, however, make light reference to “the other team,” without malice but with slight complaint.
He discussed the “domestic priority” that education holds for the Administration, despite receiving criticism for a misplaced focus. He defended making education a priority by stressing the pivotal role that good education plays in maintaining America’s security and freedom. He proudly quoted his wife, who once said, “Any nation that out-educates us will out-compete us.” (more…)
“Of course you do. These days, everyone has questions or comments for their city and county commissioners. There is a lot to talk about. That’s really all this forum from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at St. John’s Episcopal Church is all about.
“No big long speeches. No campaign rhetoric. No frills. Just conversation, questions and answers. I’m the moderator; I run a tight ship. Oh, and there is free pizza. Order yours by when you RSVP at www.tothevillagesquare.org or by calling 264-8785.”
THE VILLAGE SQUARE LAUNCHES ‘OUR TOWN’ FORUM SERIES
Leadership Tallahassee and Tallahassee Democrat partner in local leadership forum
(TALLAHASSEE, FL) – February 13, 2012 – If you want to participate in civic life in Tallahassee but aren’t interested in preparing a three-minute speech for a commission meeting, what options do you have? This Thursday night, February 16, citizens will have a rare opportunity to talk over pizza with both Tallahassee City Commissioners and Leon County Commissioners.
“OUR TOWN: Local Leadership Forum” is the first in an ongoing series of unique local issues forums being launched by The Village Square, a nonprofit formed by local leaders – from both sides of the political divide – to improve the civility and factual accuracy of civic dialogue. The series is part of a grant funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Fund at the Community Foundation of North Florida to foster an informed, engaged community. (more…)
This unique New York Times blog by Maira Kalman makes me tear up a bit every time I re-read it. America is such a Big Idea. And our country’s greatness really is fundamentally located in our communities, with our humble town hall or wherever it is we manage to make civic connections to our neighbors. We’re launching OUR TOWN this Thursday night because we believe it’s time to live up to that legacy of greatness. We hope you’ll join us for our first event on February 16th. We want you there so badly, we’re buying the pizza.
The Village Square is giving Tallahassee citizens a chance to interact with local officials in a less-formal setting than a commission meeting.
Next week — Feb. 16 at 5:30 p.m. — anyone with anything to say is invited to the “Our Town” forum discussion at St. John’s Episcopal Church, where they can ask questions of their city and county commissioners over pizza and drinks.
Leon County Commissioner Bryan Desloge, who will speak at the forum, said this sort of setting is rare for the politicians involved. He encouraged anyone with a question about what’s going on in the city and its surrounding areas to come out. View the article online at Tallahassee.com HERE. Get more details and RSVP for the forum HERE.
CLAUDE PEPPER LIBRARY PUBLIC ISSUES FORUM ON HEALTH CARE
This spring, the Claude Pepper Library at Florida State University in conjunction with the Kettering foundation would like to extend invitations to those interested in participating in a public forum discussion on National Health Care. The forum date has been set for Tuesday, March 20th from 5pm-8pm with the room location to be announced (the forum will be held within the Pepper Center Building on Call Street). The topic for this forum will focus on National Health Care and is titled: “Coping With the Cost of Health Care: How Do We Pay for What We Need?”
Included below is a brief summary of the forum as well as the three “approaches” that will be discussed by the participants:
Nearly three out of four Americans today worry that their income will not keep up with rising prices…These worries outstrip anxieties about losing a job, terrorist attacks, crime, and losing savings in the stock market.
The questions we must address are: How can we get the health care we require, in the face of rising costs? How can we pay for what we need?
There will be three approaches to be discussed:
Approach #1: Reduce the Threat of Financial Ruin Proponents of this approach say we need to make health insurance that covers major medical expenses available to everyone.
Approach #2: Restrain Out-of-Control Costs Health-care costs are too high for too many people. This approach holds that they should be reduced directly through price controls and other means.
Approach #3: Provide Coverage as a Right Proponents of this approach say that health care coverage is something every citizen is entitled to
If you are interested in participating, please contact:
