The Black Pace Setters - Magnificent Montague (1969)

Video Description

THE BLACK PACE SETTERS PRODUCED, DIRECTED AND NARRATED BY NATHANIAL MONTAGUE ABOUT THE AUTHOR ... Nathanial Montague is owner of the largest independent library of Negro history in the world. All books are written by or about Negros. He is probably the best read Negro historian alive today; much of his time is spent teaching and lecturing to young black students on their heritage. As number one disc jockey at station KGFJ, Los Angeles, Montague was enlisted by the mayor and chief of police to help quell the Watts riot of 1965. The assurance of Montague, asking the people "to have mercy," is credited with greatly saving lives and property of the Watts citizenry. LINER NOTES FROM THE ORIGINAL RELEASE: The idea of great men living and giving theft lives anonymously is not unusual. Between the lines of history many nameless heroes have vanished for the want of scribes or survivors to pass along their deeds. Where deeds are tangible, however, and of continuing value to society, the unknown soldier (scientist, educator, inventor, religious leader) is rarely a valid persciage, particularly in a nation where achievements of this kind are widely publicized. The American experiment has been scrutinized, for the most part, in unsparing detail. Its record is tainted, however, by an imbalance in its cast of characters. Not only Americans, but world figures in history, suffer the most undemocratic fate of omission from the majority of texts: because they happen to be black. This works in several ways, the most flagrant of which is total exclusion. What the average American, white or black, knows of Crispus Attucks, Harriet Tubman or Paul Laurence Dunbar is infinitesimal. Then there is the token integration into histories of Booker T. Wash- ington, G. W. Carver or Samuel Coleridge Taylor—all unfairly made the standard bearers of an impossibly diminished racial greatness. Lastly, where there is representation of such figures as Aesop, Hannibal or the Queen of Sheba, there is not the slightest mention of their black ancestry. What this record in the Black America series tries to achieve is a text for the ages, an inspired account of Afro-Americans and world leaders whose effect on history has been pivotal and, at nes, decisive. It develops the "I Have Seen . . ." approach fac- tually but dramatically. Indeed, the austerity in its selection of sub- jects is deliberate: Arts and entertainment figures are counted among the known, and they are not included. What, then, shall we say of the black statesman or physician—the new textbook heroes who must be counted for the inspiration and examplo they provide, and whose skin may be as "black as the night that cvvers them?" Napoleon said of Hannibal that he, in challenging the. might of Rome with a force outnumbered fifteen to one, :vas the most audacious of all men." The same could have been said of Toussaint L'Ouverture by his contemporaries, or of the famous Buffalo Soldiers whom the defeated Spaniards called "black devils" in describing their attacks on San Juan Hill. Crispus Attucks was the first man killed in the American Revo- lution. Is this black martyr not, then, legally the first American citi- zen? Black men and women must at all costs be written 'tack into the book of life" which they have so richly and tirelessly endowed. This record tells of more than forty such absentees, but the list goes on. It is hoped that this and other issucs of Black America will pro- mote further research as the lives of those studied will serve to illuminate every other endeavor of man. ##### Reelblack's mission is to educate, elevate, entertain, enlighten, and empower through Black film. If there is content shared on this platform that you feel infringes on your intellectual property, please email me at [email protected] and [email protected] with details and it will be promptly removed.