Happy birthday to @nilerodgers 🎂 Did you know the legendary producer used to be a Black Panther? @MsOfficer reports. THREAD
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1/ Before he founded the ‘70s disco group CHIC, produced Diana Ross and Madonna or jammed with Daft Punk and Pharell, @nilerodgers was a 16-year-old member of the Black Panther Party.
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2/ “I just sort of... how would I say? I elevated, or I developed into a Panther. When I joined the Black Panther Party at 16-and-a-half years old, it was after having an entire youth of not only just activism when it was political…”
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3/ “…But also I was a Boy Scout and a Cub Scout and I was just raised to help people. My parents socialized me to care about other people. It was almost like a rite of passage. It was like you grew up into being a Panther.” – @nilerodgers
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4/ The native New Yorker grew up on the Lower East Side. “Even though my parents, they had a tough time because they were beatniks, heroin addicts, but they were intellectual and really smart. They knew that education was my way and my ticket out…”
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5/ “…Not only just education, but just basic humanity. My mom used to talk to me about the golden rule. This is serious, it's so funny that she would always tell me, 'Treat others the way that you'd like them to treat you.' Over and over." – @nilerodgers
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6/ Rodgers had been part of what he said was called "the movement" for "some time," he said, noting that his circle of friends was not only motivated by racial inequality, but also the Vietnam War.
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7/ “As we became a teen, especially people of color and poor people, were instantly just shipped off to Vietnam…”
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8/ “…So I was in a number of antiwar organizations that were pro-women's movement, and the start of the gay riots at Stonewall. All of these movements were just converging, that's why we called it the movement. Everything was happening.” – @nilerodgers
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For @MsOfficer’s full story Legendary Producer Nile Rodgers Shares About His Past, Including When He Used to Be a Black Panther: ietv.co/3cdyKsM
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