I've still got @questlove's SUMMER OF SOUL documentary rattling around in my head after the @sundancefest premiere last night, so a few more thoughts this morning.
It covers the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, which featured an amazing array of talent -- Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Sly & the Family Stone, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, etc. etc.

Just the concert footage -- long forgotten in a basement -- would make this worth watching.
But what really elevates it is the direction.

It's stunning that this is @questlove's first time directing, but as he noted in his opening comments last night, he's always been a storyteller. And it shows here.
I've seen about every doc on the civil rights era, but never anything quite like this.

This was one good example of how it takes familiar themes and presents them in a powerful new way.
That kind of subtle storytelling is *hard* to do.

Too often, documentaries shift abruptly to provide the context, practically shouting HERE'S WHAT WAS GOING ON OUTSIDE, but this one blends Harlem, NYC and the larger turmoil of the '60s effortlessly in with the concert itself.
Here's an example.

Late in the doc, Nina Simone introduces a new song to the crowd: "To Be Young, Gifted and Black."

Given what a big moment that was, and how well it connected to the themes of the concert, it would have been tempting -- even expected -- just to let that play.
Instead, the film seamlessly shifts to @CharlayneHG -- whom we've already met as a NYT reporter covering the concert and impacted by it too -- to show how she had experienced life as someone young, gifted and black when she integrated the University of Georgia in 1961.
There's that kind of thorough fluidity, in which the historical context of an issue -- Motown, the Young Lords, whatever -- is provided not as some forced background to set up the concert, but as an illustration of the concert's themes that seems incredibly organic as it happens.
The whole thing is amazing. If you liked WATTSTAX or documentaries like that, you'll be blown away by this.

(And no, sorry, I have no idea when or where it's coming out. But I'll shout about it when I do.)

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More from @KevinMKruse

28 Jan
This is an excellent point, and it gets to the heart of the D’Souza conundrum.

Bear with me...
Some people keep asking me why I bother correcting his idiocy at all. Isn’t it just legitimizing him?

Here’s my take:
But as @pashulman notes, when we point out that historians have endlessly written about Democrats’ past ties to slavery and segregation, we’re effectively underscoring his point that Democrats were/are the Real Racists.
Read 5 tweets
26 Jan
🚨🚨🚨WARNING: This is not for the faint of heart! 🚨🚨🚨

Dinesh will sneer about the fact that I went to a public university as an undergrad.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!
Did he delete it, or did Twitter take it down because he went FULL SAVAGE on me for getting my PhD at a “lesser Ivy”?
Yep, deleted.

Here it is for posterity.
Read 4 tweets
25 Jan
By "multiple examples," D'Souza means ... two.

And for his "examples" he names historians who actually have addressed Democrats' past support for slavery, segregation, racial terrorism and lynching -- Eric Foner and Robert Dallek.

Let's take a look!
Here's the podcast, and you should listen, if only to see D'Souza claim that he's not going to engage in credentialism before mocking me for attending a state school for my undergrad and a lesser Ivy for my PhD (around 49:00)

True? #GoHeels #Cornell

rumble.com/vd94zj-erasing…
Now, if you missed it, here are some of the examples I and others provided of "progressive textbooks" that note the simple fact that Democrats were the party of slavery and segregation.

Read 7 tweets
23 Jan
In case you missed it, my creepy stalker @DineshDSouza is back, repeating his bizarre claim that "progressive historians" never write about how the Democratic Party was the party of slavery, segregation and white supremacy.

Let's all dig in on this one.

It's a laughable claim, as anyone who took US history in college or even high school knows, but it seems D'Souza never did that.

He's been pushing it for years, and whenever I ask him for examples -- like this thread from July 2018 -- he runs away.

D'Souza has repeatedly promised he'll show examples of this trend he insists is incredibly widespread -- examples that are surely at his fingertips! -- but it's been years now.

(He *does* apparently have plenty time to tell everyone else in his replies how very important he is.)
Read 14 tweets
23 Jan
It’s just so very sad. Image
So, so, so very sad. Image
So, so, so desperately sad. Image
Read 4 tweets
18 Jan
This is somehow even worse than I expected it to be.
I mean, check out these dire threats to America ... slavery, fascism, communism and (squints) progressivism and identity politics?
The idea that affirmative action was somehow a repudiation of King's vision -- WHEN MLK EXPLICITLY ENDORSED AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND CHARACTERIZED AS AN EXTENSION OF THE MOVEMENT -- is just insanely stupid.

And to release this ahistorical garbage on MLK Day? Goddamn.
Read 5 tweets

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