Mahalia Jackson Documentary

yeah good singers today but none of them to me matches the power of my head whenever she showed up hey you filled the room it's hard to miss the value without tears coming to your eyes ready circumstance I can feel it right now raised in Southern Poverty Mahalia Jackson became one of the most beloved and recognized people of her time yet she never forgot her humble roots a childhood wasn't easy uh and in those days blacks didn't have it very easy in the south but her singing remain joyful bringing cynics to tears and lifting the faithful to exultation determined to show white America the authentic soul of gospel she tackled many challenges I would ask a person to name me two jazz performers they could do it to country and western performers to blues they could do it if I him to name me to gospel performance they would have difficulty but the one name that they would come up with his Mahalia Jackson her artistry her dignity was hit by racism a fight for the less fortunate all converged in her devotion to a single goal celebration of her God as Woodrow Wilson sat in the White House suffragettes marched for women's rights to vote the Wright brothers ushered in the modern age the Sultan of Swat reinvented America's pastime and the rules of racial superiority gouged a deep dark chasm through every Street in the land the only solace offered most blacks came from the church most of our solid citizens and achievers come out of that discipline to the church is the kind of oasis in the desert into this trying world a child was born in a dreary New Orleans waterfront shack her legs so crippled she could not walk when I was a little girl down in New Orleans we lived out by the levee now i was born on Water Street I'm then the levee Bank the Mississippi River her grandfather was a plantation slave her impoverished mother charity shared a single room with her own four sisters her father Reverend Johnny lived across town he worked the docks by day cut hair at night and spread his weekends preaching the gospel a doctor for the crippled mahalia was out of the question all they had was prayer and massage but gradually her little bone straightened out when mahalia was five her mother died at mahalia Zant Duke took charge of the motherless child the unknown was celebrating its victory in World War one and its new status as a wealthy powerhouse about the launch itself into the frothy pleasures of the Roaring Twenties for blacks it was a different world altogether and our aunt instilled and young may hell you'd practical traits that would last a lifetime a rare standard of perfection in our work and a personal and deep devotion to the teachings of Jesus it helped her bear the weight of poverty that held her and those around her down the houses was pretty shebin and could be in the house and you could see the Sun outside if it rained it would rain inside and that condition made me feel bad say it all the time tom was a byproduct because it was illegal to use the public accommodation to toilet it was illegal to drink water it was illegal to attempt to vote it was illegal to stay in the house of your choice is illegal to go to the school closer to you rather than defeating her deprivation strengthened their resolve a frequent babysitter for wealthy white families may hell you dreamed of better times and she sought comfort and joy in the church mahalia was the Baptist he started singing at the age of four hand me down my silver trumpet Lord aunt you had a head full of hair and when she would shake that hair would just fly all over the people like this she knew that it was getting a reaction mahalia is inspiration to sing that way came from several other sources the haunting work songs are the Negro dockworkers the waving of Bessie Smith's forbidden blues records that she would secretly listen to and most of all a unique church right next door wild panda captivated her with their full blast worship Pentecostal church in the black community at that time was a butt of every joke that you could get people were embarrassed by this shouting and this speaking in other tongues and this slobbering at the mouth and this loud singing the movement was brand new just out of California and unlike the somber yearning Baptist beseeching deliverance from a world of suffering and injustice they bottled the Bible's command to make a joyful noise unto the Lord so she sang it as she felt it transmitting the heartbeat of God in a way that no singer had done before and so startling the Baptist elders that she was sometimes as to leave the building and she would say well this is the way I'm gonna say it ain't gonna sing like this thing this bad besides singing she enjoyed few pleasures she ended her formal education while still in grade school in order to help out around the house what was I gonna try to learn for down there was no it was no work for me if I got a chance to go to college there was nothing for me to do but still push the white people's buggy they babies and cleaning babies and cleaner house mayor you was 14 when a vision came to her Jesus was walking across a giant green meadow the Lord told me to open my mouth and his name she would often testify she saw no reason to confine her new mission to New Orleans but her aunt said no to the young girl who could see her entire life stretched out before her and going nowhere a rare chance to escape her poverty appeared one day in the form of her visiting cousins they sang for the legendary B's artist mall rainy then made a spectacular offer come sing jazz with us and make yourself some money but with no regrets she declined the opportunity in signing herself to many more years at hand to mouth living yet the recognition of these professionals gave her competence her singing started drawing notice across Louisiana but there was no such thing as a professional gospel singer so she hoped to become a registered nurse like many of us that live too well and I used to dream of living better I've always been a child I thought we're in the beyond of the future but I had this feeling that I could live better it was an extended family her mother and all of her mother's sister's created the family some lived in Chicago some lived in New Orleans and as a matter of fact during those days you could say to to your sister give me that child mahalia long to go north joining the wave of blacks migrating to Chicago for a better life and dig warned her that gangsters control the Negro streets of Chicago and were very dangerous for a young unexperienced girl but at 15 mahalia bravely boarded the train for her three-day journey to the promise land her aunt Hannah met her Chicago's giant train station with a girl faced the first of many disorienting changes she observed a black woman her aunt request and immediately received the services of white man the cab driver who drove them home she planned to re-enter school and then pursue her nurses training to be I am the way and she first came to Chicago she did what was called day's work that is to say she went to homes and cleaned homes by the day she said that what really sustained her through all the tribulations of doing menial jobs once up her fading her aunt Hannah I took her to church with her she starts up this song and everybody looks around at this little girl singing in there wondering what is wrong with her while she sang a couple of choruses and when no one joined in with her she stopped but she said she didn't go back to that church anymore just a few blocks from home was another Church greater Salem Baptist whose welcoming arms soon became the young immigrants second home several nights a week Chicago boomed with prosperity prohibition added tension and violence to the mix but blacks remains subjugated there was no mingling of cultures and greater salem baptist church became the nucleus of homeworld two quickly found herself in the church's youthful choral group the Johnson singers now we're talking about a sixteen-year-old he began to be called upon to sing solos at this church to sing solos at that church to sing at this film to open up this Civic program in the Johnson singers ever sing a song in the rulers call it gaan it used to be song in the traditional way when the roll is called up yonder when the rule is called up yonder I'll be there and then the Johnson sang of me which are around to say when the roll is called Conda and only be under I'll be there when the role in call up and blown up he and honey there they will put that rhythm to it and that's what made it so fascinating in the change when you mix the natural New Orleans music her Baptist bringing and this sanctified Church you find that this is beginning to make her as a singer I don't think we would have had that had she been brought up for example in Chicago at 16 mahalia was now a professional on a good night the group could pull in as much as a respectable dollar fifty advised to get formal voice training may hell you engaged an instructor of music for the considerable sum of four dollars he interrupted her singing as too undignified so she walked out even as a teenager artist mahalia was listening to only one guide her heart my man got a heart like the wrong casting although the music of veces más captivated the head she never wanted to sing the blues there was none yet better Smith Mon she said after niemi moan in these songs so she said cuz I I get something from hearing her moan it takes me back to my childhood you imagine what kind of a blues singer she would have been my god Rita been the most tremendous blue singer of all time outstripped Bessie Smith that type of music wasn't even accepted by the better thinking people at that particular time because they call that kind of music when I was a child in decent music music that would be played for common people and the honky tonk in the saloon another product of a vibrant southern music scene it also moved to Chicago one day he stopped in at may heylia's church and that visit would change her life the great gospel writer and professor Thomas Dorsey hopes upon a time played the blues it was a compass of my rainy the teacher of Bessie Smith and then he was saved after Craig David and he became a writer of gospel music Thomas Dorsey knew that the higher echelon of blacks bought blues albums not spirituals but he wanted to sell the gospel I've heard many of them try to sound like mahalia said Dorsey but nobody could imitate her the voice was glorious the breath control was out of this world the way she would build a song from the beginning to the very end and you could almost see a transformation in her face the key to me Haley was very simple endorsee would say later she enjoyed her religion mahalia would sing Dorsey songs on street corners a sales technique called demonstrating to catch and hold the passers-by mahalia developed several singing techniques mahalia jackson had a habit of combining what we call wandering couplets or wandering quatrains in into songs to strengthen them to give them a strength for example she sings he's got the whole world and now that he's got the little bitty baby that's the next course he's got you and me brother but to give it the riotous she said if a legend could be bought on this whole wide world he got the whole world in his hand and then she'd say something else and then she'd come back and in that way she could stretch a song that money could buy wage 20 mahalia was a fixture on the black church circuit she endorsee earned only enough to eat and travel to the next stop yet one day mahalia still felt the urge to help someone less fortunate the 1934 mad millie jackson for you to come to greenville mississippi to run revivals and now she saw me as a boy in the Church of beating the tambourine and singing and somehow she just taken to me I was in a house that I should have been in and a house of ill repute and she was concerned about my well-being down there she came back to Chicago at least the revival until my heart and my aunt or came down and then my brought me back to Chicago and I rejoined the head in their game in 1936 age 24 she herself remained without a companion until she met a tall handsome Ike huckin whole who was a graduate of Fisk and tusky his culture and sophistication impressed the young woman who felt insecure about her own lack of education Ike was trained as a chemist but Annie's post Depression years he could find work only as a mailman despite a background so utterly different from hers or perhaps because of it mahalia fell deeply in love Ike's mother ran a cosmetics business that catered to blacks and a young couple found selves immersed in it Roger she wasn't educated but she was a businesswoman she had that mother wit amanda was very shroud and I assumed she was pretty tough businesswoman too she learned to be that she had to have necessity the Great Depression staggered white Americans and drove already desperate blacks into dire poverty mahalia clung to her church she would always crazy about the minister the minister asked her to do anything and she would be willing to do it she always put him first does the minister or the only one could help you in the courts could go to court and plead for you because we have no black lawyers what Chicago preachers needed anything to help and the hell yrs revivals became a much sought after a bit you take a collection for example you have $95 you would say we need five more dollars and as soon as you give us the five dollars Mahalia Jackson will come and sing and they would hold off mahalia until they got a certain amount of money come on goodness come back to headquarters unlike without a doctor you her singing invariably drove audiences wild and all of a sudden you've made a connection something kicks in and then listeners get happy now let me explain what getting happy is it is an ecstatic relationship to singing preaching praying or even just thinking so that you naturally start its way a little bit because the dance cannot be separated from the music it is the basic way that I sang today from hearing the way the preacher would sort of thing and a I mean with preaching in a cry in a moan would shout sorta like in a cat wheel of a groaning sound and you sang or the whole being the whole body and she walked as she sang and she'd walk off the stage into the congregation and you know the shaking of the hands he's still singing and moving and so it becomes a we experience rather than an eye treatments a hitter mahalia is alright but she's switching in the poor pitting the people are talking so we got to put a roll you have to come ha now they always had a problem with me Mahaney was what was called a full-bodied woman and if she moved a little bit this body would shake and people objected to that they associated it with the nightclubs they associated it with jazz the jazz music I knew all about the King Oliver I don't know him to ever I've heard him play on the trucks I let him before Louie Armstrong left and come up to Chicago i'm watching the sea but why not love come back to me i covered she belted her mission to take the beat from the nightclubs back to the church to cut it back the top he's dead you know we go see never get Todd and did it go sing you know it got a fight on but there was no money to be held in gospel the voice of a black devil hey did not speak to elite blacks and almost no whites they did not know of mahalia or any other notable gospel singers the only ones who liked her music were far too poor to buy her records so producers had no reason to invest in her but someone came along who believed in that market and that dream for mahalia that someone was inked Williams head of decas race records division a member of Mejias congregation brought Williams to her church where he saw me hagas singing make people cry mahalia knew that the nationwide power of decker could skyrocket her from street singing to the top dekha artists included the legendary louis armstrong and many other heavyweights her debut for deca God's gonna separate the wheat from the tears was one of her favorites her entire family journey to a forbidden place a tavern to hear me hagas familiar boys floating from the jukebox people wept across the country the reaction surprised both deca and mahalia the record flopped Mejias confidence lagged deca insisted she switched to blues or jazz and mahalia again refuses saying what she called indecent music gospel singers like Mozilla Tharp and Mejias idol Clara Ward had switched to the more lucrative world of blues and jazz but mahalia would not she fought off the rejection plunged back into her cosmetics business I 1938 she no longer sang with the Johnson singers and a recording career was going nowhere her refusal to go commercial frustrated her more practical husband their marriage grew strained he was a racehorse a man his she never liked and he threw away a lot of my own resources she'd bring him to church but he wouldn't really join and be a member affiliated with the church as other members would be it was a difficult time for mahalia jackson the great artist wanting to perform and in her prime would not enter a recording studio again for seven years because her recording career remain grounded may Harrier decided once again to spread her gospel sound one concert at a time I was 16 and my brother was 17 as we came in to Nashville we saw signs all over town concert tonight Mahalia Jackson and the ward singers we were so excited we went backstage introduced ourselves asked if we could sing a song on the program before the ward thing is that mahalia came on well this was the fashion it was a much smaller world a much safer world she said yes she liked our singing at the end of the program she said if you boys are ever in Chicago here's my address come by and see me as it had before her name on a black theater marquee guaranteed standing room only but despite her popularity they lonesome road to the next engagement lay strewn with the layer barriers mahalia was a very strong person on the subject of race and prejudice that she had has suffered all through her life mahalia was a political person not the active marching down the street kind of person but she felt very strongly from her travels having to sometimes drive all night because there were no hotels in certain parts of the United States that would accommodate black people for sleeping TOB a circuit a few to compete or something of known as tough on black artists was he a phrase for years ago on top of the constant threats and indignities of a segregated life money remained a huge problem Ike Hawkin Hall still see the over her refusal to go commercial or to even let him manage her present career of church tours tiring of his anger towards her and his increased devotion to liquor and horses mahalia finally divorced him and everything seemed go around all that we've built up this crush and we feel that we have no one to help us mahalia jackson was alone in a crowd of faces traveling the circuit eking out a living meanwhile a war raged on in Europe and black American soldiers granted the freedom to fight in bloody world war two trenches were returning home to find their own fight for freedom at all but stalled now in her mid 30s may hell you felt equally frustrated that her life was going nowhere but a small record label named Apollo was releasing every sort of world ethnic music they could record and staying content with modest sales with little to lose mahay agreed to step into their studios she sang a song move on up a little higher and our world would soon change what we get from a power record scissor is a kind of proved unsophisticated technical product but we get some singing that could move mountains I'm going bunch around the road don't an obscure Chicago DJ with an eclectic taste and an unconventional style would soon transform our life this rare recording of her voice attests to her new friends role in me Hayes approaching international fame well such a such a fine man you know and I suppose some of you would have known about Mahalia Jackson ever had not been the starter code 1945-46 I'm in this record shop an early clerk worked for downbeat magazine is I want you to hear this recording is a turntable he puts it on and I hear the voice and as she sing some sores at voice riches higher and higher she moves on up a little higher I thought of Caruso wrinkly so because crews I had that quality and most gifted have the rare ones he reaches a certain point if it gets as far of the human voice can go and he goes just forever well that was behavior within four weeks of his broadcast 50,000 copies sold turco played the record allah grooves wore out and he promoted her everywhere he possibly could and we'd be walking along the street he says this is mahalia jackson and the people says soul and he would get bad what do you mean you don't know Apollo begged their factory to increase their output in an era where a hundred thousand copies was huge her record would ultimately sell over a million copies Apollo sales hit three hundred thousand dollars the connection to mobster Al Capone's protege is assured that the Chicago mafia own jukeboxes offered mahalia song soon the underworlds network carried the devout Christian singing nationwide promoters cozied up to hear from all over but mahalia was older and wiser there was a practice among those promoters to take the money while you're singing the last half and skip out of town I know that sounds absolutely awful but it's true she had a very slick habit of demanding her money halfway through the concert so that if you didn't pay her at that time she said she wouldn't finish the concert Harlem's famed Apollo Theater begged in vain verte is saying nightclub pieces most dogged of all was black DJ and promoter Joe Bostick when he decided that mahalia should be opened up to a white following which it frankly she didn't have it first he went at Carnegie Hall and of course you go to a concert at Carnegie Hall because in those days it was good for once mayor you felt overwhelmed in 1950 Carnegie Hall's for classically trained white musicians since the age of four may hell you never been shy to sing at a moment's notice in front of anyone but now she admitted she was afraid at least her longtime accompanist and friend would be with her Oh Mildred Falls was a wonderful accompanist firma they understood each other so well and she had that rolling gospel thing going beautifully she was as good a gospel piano song I've ever heard in my life the opening act was award singers setting the stage for the other gospel stars through force a will or sheer reputation mahalia would end the concert I don't think people knew that mahalia was competitive but she was there were these cutting contest in concerts who was going to take the house who would have the most people fainting who would have the most people shouting and of course people thought four places on the program No the audience was half black and was halfway as mahalia started to sing the black people started talking back to sangheili hey man hallelujah and then as the spirit got high they stood up right during the singing and they began to get happy a critic who covered the concert had never seen a gospel concert before he reported in the New York Times and it was so funny because he'd never seen as a matter of fact he said nothing in my a puritanical background had prepared me for this kind of reaction the show broke all attendance records following her success at Carnegie Hall mahalia sailed to Europe in 1951 in Paris she received 21 curtain calls in Holland Belgium Denmark and Germany they couldn't understand a word get went wild but she received a cool reception at London's Royal Albert Hall she'd given a poor performance telling no one about the acute pain she was suffering at the University of Chicago doctor discovered tumors caused by a slow but incurable disease before an emergency hysterectomy she asked for a reading of psalms 27 mahalia svoy did eventually return to full form but the surgery deprived his great lover of children from the ability to ever bear her own a loss she found difficult to accept for the rest of her life whoa people in your Oh huh this point but hey he was making maybe seven hundred and fifty dollars per concert she had to pay Mildred falls her accompanies but that would still leave her about 500 left over that was a great deal of money and you could do quite a lot with it so you tended to show your price you show your wealth by your house and your Cadillac and your furs and your clothes which was a big thing among gospel singers and mahalia was the queen so she showed off a little bit Dinah Shore became the first TV star to insist that her network CBS enter into a contract with mahalia to appear on her show they bring in a white quartet they bring in these white pianist and these organiz they bring in strings and it's like having a thousand people play happy birthday the song is too simple to have that many people and it just took mahalia had to struggle against all of these forces to try to get that message through and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't Las Vegas offered 25 thousand dollars for one night well there's nothing wrong with your nightclub is just a peculiarity of me she said in declining but mahay you became a staple on TV reaching our biggest audiences while singing under very awkward musical constraints there's a young singer not a young singer two middle-aged Negro star Jesus acclaimed as the greatest gospel singer in the country on three occasions come into New York's Carnegie Hall by yourself pacts the place so tonight we are going to present this new orleans singer her name is Mihaly Jackson's you're going to sing for you a gospel song these are they here is Mahalia Jackson so let's have a nice welcome for she was fascinated by the fact that white people found her singing interesting when she really wanted to have church she would get a black audience because you don't have to explain things the black folk when you're singing gospel she was able to capture the pathos the intimate feeling and convey it and then livin sang true to it executive mitch miller at CBS's giant Columbia Records took notice and made a staggering offer 50 thousand dollars a year guaranteed for four years mahalia left a very bitter Apollo behind she saw Columbia as a vehicle to the truly wide audience that still in lieu deter riding atop this international media empire mahalia would work with Columbia's legendary jazz producer George Avakian it wasn't especially interested in the genre I wanted to cover all aspects of music other than classical opera and the idea of gospel music had not specifically come to my mind but I don't think anybody ever made contact the way my hair you did she was so totally wrapped up in her performance she would close her eyes and it was perfectly natural it wasn't anything up I'll put on it may have looked easy but the musical taste of black America often repelled or even frightened white Americans yet she was determined to win them over when executives sent her tape to William Paley president of CBS he immediately called mahalia offering her her own TV show she had one condition studs terkel for her host but senator joseph mccarthy's hunt for communist sympathizers was casting a wide net of accusations across America studs was on political thin ice with these anti-communist to whom CBS paid heed CBS finally okayed studs voice but not his face and they wanted him to sign a special document and it looks it's a loyalty oath I am NOT nor have been and I'm etc I said well no I don't intend to say anything like and is well I'm sorry but I'm afraid the system CBS I'm afraid you have to just the mahalia is passing by mr. casual rehearsal she's uh huh Russia buddy and I said no and she hurt benches to me hey baby especially baby is that what I think it is I said well probably as how I and you don't want to you know want to sign it I says no okay let's rehearse and the man says miss Jackson apart me yesterday he don't have to anything doesn't why he said no that's true hearse he says was Jack nas's from New York she's if he's not on the program you're not gonna have major Jackson and you know what I was the end of it nothing else happened because remember the network's gave in the agency's gave him the sponsors gave in man you said in effect go to hell and I thought that moment is a metaphor for everything mahalia showed far more character than bill Paley president CBS ever did with the incomparable Mildred falls on piano the show went on the air highlighted not just by mahalia singing but the rapport between her and studs terkel I'm the father the redeemed redeem some yeah you're not gonna try to redeem me tonight if I could have a good you see if anybody can save me it's my hand you again and mahalia says we someone's I try to force her to sing fast songs you know as though anybody can force my head you do anything she doesn't want to if any lady is a mind of her own it's my hair all right you know the bus co halo wing she did she was at like a song called rusty old halo reach other very corny song and his studs calls out of sweetening water song sweetling water song oh no one else I wrecked the damage on the show one huge ratings and a devoted audience but again Paley's fears intervened when I got a break on television and look like somebody told the people this ain't the thing to do put a Negro home television response at the council the program and nobody on television ever got as much mail and you know that i got and finally next thing man me off the man was Paley the year was nineteen fifty-five and while Rosa Parks was refusing to go to the back of the bus Paley's regard for white Southern audience reaction led him to cut back mahalia shows and finally canceled them all together she may have been a star but more important than most Americans was the color of her skin one day in California huzur going to take mahalia out to a very nice restaurant and we were told that we couldn't be accommodated I started to make a fuss about it my hair tugged up my sleeve and said George forget about it we're going to go back to the hotel and we'll have room service upstairs you like you mean I know that but there can be one Negro where there's 50 white and if another negrooo come in they corrected that negro they don't try them they're not interested in that only thing we are interested is equal rights despite her fame police would stop her Cadillac it was here that the phone number of her friend Lorraine goro a white woman always came in handy the stopped in New Orleans one time in a cause of who who caused as she says man Madam's call what she knew Lorraine and chateau la reine what to say in they call of Lorenzo her until her maid to bring that home knew how to she knew how to get by when I'm on the stage and unknown television and working with white people they just hug man love me and say I'm so wonderful and I'm so great and then when I'm walking down the street like an ordinary citizen I can't get a sandwich I can't get a bottle of pop I got to stare I can't even get a cab and I'm just in my healing Jackson that they got to saying how wonderful I am so when a preacher named Ralph Abernathy asked her to sing in honor of Rosa Parks he began a brand new chapter in the life of mahalia and the nation may hell you said yes immediately to Reverend Abernathy and began a series of concerts to raise bail money for jail civil rights activists I couldn't say truthfully that I wasn't happy to be the first gospel singer going to kind of y'all never thought they would you know have me there and to sing in Albert Hall in London I really appreciate that but the joy comes when I usually go to the prison and sang for those people that feel that their off from the world those white people down south fast as we raise the money they just put the people in jail and consume that money back it's not a smart they intend to keep you down like that she knew about that from our recent treatment by bill Paley but a rising profile gave her a nationwide pulpit and she spoke out many artists become so protective of their image they will not get close to direct action they kind of sing away from the fight she identified with the marching did not choose kind of distant relationship with our struggle for emancipation she was in the thick of it in Chicago she would publicly compare the life of a black American to the fate of a tied down mule it's like I told you one time after I come here and had been here so long and tried to get a break I realized what it used to be right to see him put a stave in the ground and put a rope around on the muse neck he could just go just so fun he got had to eat just around that day it's the same thing she decided to move beyond the unwritten boundaries in 1957 she settled into a white Chicago neighborhood setting off a massive uproar and broad daylight somebody shout out her picture window mayor daley posted a guard in front of her house the detractors and death threats faded away and mahalia pressed ahead with their mission to erase America's color line but you know something in a time God delivered children the visceral and divided the water and let Moses lead the children over the Red Sea there's a guard somewhere and no man on earth is able to keep people in bondage because God cleared you store it for man you didn't say well you're black away if you identify with Jesus is journey that's why she was such a devout Christian not just symbolic and hand waving her sense of Jesus as in mansa Peter are and leader and God one might call it very clear theology and she found her Moses in an up-and-coming minister from the South who is creating a stir with his marches if young preacher they named Martin Luther King was just chosen as a spokesman she's telling me this and she's very funny I know they making trouble aren't they studs she knew I was involved in number of things i would check out in trouble i see you bet they're making trouble oh yeah how she I said y'all go to sing and then dr. Abernathy asked me how much do i charge and she said to me I told him I don't charge the walking people working hand-in-hand with Martin Luther King and sometimes on our own mahalia raised money throughout the south by singing and even preaching for her cause the world is confusing classmate adorable it is one problem is another we must overcome but we must come back to God everything gonna be all right one day everything hey she believe it or not wanted to be a preacher she wanted to have her own church this is highly unusual for women in the black church to be passed us they could fill the pews but don't go in the pulpit in 1958 she made her screen debut in the st. Louis Blues alongside Nat King Cole meanwhile a big artistic change awaited her under heavy pressure from Columbia as well as civil rights activists she started singing and decidedly non gospel venues mahalia paired with Duke Ellington at the newport jazz festival referring to his van as a sacred institution well when she came out to sing the audience went absolutely wild and on the recording you can hear and say mmm you make me feel like a star but when she really wanted to saying she would go to Chicago and love great Mahalia Jackson would sing free on a program because she needed that infusion of the situation of the people of the communion because right up until the end she was still a Christian singing rather than a singer doing Christian stop by now mayor had transcended gospel music she played herself in the Douglas Sirk classic imitation of life the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences wanted to recognize her but had to create a new category in 1962 they presented her with the very first Grammy for gospel for Boyd but the recognition of her peers she remained is made by a country's bigotry it's hard to describe whatever Jackie Robinson kind of meant the baseball kind the real breakthrough the Sun our and Tiger Woods to golf I'm one of a minute tremendous gospel singers was as if she broke a barrier and went to the journal market and she became mia a standard by which other gospel singers permission I you know I'm a woman of Prayer and I believe that uh prayer will change things if we get up and help our self I'm not one of these type of people that tell God to bring me the mountains and I got my good hands and feet and don't get up and walk to it she was not on on the soapbox I happen to like the soapbox I think we need more soap boxes no no enough of them but made it took the very fact that she was at that rally the very fact that she was down in Montgomery to do it pro bono because it was her people herself dr. King wanted to march in Chicago but the National Baptist Convention local preachers and the head of the n-double-a-cp were afraid of inciting trouble get mahalia hung on to the idea of throwing the fundraising concert on his behalf dr. King and see her name on the program he knew it was credible he knew her presence represent of a ham Joe he could always call her directly he would call mejia she would call him at home and she'd always say we need a delivery room and dr. Cain is going to delivers Morales mission for a nationwide social rejuvenation next brought her to a watershed event in US history with the great march on Washington August 27th 1963 the huge crowd was ever a reflecting pool hundreds of thousands or a marvelous moment she wore a new hat with flowers some helicopters something a buzzing noise was made in a machine he was just accidental I think and she just looked up and she just out sang that machine he's saying I've been buked then I've been school and now this that was a strange selection from here number one it had no pulse he didn't have a beat but when mahalia began to say I've been built and I've been scorned children I've been talked about it sure as you born and those people had come there to say we've been buked the place went absolutely wild and it's set it up so that when Martin ended that speech with I have a dream that I'll no longer be rebuked oh it was really something yeah they've been the Haga had to come back and sing and then she sang how I got now martin luther king said to me haga Jackson Haley if I go before you I want you to sing that precious Lord take my hand at my funeral her whole life was devoted to her religious beliefs on her church and of course the civil rights movement her efforts and civil rights were Delta staggering blow on Friday November 22nd 1963 she walked in the New York's Knickerbocker Hotel in time to see the shocking images from Dallas president john f kennedy the civil rights movements most powerful ally was gone even as a world reeled and shocked new violence raged against innocent blacks all over the country may hell you felt their pain down saw where I was raised at New Orlean do them and they would go off these rich white people leave their children in my hands and love their children with all my heart and the day they can take these little bit the black relatives of mine and stillwater on me keep him out of school this is pretty hard she sang and spoke with such passion the doctor gain relied on her more heavily than ever she was living out her dream and her private life was changing too she had been seeing a handsome studio musician sigmund mentors Galloway although Galloway was charming and sophisticated mahalia knew that marriage to a famous woman was difficult for any man at a much indecision she married him in a hasty ceremony you know people have a way of wanting to be protective of their staff yes and everything to the point of Medlen you have to give people the role from the freedom to make their own choices and he was her choice and and they had a great relationship really the marriage also brought refreshing new pleasure for the gospel star mentors little daughter Sigma think she would like to have had children her second husband had a young daughter and she actually left her in her will for several thousand dollars with career and family in place Mejias life achieved sort of normalcy exactly whom the hell you jackson had become though was now an issue breaking her vow to sing only gospel she did show tunes they became instant hits I will say that you would find most singers making light of the fact that mahalia was a financially successful gospel singer people make fun of this but when mahalia died she left something for her work and she would hold on to a penny until you grabbed it away from her she had not even had your Jackson foundation she had that in mind right dear for a young kids ghetto kids and others to get a break at it life look at the mother and father washington island and working trying to send in the school and you know a child from the age of 45 years old get this inferior feeling she herself had left that painful feeling far behind but now with her explosive fame and fortune she suffered in a very different way the superstars non-stop travel tested her seriously overweight body's capacity to fight the new sarcoid tumors growing inside and her hectic schedule after with little chance to visit with old friends and fellow musicians like Harry Belafonte I think she missed the camaraderie because all she had was her a confidence and that's a rather solitary life so she missed she missed hanging out and her second marriage was suffering Galloway's own career languished and he felt lost don't accomplish studio musician he had focused his energies on her slowly losing heart in his own future in one magazine he described her friends as hangers-on and sponges he embarrassed mahalia by serving liquor in the presence of ministers worst of all he wanted her to leave her old circle behind and rub shoulders with elite blacks and whites there's bubbles fill the papers the judge refused her demand to a victim Galloway's request for a jury trial backfired and the jury decided in May heylia's favor he too wanted to stop work and I think they eventually divorced because he was seeing some other women so she did not have much success but she would tease often like with all these men here I know I can find a husband freed from her exhausting marriage an energized mahalia continued what she loved the most singing the gospel but on April fourth 1968 her Moses dr. Martin Luther King jr. was shot dead he was only 39 like many others she never fully recovered from the tragic loss and she sang precious Lord it was very moved by that because they had set up a relationship and when he died there was just no question but she would go there and sang at that funeral she's no take my e Oh to the take my brush Oh indeed the anguish of life without dr. King was tempered when she reconciled with her ex-husband mentors Galloway mahalia continued singing and intensified her efforts to help young black children but she also noted with great sadness the decline of the church in the black community those days the church meant a lot in black communities the church was something that one could go to and be refilled and they would leave with a joyful and their soul no singer had provided worshippers with as much spiritual inspiration as Mahalia Jackson and yet at the age of 58 she finally broke her ban on singing at a Jazz Festival and celebrated her good friend Louis Armstrong 70th birthday by feeding him gospel lyrics as a sang in the pouring rain I speak I was down please keep me wonderful baby in 1971 she took what would be her most triumphant tour ever as one of the world's most recognized citizens and a living legend the lady from a new orleans shack in a giant stadiums from Paris to New Delhi face thunderous applause then sang her powerful heart out her performances became national events eclipsing politics and war language and taste culture and religion a rare and simple cover love to sing straight from the heart allowed her voice to penetrate directly to the soles of her audiences as vigorous as the spirit felt her tumor riddled and heavy body failed her daily the rigors of performing soon became mere exercises in fighting off the agony the chronic pain left her short-tempered and impatient with the chaos and intrigue that inevitably surrounded the world-class entertainers entourage her behavior struck many as callous and self-centered would agree she had perhaps worn herself out and didn't have the patience and she had probably been wronged several times as she was the first one to tell you how these things work give us some more stop but I work for the Lord night room yes play again go ahead grande you juggle place all right and she'd also had a heart attack a couple of them and many people say that she was no longer the same person that she had become a star performing for adoring fans was meh alias temporary medication for pain and suffering horner did be with me just a little tired I feel alright Charles go get it doc no doctor she was breathing like this my mother was a heart patient so I know what happens there with the breath and mahalia would but then she'd go out on stage and you couldn't tell this and I know how that and then when she comes back she would suffer for it we'll get it done though only 59 she collapsed backstage in Germany and had to be evacuated home she almost died Get Well cards from all around the world help brighten her recovery soon after that close call there began a string of unique honors she had never dared dream for in 1971 mahalia was well enough to receive an honorary doctorate of music from the City University of New York her delight over this recognition provided a temporary distraction from her failing health and weight problems and a newly diagnosed diabetes one doctor told her she needed a psychiatrist another doctor was actually a reporter in disguise she was really all right i thought you know go get my clothes and coming home and well i could get to the house by the time I got to the out I heard on the radio marriage action is d it was January 27 1972 mahalia was only 60 mourners converged from across the country and around the globe far too many to fit in her beloved greater Salem Baptist Church her preacher Reverend Leon Jenkins held awake they're in their honor with a crowd spilling onto the street a Bible lay open it Psalms crowd of 10,000 at the Aerie crown theater comforted each other malleus friend Aretha Franklin sang at the funeral dozens of cultural figures pay their respects and her great friend Studs Terkel delivered a moving eulogy her hometown of New Orleans held a second funeral her body lay in state probably the grandest funeral ever given an American private citizen well I told me he'll you once me Anya if you die before me please put in a word for me reached out and pulled me up reaching down and pulling up the brokenhearted remained her gift and her goal from riverfront shacks to European concert halls and in a sense she represented black people all Joe Lewis Lena Horne Pearl Bailey Ralph Bunche Martin Luther King all of these people represented by foe and therefore we were very proud when they presented themselves as upstanding and successful it inspired other people as well all the artists that I worked with mahalia and Louie Armstrong were the most real people that I knew warm loving wonderful and that was my heaven she was what you saw and what you heard though visited by adversity racial hatred failed marriages and a body wracked by pain and suffering mahalia never lost her trust in the methods of her God and in the basic dignity of mankind man Jackson you know meant everything to me if it wasn't for her I'm sure I wouldn't be the person that I am today cause she was there for me when there was no one else her legacy still opens hearts and joins together the souls of those who hear her sing but knowing mahalia and the richness of a voice is one of the key experiences of my life so you combines preparation and turning adversity into advantage all that talent you come up with something called mahalia jackson and it lit up dog places it warmed up cold places it have to change America for the better like another friend of mines in New York say when you like them sweet and soft they call your square so tonight I'm gonna sing another little bounce one because I don't believe anybody here tonight is a square I wonder how many of your nose at this particular song I think everybody in America know this song that was on a Riverside you know a lot of time I forget duh of the wood the reason why I keep milking so long she thought about my species on facebook I said well how did that song go she said well so on so cuz you know I forget the word so now you might be like me so what is this where I'm at all right Oh not a one Hey Monday I'm has pretty certain our chicago is gonna have 300 Baptists more tonight you make me feel like I'm a star

Channel: Kayla Williams

Views: 781,590

Rating: 4.8191867 out of 5

Keywords: mahalia jackson, christian, Jesus, God, faith, Lord, Religion, gospel, church, full movie, spirituality, testimony, bible, inspiration, gospel music, documentary

Id: a0tKEpJFYYI

Length: 84min 55sec (5095 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2016