The year of my birth was cause for widespread celebration.

There were huge outdoor parties in New York and large-scale fireworks that reached the moon.

They partied like it was 1969!

Because it was.

The moon landing was televised. Woodstock was televised. The Harlem Cultural Festival overlapped both of those events, but wasn’t televised.

What was the Harlem Cultural Festival? A series of six concerts from June 29 to August 24, 1969, in what’s now known as Marcus Garvey Park.

This “ultimate Black barbeque”  attracted 300,000 people who danced and sang along with their favorite artists. Wonder why TV coverage didn’t imprint this “Summer of Soul” on America’s national consciousness, as was done with Woodstock?

Was it for lack of video footage?

Nah, they probably have enough reel to orbit the moon.

Was it because they didn’t have well-known artists?

Hmmm, ever heard of. . .

Mahalia Jackson, Sly & the Family Stone, Nina Simone, Mongo Santamaria, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Stevie Wonder, The Staples Singers, B.B. King, and the Edwin Hawkins Singers?

There’s gotta be another reason.

Was it because this musical revolution brought different genres together that some might feel should have divided the audience, instead of uniting them? Jazz, funk, gospel, calypso, blues, and more on the same stage!

Was it because the Black Panthers provided security and there was no rioting, shooting, or looting to report?

Was it because families felt comfortable bringing their children to a temporary reprieve from feeling like minorities in a racialized society?

Was it because intergenerational, multiethnic Blackness gathered together to enjoy themselves without codeswitching for the dominant culture?

Was it because the crowd booed the news of a man walking on the moon?

Gil Scott Heron’s first album didn’t come out until 1970, but its famous track, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” captured the ethos and pathos of 1969’s Harlem Cultural Festival. That’s why the Academy Award winning documentary, “Summer of Soul,” samples the song several times.

Another song from the same album that would have fit well is “Whitey on the Moon.” It captured the mood of attendees when reporters asked for their thoughts about the Apollo space program’s “giant leap for mankind.”

Was all that money I made last year

For whitey on the moon?

How come I ain’t got no money here?

Hmm! Whitey’s on the moon!

Perhaps the concert-goers would have felt differently if they knew about hidden Black women whose figures helped guide the lunar landing. But, of course, their revolutionary roles weren’t televised.  

Even though African Americans were part of the progress, what value system does our moonwalking advance?

Is it like Monopoly?

Are we helping others advance to go, collect money on free parking, while we pay rent, taxes, and go to jail, go directly to jail without passing go or collecting $200? Are we integrating into a burning house? Or integrating into a house with polluted water? Are we integrating into support for space missions that help others colonize additional territories and leave us with overworked colonies?

Why are they building cell networks on the moon when we’re still paying for dropped calls on Earth?

Why are we preparing factories for extracting oxygen from moonrocks, when we fight against measures for cleaner air on Earth?

Why are we spending billion$ to find ice on Mars? Is that how far we have to go to get clean water for places like Flint, Jackson, and Navajo Nation?

Have we been walking backwards ever since the summer we landed on the moon?

Are we ready to revolutionize our values, televised or not?

The artists keep singing about it, but what are we doing about it?

A sister killed her baby ’cause she couldn’t afford to feed it

And yet we’re sending people to the moon

“Signs of the Times” by Prince

World leaders are so busy fighting wars…

You destroy the earth,
yet you still want to go to Mars
“Hungry Children” by Sizzla

Moonwalking, time travel

New day, more truth unravel

Mars landing, space gravel

Mankind still a fight and squabble

“Time travel” by Damian Marley