While Woodstock was coming together at Max Yasgur's farm in upstate New York, New York City had its own momentous musical festival happening all during the summer of 1969. Over the course of six weeks, an incredible assemblage of musicians took part in The Harlem Cultural Festival—a.k.a. "Black Woodstock"—in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park). That included the likes of Stevie Wonder, Sly & The Family Stone, Nina Simone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Max Roach and more.
The shows were all filmed, but the footage was never officially released and was largely forgotten about. But now, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson has used that footage to create a documentary about the festival for his directorial debut, Summer Of Soul. Watch the trailer for the film, which comes out in theaters and on Hulu on July 2nd, below.
The festival, which was co-sponsored by the Parks Department and Maxwell House, consisted of six free Sunday afternoon concerts held between June 29th and August 24th, 1969. Concerts had also taken place in the city in the summers of 1967 and 1968, but the 1969 iteration was considered the "apex" of the events, with around 300,000 people in attendance over the course of the six weeks.
In a contemporary article on the concerts, the NY Times noted that in addition to music, it was a vibrant community event, with street vendors selling food and wares. It prompted them to write, "for many entrepreneurs it was a rich opportunity to indulge in what Harlemites would call a 'legitimate hustle.'"
There was a spate of articles exploring the forgotten history of the event that came out in the summer of 2019 to mark its 50th anniversary, some of which grappled with why Woodstock has remained so prominent in the public consciousness but this event had not. Regardless, the event's legacy and influence has sustained through other similar festivals including the likes of the Afropunk festival and The Roots Picnic; and in 2019, SummerStage hosted an anniversary show co-hosted by Talib Kweli.
"The Harlem Cultural Festival was arguably one of the first of its kind to promote Black pop as transformative urban event, as a site to be inhabited as well as a sound to be experienced, and the key to new neighborhood connections and collaborations," wrote Daphne Brooks in the Times. "For Black folks, the added power and energy of coming together in a place where one could not only see, hear and feel Blackness onstage but also participate in a marketplace of neighborhood business owners was its own form of sustainability."
As for Questlove, he previously told IndieWire one of the reasons he wanted to pursue this documentary was because he was shocked that the footage of the 1969 show had remained unreleased for so long, and wondered what seeing it would have meant to him as a younger person.
“I personally live a life where musical gatherings and musical moments define my life. Being 12 years old in the height of Thriller defined my life. Being six years old when Saturday Night Fever was at its apex, that defined my life,” he said. “What would have happened if this was allowed a seat at the table? How much of a difference would that have made in my life? That was the moment that extinguished any doubt I had that I could do this.”
