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Walker
Phil Cohrane Live!
KW: I learned so much about you from
the film. For instance, I was surprised to
hear that Howard Zinn had been a professor
of yours in college.
AW: He was already teaching at Spelman
when I arrived as a freshperson. Then, I
took his class the following year, because I
had gone to the Soviet Union and wanted to
learn more about Russia, and I think he was
the only person in all of Atlanta who knew
anything about Russian literature, which I
loved. He was teaching Russian literature,
the language, and some of the politics. We
became really good friends when I took his
class, but then he was fired.
one of the reasons I was very careful about
speaking about the relationship I had with
him and Staughton was because, in a racist
society, if you acknowledge a deep love for
and a deep debt owed to white teachers,
they tend to discredit your own parents and
your own community. And I was very
unhappy about that because I come from
somewhere and from specific black people
in the South, including my parents, who
built our first school, and rebuilt it after it
was burned to the ground. And they used to
bake pies and cakes to raise money to keep
it going. So, I learned to struggle from a
very early way in a way that was truly
indigenous to the South. You have to keep at
it! [Chuckles]
The point about the color
purple is just that to really see
a color is so remarkable!
Anything that you can see that
is beautiful is a gift. Blue…
green… black… yellow… All
these colors are amazing.
KW: For doing more than just teaching.
AW: He helped us desegregate Atlanta.
That was moving because he took a lot of
abuse for that. He and Staughton Lynd, a
fellow professor who was also from the
North, stood with us. They were certainly
behind us. In fact, they often stood in front
of us. This had a huge impact on me. But
KW: The film also left me
with an appreciation of your
deep connection to nature. I
have that, too. I go for a walk
in the woods every day. It’s
very spiritual to me.
AW: The forest is the first
cathedral. I felt that from the
time I was a child. I credit my
mother with that. I used to
think it came from her
Native-American
side.
Whichever it was, she
instinctively connected with nature, and
taught me that. Church just could not hold
my spirit. It was a beautiful, little church,
too. As sweet as could be. It was at a bend
in the road, with a big, oak tree sheltering it.
Still, I wandered right out the window, men-
tally and emotionally, got into the trees, and
never left.
Page 6 The Portland Skanner January 29, 2014
PHOTO COURTESY MISSISSIPPI RECORDS
continued from page 8
Portland record shop and label Mississippi Records presents jazz legend
Philip Cohran live! Thursday, Feb. 6 at 7:30 p.m. at the Hollywood
Theatre. Cohran was a member of Sun Ra’s Arkestra, he was an activist at
the Cabrini Green projects in Chicago, and the leader of the Artistic
Heritage Ensemble. He has self-produced many amazing records over
the years including the “Malcolm X Memorial” LP reissued by Mississippi
Records. He currently lives in Chicago. For more information go to
www.hollywoodtheatre.org.
KW: Kate Newell says: I'm more than
awestruck about this opportunity to ask you
a question. How did you feel about the
screen adaptation of The Color Purple?
AW: I was worried about the film at first,
because I’d never had a movie made of any
of my work on a big scale like that. There
had only been a couple of small, student
efforts before that. The Color Purple was so
overwhelming that I actually brought a
magic wand to New York City for the pre-
miere, and pointed it at the screen in the
hope that movie didn’t embarrass all of us.
Lo and behold, it turned out to be a beauti-
ful picture. The audience was so into it, gra-
cious and emotional, laughing when they
should be laughing, crying when they
should be crying. I got to feel it as a living
work of art, as something useful. My inter-
est in creating anything is that it be useful.
People can love the beauty of it, but they
should also use it to grow, to deepen.
KW: What was it like dealing with the
blowback for the next several years coming
from critics who said The Color Purple was
anti-black men?
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