Black Music Month: "Summer of Soul" Shines Spotlight on 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival
As African-American Music Month draws to a close today, Wednesday, June 30, a new movie documentary ("Summer of Soul") is educating many about a 1969 summer concert series featuring top Black musical artists, an event that many known little about. The Harlem Cultural Festival is now in the spotlight as the documentary will be released on the streaming service Hulu and in movie theaters on Friday, July 2. While the three-day Woodstock concert in August 1969 attracted international media attention many attendees used to protest the Vietnam War, television cameras ignored the Harlem Cultural Festival, another New York concert series held that summer featuring stars like Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and Mahalia Jackson. The peaceful concert event attracted 300,000 people, but was seemingly left out of the history books and off television. Often called Black Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival was organized to celebrate African-American cult...