When Frankie Beverly, lead singer of the soul band Maze, passed away this week, I thought of the audience on his recordings from one November night in 1980 at Saenger Theater. His album “Live in New Orleans” captured more than a concert. It captured a turning point in history.
President Carter had lost his reelection bid barely a week earlier. Nearly 60% of Orleans Parish, where Beverly was recording, voted for Carter. The GDP grew a stunning 4.6% during Carter’s only term, but inflation was 13%, as was the poverty rate. His opponent, Ronald Reagan, blamed social programs and welfare recipients for the economic woes. When Reagan first workshopped that rhetoric, in his 1966 campaign for governor of California, the “war on poverty” had just begun; the overall poverty rate was 17%, but for Black America in 1965 it was more than 40%.
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