“That was the big event of the year,” he recalled last week, “coming with a lot of hope and positive energy. He did it too, in his cape and his pink hot pants,” Shields chuckled. “He had a hit song, ‘The Funky Chicken,’ and everybody in the stadium was doing the Funky Chicken, over 100,000 standing up simultaneously doing the dance. Like soul singer Rufus Thomas, performing in pink hot pants. 20, 2022, “Wattstax Day.” Memory fades, but certain details remain indelible to Shields, like seeing the Lockers, the street dance crew from Los Angeles, staking out the periphery of the crowd and popping and locking all day long to the music in their giant hats and striped socks. On Friday, the Los Angeles City Council and Mayor Eric Garcetti issued a joint proclamation, declaring Aug. Jesse Jackson, community activist Tommy Jacquette and others. Shields was among the more than 85,000 fans at the Coliseum to see soul music stars like Isaac Hayes and the Staple Singers and the heavy funk of the Bar-Kays, and to soak up the message of empowerment and pride from a young Rev. The name Wattstax was also a reference to the famed Memphis-based Stax record label, which would provide the talent for the day. 30 caliber machine guns swinging back and forth, gunners looking for a target. Shields remembers those days in August 1965, “the strangest kind of time” when he saw Jeeps loaded with National Guardsmen rolling past his home. But the name of course was also a reference to the Watts Uprising of 1965, when the arrest of a Black motorist led to six days of conflict, during which 34 people died. 20 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Wattstax was intended as a Black Woodstock.
It was a summer of house parties and trips to Disneyland, and right at the end, he and a friend bought $1 tickets for the huge musical event called Wattstax.Ī daylong festival 50 years ago on Aug. He’d just graduated from high school and was about to leave Los Angeles behind to study at Northwestern University. The summer of 1972 was a decisive time for Raymond Shields.