News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Sunday December 21st 2025
Summer of Soul
Movie Corner
(…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Documentary/Music
(2021 Searchlight Pictures)
★★★★★
By HOWARD MCQUITTER II
Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969 is the festival all but forgotten, deliberately thrown (literally) down in a basement. Many people in Harlem at the time believed the festival is the main reason racial disturbances that year didn’t occur like the previous year after the assassination of Martin Luther King on April 4,1968. All in all, over 300,000 Harlem residents, 99% African American, crowded into Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park) – all outdoors – to see and hear a great tribute to African American music: gospel, jazz, blues, rhythm & blues, and soul. The few cops at the festival are barely visible. Nearly all the security is provided by the Black Panthers for an energetic, peaceful, and historical music festival.
Thanks to Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, the director, who found the two-inch tapes in a basement simply going to waste for 50 years, we have Summer of Soul. What a grand prize to see Black people from little kids to seniors watching the singers and the instrumentalists perform on stage. The Harlem Cultural Festivalhad a strong touch, reminiscent of the Harlem Renaissanceof the 1920s.… Read the rest “Summer of Soul”
Three Lives Lost Over $20
Tales from Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery
189th in a series
By SUE HUNTER WEIR
The St. Paul Globe characterized it as a story that began and ended in a graveyard. It was the murder of Thomas Tollefson, a streetcar conductor, on the night of July 26, 1887. Tollefson’s murder was, as many crimes are, senseless and poorly planned. When all was said and done, three men died–one man murdered and two men hanged for having killed him. The two murderers netted a total of $20 (worth a little more than $430 in today’s currency).
Tollefson was a 28-year-old Norwegian immigrant who earned his living driving the Cedar Avenue streetcar line. He and Christina Nelson were married on February 10, 1887, a little more than five months before he was murdered. Tollefson was described as “a handsome fellow, and as brave and as generous as a man can be.”
The night that Tollefson was killed there was a big fire downtown and streetcars were running a couple of hours behind schedule. Tollefson’s 10 o’clock car didn’t reach its last stop at Cedar Avenue and Lake Street until midnight. Ten minutes earlier another streetcar driver, whose car had been derailed by planks obstructing the lines, warned Tollefson that he might run into trouble.… Read the rest “Three Lives Lost Over $20”
Life vs. People
PEACE HOUSE COMMUNITY: A PLACE TO BELONG
By MARTY MALTBY
I recently read “Ghost Rider,” Neil Peart”™s memoir, recounting a 55,000 mile motorcycle trip he took to help him deal with personal tragedy. His 19 year old daughter died in a car accident, and ten months later, his partner of 22 years died of cancer (although Peart claimed the real cause was a broken heart). Lost in grief, he left his house in Quebec and rode to Alaska, then south into Mexico and Belize, before returning home.
Early in the book, Peart mentions how the deaths changed his perspective on life. Before that point he led a blessed life, untouched by death or disease, with a job he enjoyed as the drummer of Rush (arguably the most successful Canadian rock band of all time). As you might expect, being in a world famous rock band brought many people into Peart”™s life, who sought to befriend him superficially, in exchange for what his fame and wealth could do for them. His belief was, as he put it, “Life is good, but people suck.”
As he healed from this tragedy, his mantra became “Life sucks, but people are good.” His new attitude stemmed from those who supported him through the blackest time of his life.… Read the rest “Life vs. People”
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