Wendell Pierce on African American Art and the Human Spirit

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: We see the really tough edge of racism still so present, we also see such a huge focus, there’s novels, there are films, there’s theater, there’s, you know, massive articles and radio pod casts on the African-American experience. And basically, telling the world that American, essentially, was built to a large part on the back of your people.

WENDELL PIERCE, ACTOR, “DEATH OF A SALESMAN”: Right.

AMANPOUR: In every which way, meaning music, art, literature, everything, agriculture.

PIERCE: Right.

AMANPOUR: How do you see it?

PIERCE: Well, I am an accolade of Albert Murray. And he believed, as do I, that the uniqueness of the African-American experience is something that contributes to the overall understanding of the human experience, that that is our specific contribution that we gave, that there is a concurrency that happens. That in the face of oppression, of violence, of prejudice that there has to be something in the human spirit that adapts. That is improvisational, that within that restriction, you can find ways of freedom in being unrestricted and uninhibited. That’s the essential nature of what jazz is, right. And a finite amount of notes that you have to honor but you can put them together in an infinite amount of possibilities in the individual who plays the solo. And his solo can go or her solo can go wherever it wants to go at the same time honor the chords, right, and honor the framework. Ultimately, that contribution is unique to our experience that we, within this framework of coming from 1619 to now 2019, to understand that over those 400 years that we have come to an understanding of how to adapt in the face of that oppression and how you cannot only adapt to survive but adapt to thrive. Because we have given so much to the discussion of western civilization and culture. With that in mind, with that in mind, we also have to remember that it’s an ugly part of human nature. One of the most detrimental things that we could subscribe to is this idea of being (inaudible), right. Because ultimately, it is — the original sin of America is in our DNA. And we have to be vigilant at fighting it like a chronic disease. It’s not something that is going to go away.