William Greaves’ Nation­time and the Black Nation­al Con­ven­tion of 2020

Between 10 – 12 March, 1972, May­or Richard Hatch­er host­ed the Nation­al Black Polit­i­cal Con­ven­tion in, not a con­ven­tion cen­tre in ​“pro­gres­sive” cities like New York or Los Ange­les, but a high school gym­na­si­um in the ​“smoke­stack city” of Gary, Indi­ana. At the time, he and Carl Stokes were the only Black May­ors of cities with pop­u­la­tion exceed­ing 100,000.

Thou­sands of Black activists, artists, enter­tain­ers, elect­ed offi­cials and del­e­gates from across the coun­try jour­neyed into Hatcher’s home­town to par­take in the mak­ing of an inde­pen­dent nation­al Black polit­i­cal agen­da. Rev Jesse Jack­son set the scene in his first speech: ​“Broth­er Hatch­er came up north and got a house in Gary and said to all of the scat­tered chil­dren in the var­i­ous Black tribes across the nation, ​‘Come home. I know my home is too small, broth­ers and sis­ters, but it’s home. Come home.’”

IndieCollect’s new 4K restora­tion of William Greaves’ Nation­time, wrought from the orig­i­nal print that was thought lost, begins with for­mer news reporter Wali Sid­diq send­ing home a room­ful of jour­nal­ists because the gym­na­si­um was at capac­i­ty. But Ima­mu Amiri Bara­ka, the poet activist mod­er­at­ing, invit­ed Greaves to doc­u­ment the con­ven­tion him­self; hence this 80-minute glimpse through Greaves’ nat­u­ral­ly idio­syn­crat­ic point of view: unbro­ken hand­held takes, extreme angles, whip pans and zooms.

Not obscur­ing his inten­tions here, as he did in his meta Sym­biopsy­chotax­i­plasm Take One or lac­ing his inten­tions with irony, as when he direct­ed pro­pa­gan­da docs like Wealth of a Nation for the UN and USIA, Nation­time sees Greaves oper­at­ing in rare uniron­ic form. Har­ry Bela­fonte recites poet­ry by Bara­ka and Langston Hugh­es over the film, which is inter­posed with Sid­ney Poitier’s voice of god nar­ra­tion, and an orig­i­nal score by Phil Cohran that riffs between the convention’s concerts.

The com­mit­tee that orig­i­nal­ly draft­ed the inde­pen­dent Black Nation­al agen­da was dis­il­lu­sioned with the con­ces­sions con­ced­ed by the US Gov­ern­ment after the civ­il rights move­ment. Speak­ers demand­ed repa­ra­tions, a reduc­tion in the mil­i­tary and police bud­gets, untram­meled vot­ing rights and the for­ma­tion of an inde­pen­dent Black polit­i­cal par­ty. Elect­ed offi­cials in atten­dance were not as rad­i­cal, and despite the committee’s aims to upend the two-par­ty sys­tem, Black democ­rats, repub­li­cans, social­ists and nation­al­ists alike were wel­comed. The point was uni­ty, not uni­for­mi­ty, a con­sen­sus between all of Black Amer­i­ca at any cost and despite any differences.

The Black Nation­al Con­ven­tion of 2020 organ­ised by the Move­ment for Black Lives and the Elec­toral Jus­tice Project drew inspi­ra­tion from the ​’72 con­ven­tion, even as it was forced to take vir­tu­al form due to COVID. Greaves’ Nation­time is the most tan­gi­ble point of ref­er­ence to the past con­ven­tion, and footage from the restora­tion is weaved throughout.

Of course, the 2020 con­ven­tion also tack­led sim­i­lar issues like defund­ing the police, cli­mate change, vot­ing rights, intra­com­mu­nal vio­lence and indige­nous land pro­tec­tion. It also fea­tured Black musi­cians and expand­ed on its predecessor’s vari­ety with a cook­ing tuto­r­i­al by the Bronx Col­lec­tive Ghet­to Gas­tro, a look at a Black Puer­to Rican owned jew­ellery shop, Afro Lunati­ka, and much more.

Today, it is clear that Black lib­er­a­tion should and ought to have been struc­tured around the voic­es of Black trans women and men, and the 2020 con­ven­tion is built around their lead­er­ship. The idea of an inde­pen­dent Black par­ty, cen­tral to the ​’72 con­ven­tion, is now out­mod­ed. ​“We’ve evolved into a rain­bow coali­tion… An inde­pen­dent par­ty would be lim­it­ing.” Jack­son reflect­ed 48 years lat­er.

Expe­ri­enc­ing the Nation­al Black Polit­i­cal Con­ven­tion of ​’72 through Nation­time, with Black cin­e­matog­ra­phy, nar­ra­tion and music over all Black speak­ers and icons, and watch­ing the Black Nation­al Con­ven­tion of 2020 inspired by and expand­ing on the for­mer, is a great relief from the white spec­tre that haunts so much of Black cul­ture. In restor­ing Nation­time, a record of Black resilience has been pre­served and the Nation­al Black Polit­i­cal Convention’s influ­ence fur­ther affirmed.

Nation­time is released dig­i­tal­ly via KinoLor­ber on 23 October.