Amandla--Festival of Unity—was a world music

festival A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival ...

held a
Harvard Stadium
in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 21, 1979.Emmett G. Price, III, Tammy Kernodle, Horace Maxille (eds)
"A Timeline of Significant Moments in African American Music"
, ''Encyclopedia of African American Music'', Greenwood, 2011, p. xliv. The goals of the concert were to support and celebrate the liberation of Southern Africa as well as the ongoing efforts of people in Boston to end racism in their families, schools, workplaces and communities. The word "Amandla" is from the South-African

Zulu language Zulu (), or isiZulu as an endonym, is a Southern Bantu language of the Nguni branch spoken in Southern Africa. It is the language of the Zulu people, with about 12 million native speakers, who primarily inhabit the province of KwaZulu-Natal ...

and means "power", "strength" or "energy". The headline performance was

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...

superstar

Bob Marley Robert Nesta Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981; baptised in 1980 as Berhane Selassie) was a Jamaican singer, musician, and songwriter. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, his musical career was marked by fusing elements o ...

and his band

The Wailers ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...

. Marley made several short speeches during his

encore An encore is an additional performance given by performers after the planned show has ended, usually in response to extended applause from the audience.Lalange Cochrane, in ''Oxford Companion to Music'', Alison Latham, ed., Oxford University Pre ...

when he powerfully blamed the system and urgently claimed Africa's unity and freedom. Those onstage speeches were unusual for Marley, as he normally was threatened with censorship when speaking openly about the system's failure and marijuana smoking, as he did at the Amandla Festival. Among the Festival's key organizers were Janet Axelrod, Reebee Garofalo, Janine Fay, Shelley Neill, George Pillsbury and Kazi Toure. Other performers were soul legend Patti LaBelle, jazz pianist

Eddie Palmieri Eddie Palmieri (born December 15, 1936) is an American Grammy Award-winning pianist, bandleader, musician, and composer of Puerto Rican ancestry. He is the founder of the bands La Perfecta, La Perfecta II, and Harlem River Drive. Early life Pal ...

, drummer

Babatunde Olatunji Michael Babatunde Olatunji (April 7, 1927 – April 6, 2003) was a Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist, and recording artist. Early life Olatunji was born in the village of Ajido, near Badagry, Lagos State, in southwestern Nige ...

, drummer Yaya Diallo, the South African band Jabula, the Art of Black Dance and comedian

Dick Gregory Richard Claxton Gregory (October 12, 1932 – August 19, 2017) was an American comedian, civil rights leader, business owner and entrepreneur, and vegetarian activist. His writings were best sellers. Gregory became popular among the Afric ...

who gave a speech before Marley's performance. Mel King, a long-time Boston community activist and outspoken opponent of apartheid, was the emcee. Bob Marley and the Wailers were the last musical act to be signed. They signed on to perform a mere 3 weeks before the scheduled festival. The performance almost did not happen because Al Anderson broke the neck of his guitar during rehearsal. The band, just minutes before their scheduled performance, refused to go on. One of the festival organizers drove into Harvard Square to "The Instrument Exchange" and purchased a guitar for $600. An interesting note: no municipal police were allowed within the stadium during the festival. The concert organizers had Boston residents trained in crowd security over a period of six months.

References

Folk festivals in the United States World music festivals Concerts in the United States Harvard University International opposition to apartheid in South Africa 1979 in the United States {{Apartheid-sa-stub