When a Light in Your Life Goes Out
a tribute to the eternal presence of St. Clair Bourne
2007-12-20
By Floyd Webb
Continued
During this period we were in touch constantly discussing films, new filmmakers remembering when " we wore robes of gold when "you know who" was wearing blue dye and living in the caves of Europe." The conversations were peppered with plenty of cultural critique and smack talking about how to move forward and trying to put things into place and practice to build a viable collective of people who did what he did on a consistent basis. I got to know him pretty well. His sense of humor was astounding in all circumstances. He could go from stoic and somber to hilariously funny at the drop of a hat. He sought to make people as comfortable as he could but his unbridled honesty and passion of belief and purpose could be disarming to many.
Chamba Notes lived on a big dining room table. Letters, announcements, film PR packages all paper cacophony waiting on him to edit it into coherence. His apartment was the crossroads of the Black Film World. I would pop by and actor director Bill Gunn would be there, or writer Lou Potter, scholar Clyde Taylor, Senegalese filmmmaker Djbril Diop Mambety or Robert Gardner.
St. Clair had what was considered by some to be the snobbiest of New Years Day parties. Invitation only and yes, you would get turned away at the door. He was a New Yorker, I am from Chicago and I got THAT. It was where I met my writing "God" Amiri Baraka, whose book of essays, Home, and Blues People, I read to this day.
Over the last few days I have heard from a lot of people how they really respected him "...BUT!" Well I am sure a lot of us are going to hear that as we wait for our wings. Uncompromising, self-centered I heard from some. Lonely, I heard from someone else. But we know we all have our issues. Somebody always got something less than positive to say. So what! I look at Saint's life and go, DAMN. How do you live up to THAT!
And that is the point. How much did he give up to give us all he did?
It has taken me a few days to get a bit lucid. Death is always a shock. That loss is disorientating. There is a joy and sadness in looking back on all this.
But this information has to be shared, a historical and social context discussed. We do swim in an ocean of history. It helps us to call the names, invoke the spirits. It brings resolution.
Among his lesser-known works is a spot he did for Sesame Street with Godfrey Cambridge. I learned this little tidbit speaking with Julie Dash. She worked on this piece with him as a fresh faced 19-year-old work-study production assistant, assigned to Chamba Productions from the NYC Dept of Cultural Affairs. Now I had no idea about this. We laughed and she told me how much she really appreciated St. Clair because, as a male producer dealing with her as a young intern, he made an effort to always make her feel comfortable, and worked her just as hard as anyone else. She told me how she treasures those memories of working with him.
Some folks have said to me that St. Clair seemed to be like the last of the revolutionaries. Well, surprise, it is quite a few of us left out here, plotting in them basements, sending encrypted blackcode over the Internet, communing with them old souls, trying to fight the good fight and bring more clarity, vision and purpose to this journey of ours.
Out of Africa to building this country, surviving and thriving, struggling still. We need stories that illuminate the pathways we have walked, showing the obstacles we have overcome and imagining the way forward into the future. This is why I write this tribute.
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Filmmaker/writer/activist Floyd Webb maintains a mailbox in Chicago. He resides everywhere.
