It’s the late 1930’s and Herb Jeffries, a popular singer in several big bands, saddles up to become the first African American singing cowboy.  Dubbed “The Bronze Buckaroo,” Jeffries starred in several low-budget Westerns, like Harlem Rides the Range, and Two Gun Man from Harlem.

Every Saturday, children of all skin colors packed afternoon matinees, and watched the   adventures of such white Western stars as Tex Ritter and Gene Autry. If the cast did include people of color, the roles were stereotypes and caricatures. Children of color needed heroes they could identify with, Jeffries understood. They needed characters who went through life with dignity and humanity. 

In 1937, Jeffries financed and starred in Harlem of the Prairie, making history with the first talking, singing Black cowboy picture with an all-Black cast. Over two years, he made four movies, starring as Bob Blake, the lonesome hero who rides into town, solves problems with his fists, quick wits, and six-guns. And while winning the heart of the rancher’s daughter, he finds time to sing a ballad or two.

Jeffries hung up his spurs in 1939 to join Duke Ellington’s Blanton-Webster Orchestra. Over his long career he recorded with the Erskine Tate band, Earl Hines, Sidney Bechet, and the all-male orchestra led by Blanche Calloway. His rich, silky baritone kept him on the bandstand for decades. And his pioneering movies kept him signing autographs his entire life.

“Soundtrack to the Struggle” is hosted by Hollis Monroe. Produced by Ron Adkins. Executive Producer is Dennis Green.

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It’s 1948 and the DuMont Television Network airs the first episode of its new program, The Laytons, starring jazz singer and actor Amanda Randolph. Little is known about this situation comedy, but Randolph made history in its mere ten episodes as the first African-American in a starring TV role.

Despite The Laytons’s brief run, Randolph’s performance was so well-received by the network that she made history, again, as the first African-American woman to host her own show. Simply titled Amanda, this musical variety program not only showcased Randolph’s talent, but allowed her to welcome other Black performers into the national spotlight.

But Amanda Randolph was a history-maker long before television. The piano rolls she cut in 1919 are the earliest existing recordings of a Black musician. As a singer in the Twenties, Randolph recorded with her own orchestra. She garnered rave reviews in the Eubie Blake/Noble Sissle review, Shuffle Along. She performed regularly on radio, and even lent her voice to a series of cartoons. She appeared alongside Sidney Poitier in No Way Out, and was a regular on Amos & Andy and the Danny Thomas Show.

When she passed in 1967, the entertainment trades printed tributes acknowledging Amanda Randolph’s trail-blazing career, and her work to advance the careers of fellow Black performers.

“Soundtrack to the Struggle” is hosted by Hollis Monroe. Produced by Ron Adkins. Executive Producer is Dennis Green.

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Oscar Brown, Jr. was not a man easily defined. Labels like songwriter, composer, actor, singer, director, producer, playwright all fit, but not quite. He was also an activist, a visionary, and a social commentator. A vocalist whose technique was steeped in jazzy agility and swing, his performances were consistently witty, shrewd, musical and humane, and he wrote lyrics to several classic jazz anthems that sounded integral to them, rather than afterthoughts.

Born in Chicago, Brown’s father intended for him to follow in his footsteps and become a practicing lawyer, but influenced by the Harlem Renaissance as he was by the Civil Rights Movement, Brown had a desire to create and to communicate. In doing so he penned over 1,000 songs, recorded 11 albums, and wrote several plays.

A forerunner of the political consciousness that would become predominant in soul, funk, and hip-hop in the decades to follow, his efforts to exact social change spread across the arts and even into government, spurring two unsuccessful but memorable campaigns for office.

Of his work, Oscar Brown, Jr. said, “Our society is being bombarded with images designed to accustom it to horror and benumb all compassion … Therefore, I am launching a creative counter-attack. Where I confront hate, I will exemplify love. In the face of ugliness, I will present beauty. As an antidote to lies, I will reveal the truth. Boisterous, bellicose noises must be diminished by hip harmonies set to moving rhythms and messages.”

Though he never received the recognition many felt he deserved during his life, his music and words have had a continued influence on a whole new generation of artists and activists.

“Soundtrack to the Struggle” is hosted by Hollis Monroe. Produced by Ron Adkins. Executive Producer is Dennis Green.

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Actress/singer Abbey Lincoln and musician Max Roach attend the premiere of ‘For Love Of Ivy’ on July 16, 1968 at Loew’s Tower East Theater in New York City. (Photo by Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)

1956, and Abbey Lincoln stood poised to become jazz music’s next glamour star. She had just appeared in the film, The Girl Can’t Help It, wearing Marilyn Monroe’s flaming red dress from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Her stage presence was honed to accentuate her looks and figure, rather than her voice. None of this sat well with Lincoln, who remembered her life growing up in poverty. She fired her manager and moved to New York, and from then on immersed herself in the growing Civil Rights Movement. 

She met future husband, drummer Max Roach, while singing at the Village Vanguard. He introduced Lincoln to the jazz elite, and mentored her development as an activist and socio-political artist. She, Roach, Oscar Brown, Jr., and others began performing at rallies and fundraisers for the NAACP, CORE, and other Civil Rights organizations. In 1960, she collaborated on Roach’s masterpiece to the Struggle, “We Insist! Freedom Suite.”

Lincoln believed that her art and her activism were one and the same. “When everything is finished in a world,” she said, “the people look for what artists leave. It’s the only thing that we really have in this world – an ability to express ourselves and say, ‘I was here.’” Her lyrics, though charged with her social conscious, were steeped in sweet poetry. Next generation singers like Cassandra Wilson and Kendra Shank are adding the Lincoln catalogue to their repertoire, solidifying Abbey’s indelible mark on her world, and continuing her impact on the ongoing Struggle.

“Soundtrack to the Struggle” is hosted by Hollis Monroe. Produced by Ron Adkins. Executive Producer is Dennis Green.

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