January 1967

After years of police brutality and economic exclusion, uprisings in Newark (July 12-17, 26 dead) and Detroit (July 23-27, 43 dead) became the largest urban rebellions in American history. The Kerner Commission report concluded 'our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white.'

After years of commercial failure at Columbia, Franklin signed with Atlantic and recorded 'I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)' in Muscle Shoals, initiating a run of masterpieces that made her the defining voice of soul music.

After years of commercial failure at Columbia, Franklin signed with Atlantic and recorded 'I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)' in Muscle Shoals. The record transformed her career and initiated a run of masterpieces that made her the defining voice of soul music.

Written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin for Franklin, the song reached #8 on the pop chart and became one of the defining recordings of her Atlantic period, later performed with devastating power at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2015.

Brown's 'Cold Sweat' fully codified funk music as a genre: the bass and guitar locked into a groove, horn stabs punctuated the one-beat, and the melody became secondary to rhythm. The song directly influenced every funk, soul, and hip-hop artist of the following decades.

Madhubuti self-published his debut poetry collection on a mimeograph machine and sold it on Chicago street corners, eventually selling over 100,000 copies without major distribution. The collection's rejection of European poetic forms in favor of Black vernacular was a founding act of the Black Arts Movement.

Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Booker T. & the MGs, Eddie Floyd, and the Mar-Keys toured Europe and played to rapturous audiences who treated Southern soul music as high art. The tour established Stax Records' international prestige and Redding's status as a superstar.

Ellington and Strayhorn's suite based on their 1963 State Department tour of the Middle East and South Asia was one of Strayhorn's last major works before his death. A masterpiece of orchestral jazz, it demonstrated that Ellington at 68 remained at the height of his creative powers.

Mays stepped down as president of Morehouse College in Atlanta after transforming it into the preeminent institution for the intellectual training of Black men in America. His students included Martin Luther King Jr., who called him 'his spiritual mentor and intellectual father.'

Jackson expanded SCLC's Operation Breadbasket — which pressured white-owned businesses in Black communities to hire Black workers and stock Black-owned products — from Chicago across the country, negotiating hundreds of millions in new employment and contracts for Black workers.

Madhubuti self-published his debut poetry collection on a mimeograph machine and sold it on Chicago street corners, eventually selling over 100,000 copies. The collection's rejection of European poetic forms in favor of Black vernacular was a founding act of the Black Arts Movement.