(birds chirping) - The church is the only independent voice in the Black community that is not afraid of somebody cutting their salary, somebody firing them.

The Black church was born out of anti-racist sentiment.

- If you look around and name your favorite piece of public art that's reflective of Black people and is done by a Black artist.

We don't see ourselves in the arts and that's one of the biggest struggles.

(upbeat music) - Okemah started with the Dwight Heard and his wife Maria Bartlett.

They moved from Chicago to Phoenix, Arizona.

They purchased a property in the South Mountain area, South Phoenix.

After that, as you can imagine, needed people to help work the farm.

The majority of the population who agreed to come out was from Boley and Okemah, Oklahoma.

But mind you, these people were very partial and had high regards for Indian Chief who lived on the reservation there.

So when they came out, they was very honored to represent him.

- Originally, Okemah was an agricultural camp - [Doris Johnson] Camp.

- [James Boozer, Jr] Before it became a community.

- So they settled there and they worked and they declared that this would be named Okemah after Chief Okemah.

So that's how Okemah came about.

- Because at Okemah, you could afford to buy a parcel of land, build your own house, and be fairly autonomous and free from this pressures of the society outside of Okemah.

So it was sort of a haven.

- In fact, a lot of the people who came, came to avoid the southern oppression, discrimination, hostility, those kinds of actions that they have to tolerate back in the South.

We were isolated.

We could go, as a kid, I could go days and weeks without seeing a white person.

We had segregated schools.

So the only white person that I remember seeing is when the ice cream man would drive down Superior Avenue.

- When I was four or five years old, I could leave the house and say, Grandma, I'm gonna go over to Robert's, which would be next door to Mr. JJ's house and I might not get him home until it started to get dark.

Because wherever we were playing, somebody would come out and give us a sandwich and a glass of water, Kool-Aid.

And they were talking to each other on the phone.

They knew who, where we were.

So as a child, it was an ideal place to grow up and to be from.

- We had businesses that functioned.

We had personal care, salon, beauty salons.

We used to call it beauty shops, barbershops.

People worked a lot out of their homes.

We had restaurants and you had an environment where nobody was gonna call you the N word.

You didn't have to worry about white law enforcement officers.

We had Black sheriff officials there who knew the people and the people knew them.

- Like many other African-American communities throughout the country, when the interstates- - [James Boozer, Jr] Yeah.

- The local freeways were planned.

They just ignored the fact that there was a thriving community, a positive community in its way.

And it just cut Okemah in half.

Is your family home still standing?

- Our family home is gone.

- Yeah, our family home is still standing.

It's leaning, but it's still standing.

- To our present and future generations, we need to let them know our struggles, our aspiration that we are going want to move forward to so they'll know where we came from and who we are.

(upbeat jazzy music) - The Black Theater Troupe was founded in 1970 and it was initially a City of Phoenix Parks and Recreation program.

The Deputy Director of the Parks and Recreation Department, Helen Mason, found that there was a need in the community for something that was centered around African American experience.

Helen started the group by having a drop in center where everyone could come, the community could come and voice their opinion on the racial climate in Phoenix, Arizona but they had to do it through dance, song, poetry, that sort of thing.

They expressed their feelings that way and that's how the company started.

I think the most important reason or purpose, so to say, of the Black Theater Troupe was because of its base of activism.

A lot of our performers and a lot of our members, constituents in the community, were very, very adept at speaking out.

They were very, very good at expressing themselves and standing up to controversy as well as being very, very creative.

So, by having that outlet, the theater as an outlet, based in activism, we were able to express many different opinions and we were able to change many minds.

We were able to provoke a lot of thought about some of the things that were going on in terms of the African-American community and the African-American experience.

(car engines whir) - So moving to Arizona was a cultural shock being an African America.

At that time, Arizona only had about 3% Black people in the entire state and so we were few and far between and there was no sense of visible African American culture.

South Phoenix is south of the Salt River.

The rest of Phoenix in downtown is north.

The schools, public schools in South Phoenix got the least money.

There was inequitable public education.

They were in worse shape.

Even the streets, the neighborhoods in South Phoenix were not kept up as north of the Salt River.

There was obvious discrimination in the job market and you just didn't see a lot of African Americans at the top levels in businesses, in schools and universities and so the Black church became an independent voice to speak not only about Jesus but to speak about justice.

When Blacks were slaves, and even after slavery, when they worked menial jobs six days a week, but on Sunday, people could put on church clothes.

They would go down to the church.

They would not be called boy or girl, they would be called Deacon So-and-so.

Deacon is somebody.

They, the church has always been a place where we knew we were created equal in God's sight.

And where we had a sense of respect, where we had a sense of love, a sense of encouragement.

And so that's why it's been vital and it has given birth to the Civil Rights movement and to many of the advances today because it is a place where we don't have to argue and fight about our color.

We are accepted for who we are.

(gentle music) - My foundation is church with schools where I was introduced to the world of music.

Growing up here in Phoenix, particularly the south side was a great experience for me.

There was diversity.

The high school that I went to, South Mountain High School, was a magnet school so we had, we had a full recording studio in our high school.

There were people driving from Scottsdale coming to South Mountain for the music program.

The talent and the program was amazing.

That atmosphere was not normal for a public high school.

It is very important for music to be in school.

I don't believe my career would be quite like it is if it didn't.

Phoenix is very, very multicultural.

I believe it's honest, competitive, but honest.

I know of some musicians and singers and producers.

You could put them up against any musician or producer or singer from anywhere in the country and they will stand strong.

It's a hidden gem.

As Black people, we've been through a lot.

A lot of struggle, you know, and music is how we soothe.

Music is how we survive.

Music is, has been very instrumental in bringing us together and keeping us strong and helping us get to a place of safety and comfort but it's more than just a sound.

It's a feeling, you feel it.

It takes you to a place that'll take you back to where you're struggling and you and it'll bring you all the way to where your success is now.

Music is a part of the Black culture DNA as a whole.

It's like food, it's like soul food.

(gentle music continues) - The arts are so extremely important.

If you drive around this city, I want you to count for me how many images you find that are Black or related to Black people.

So, it's like, we have no footprint here but we have a lot to say.

We need a cultural center.

And we do not have that.

And that's something I'm working on.

A cultural center would be where we would have workspace.

That's huge.

We do not have that here.

Where we would be able to hold events because the arts are not just murals.

We need to foster the arts.

We need to be able to host other artists from different countries and different states.

Even little pocket galleries where artists can show work.

I'm all for, I even curate work in coffee shops, just so that the feel and the, as you look at a piece of art, there's an exchange there even when you don't realize it because that art is leaving its impression on you.

(upbeat jazzy music) (upbeat jazzy music continues) - I think the arts has more importantly sustained the African American community.

As I had said before, it is always the African American arts are always a place where you can express the feelings of many things that affect you as an individual, that affect you as a particular member of a certain race.

I think that that's one of the reasons that the theater is important and that the theater should go on and that the theater will always be timely because history's gonna repeat itself.

I mean, now we have things in the country now about limiting voting rights and that sort of thing.

People are gonna protest.

So a lot of the African American theaters and artists and creative bodies around the country, they're going to channel those feelings into a lot of their work and thus expose it to everyone.

So it's always gonna be a need for the Black Theater Troupe.

- Those before us fought hard in order to have a Black presence in the Valley of the Sun, in Arizona and we must show appreciation for their gains and their fights by remembering and passing on to the younger generations what it means to be Black in Arizona, and how important that is, how that has made Arizona better to be Black in Arizona.

(upbeat jazzy music) (upbeat jazzy music continues)