On a bitterly cold afternoon last month, Patti LaBelle walks gingerly down Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church’s center aisle, her left hand grazing the top of each pew, steadying her balance.
Half a dozen content creators, directors, and Visit Philadelphia staff coax the Grammy award-winning songstress toward the 18th century church’s magnificent altar, their voices overflowing with encouragement, reverence, and love.
LaBelle’s stockinged footsteps are deliberate, her unblinking eyes affixed on the organ pipes in front of her.
She’s as contemplative as she is careful.
“Come on, Miss Patti,” cooed Kyra Knox, the Emmy award-winning filmmaker who is directing Visit Philadelphia’s Black History Month promotional video, “We Are the Fabric. We are the Thread,” starring the Philadelphia legend. “You are doing great.”
“We Are the Fabric” is part of the nonprofit tourism agency’s “Indivisible” campaign, a yearlong initiative highlighting Philly’s diverse tourist destinations during America’s 250th birthday and Black History Month, which, coincidentally, is celebrating its 100th birthday this year. (Carter G. Woodson introduced Negro History Week in 1926. It was extended to Black History Month in 1976.)
The videos are streaming on several online platforms including Hulu and HBO Max in seven markets, including Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. During the month of February, Visit Philly will conduct a series of neighborhood walks through the city’s historic districts with a special focus on Black history courtesy of the historical arts organizations 1838 Black Metropolis and the Black Journey.
“You cannot tell the story of American culture, innovation, music, art, and food without Black Americans because they are woven into every thread of the national narrative,” said Angela Val, president and CEO of Visit Philly.
The filmmakers squeezed in a lot of places on the cold Thursday afternoon. Mother Bethel — the home of America’s first Black Christian church founded by formally enslaved Richard Allen — is the first stop on the hours-long shoot. After recording takes of LaBelle’s coffin-shaped ivory nails in prayer and the centuries-old church’s sunlit stained glass windows, LaBelle and the crew drive 14 blocks west to South Philadelphia’s Union Baptist Church.
Film rolls and cameras flash as LaBelle, wrapped in an ankle-length vintage chocolate brown fur, is reflective in front of Union Baptist’s 111-year-old stately exterior. Inside, barrier-breaking early 20th century contralto Marian Anderson once sang in the choir. Like Anderson, LaBelle got her start singing gospel at Southwest Philly’s Beulah Baptist Church.
After a few windy takes, the crew made its way to the southwest corner of City Hall in front of the statue of martyred 19th century civil rights leader Octavius Catto. The day ended at the Arden Theatre, a nod to Philadelphia’s vibrant Black performing arts community.
LaBelle stars in and narrates the video. She’s accompanied by 9-year-old Riley Mills and visits historical sites and modern locations, like Uncle Bobbie’s Coffee & Books in Germantown, reminding us that Black history is to be passed through the generations.
“When the Constitution couldn’t hold us, we held each other,” LaBelle says, her voice clear, sharp, and determined.
“We made the music you move to,” she continues as images of Teddy Pendergrass, Kenny Gamble, and Leon Huff fill the screen. And then, in an “if you blink, you will miss it moment,” there LaBelle is, in an old photograph flanked by her Labelle group members Sarah Dash and Nona Hendryx, followed by her powerful words: “When they wouldn’t give us a stage, we built one.”
Living Black history
Patti LaBelle is 81. She knows she’s Black history. She’s proud of it and doesn’t take it lightly.
“Black people stand for everything,” LaBelle told The Inquirer in between takes at Mother Bethel, her voice barely a whisper, worn out from her performances in the “Queens: 4 Legends Tour” starring LaBelle, Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight. and Stephanie Mills. They all came of age before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed.
“And we continue to. We continue to fight while things are being taken away from us.”
As Visit Philly filmed “We Are the Thread,” the National Park Service was in the midst of dismantling an exhibit honoring nine enslaved people who worked at George Washington’s house when Philadelphia was America’s capital city.
The removal was part of President Donald Trump’s executive order “restoring truth and sanity to American history.” Recently, Trump shared a video that depicted former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as cartoon primates.
“If we don’t fight to keep what is ours,” LaBelle said, her scratchy voice taking on urgency. “It will be lost.”
Visit Philly’s choice of LaBelle as its Black history spokesperson this year is thoughtful and necessary.
Her generation of civil rights warriors bridges the gap between Black Americans who lived through Jim Crow and those of us who only heard horror stories of how difficult it was for our ancestors to go to school, work, and vote.
As this administration claims that the Civil Rights Act resulted in “white people being very badly treated,” it’s important that stories like LaBelle’s aren’t just repeated but remembered and celebrated — especially as they get up there in age.
We need to give them their flowers now.
Without Patti LaBelle, Philadelphia — and its music — would be a different place.
A Philadelphia girl
LaBelle was born Patricia Louise Holte in Southwest Philadelphia in 1944. Her dad, Henry, came to Philadelphia from Georgia in the early part of the 20th century during the Great Migration. He worked on the railroad, was a singer, and an occasional gambler. Her mom, Bertha, was a homemaker. LaBelle was the youngest of five.
She went to Bartram High and sang at Beulah Baptist before becoming the lead singer of Patti LaBelle and the Blue Belles.
The group’s 1962 hit, “I Sold My Heart to the Junkman,” sold millions of copies, cementing LaBelle’s stardom, getting her a spot on the Chitlin’ Circuit for performances at Uptown Theater. She appeared on American Bandstand and Jerry Blavat’s radio show.
By 1975, the group was simply known as Labelle and was a visual smorgasbord of Afrofuturistic sequins and space suits. It released the iconic “Lady Marmalade” that catapulted Labelle to the cover of Rolling Stone, becoming the first Black music group to be featured.
“I’ve had a lot of wonderful moments in my career,” LaBelle said. “It’s nice to remember, to be proud. We made a lot of history.”
(Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Mya, and Pink covered “Lady Marmalade” in 2001 for the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. And in 2003 Labelle’s “Lady Marmalade” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.)
In 2016, LaBelle received the Marian Anderson Award. Three years later, the city named a block of Broad Street between Spruce and Locust Patti LaBelle Way.
LaBelle, who lives in Villanova now, never left the Philadelphia area.
“I’m a Philadelphia girl,” she said with pride. “It’s laid back, comfortable. … How I like it.”
Over the decades, she has had a few entrepreneurial endeavors including two short-lived Philadelphia boutiques and a clothing collection on HSN. However, she’s best known for her indisputably yummy line of desserts — sweet potato pies and cobblers. Late last year, she introduced pancake mix and syrup that, she says for the record, is nothing like Aunt Jemima.
“For one,” she said, mustering up a bit of her trademark LaBelle sass, “I’m a real person.”
Real to her core.
“She’s given a lot to Philadelphia,” Val said. “She’s given so much to the country … to the Black community.”
