Portraits of slaves caring for vegetable crops, a letter from Haitian liberation leader Toussaint L’Ouverture, a book by a real-life veteran of the famed 54th Massachusetts Regiment immortalized in the 1989 film Glory, a rare painting by George Washington Carver and on-set photos from the Lincoln Motion Picture Company are just a sampling of the treasures Nathaniel Montague collected for over 50 years.
Wanting to properly archive his collection chronicling African-American history and culture, Montague took out a loan from New York-based ABKCO Music and Records, an independent entertainment company that holds the rights to music by Sam Cooke, Bobby Womack and The Rolling Stones. It’s the same company The Beatles’s George Harrison battled with in the 1970s over a song’s copyright; plus in 2008, ABKCO sued Lil Wayne over his song “Playing with Fire” on Tha Carter III, claiming it was derived from “Play with Fire” by The Rolling Stones.
ABKCO is (perhaps rightfully) litigious; this made the situation dire when Montague, like so many other Americans over the last few years, fell on hard times, and was forced to declare bankruptcy. Consequentially, his prized collection of rare African-American artifacts was seized last year by Montague’s creditor, with ABKCO winning a judgment for $325,000 plus fees against the amateur historian.
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To settle the debt, ABKCO advocates selling the collection off piece by piece, but did agree to give the trusteeship in control of the pieces six months to prevent that by paying Montague’s judgement, with final bids for the collection due July 13. If no acceptable terms are presented, ABKCO plans to petition the court during a scheduled July 20 hearing to begin selling off the Montague African American Collection Catalogue, returning whatever remains to Montague.
The newly formed American Arts Trust, a pending 501(c)3, hopes to foil that. Created by Ricky Schultz and David Hahn, veterans of the music, film, and television industries, the mission of the American Arts Trust is “to preserve, protect and promote those arts and crafts that are uniquely American.” And Montague’s prized collection, which they intend to house temporarily at the Mayme Clayton Library and Museum (the product of another impassioned African-American collector), would be their first major acquisition.
Nathaniel Montague never set out to become a gatekeeper of African-American history. Who even knew the position was open? But he was involved in history early on, primarily in making it. Born in 1928 and raised in segregated Elizabeth, N.J., Montague attended a black military school and later became a merchant marine. But radio is where he thought he belonged so he ended up in Galveston, Texas, then headed off to Beaumont in the same state where there was a DJ vacancy at KTRM. That was 1954.
Montague flourished in radio, eventually becoming known as the “Magnificent Montague” in his field. He didn’t make the records, but he was among the pioneering DJs who played them, attracting not just black fans but young white ones, too. In fact, his wife Rose was one of them when he was on the air in Louisiana.
Marrying a white woman in the south was not safe, so he and Rose left the region. She didn’t completely understand why he didn’t come into restaurants with her or had her book the hotel room and joined her later as they traveled to Chicago. They’ve remained married for over 50 years.
Spreading the emerging R&B sound, Magnificent Montague was known for bridging the air space between records with his own poetry. A popular DJ, Montague found jobs in big markets like Chicago as well as New York, where he was on the legendary WWRL. This pioneering outlet played Motown, Stax recordings and early James Brown in the early 1960s when that wasn’t so common. Black radio was just taking form and Montague was one of the many who helped give it its shape.
He landed on Los Angeles’s KGFJ in 1965. Just five months after his arrival, the Watts Riots kicked off. His signature “Burn, baby, burn” — which Montague coined at WWRL as he spun hits by Sam Cooke and others — became blacks’ rallying cry. Shortly thereafter, the radio veteran adopted “Have mercy, Los Angeles!” as his signature.
Fortunately, Montague was already beginning to find his mercy. In 1956, he discovered Paul Laurence Dunbar, the celebrated African-American poet who wrote in a melodic and infectious black dialect. “I bought the book, and I never looked back after that,” Montague told CNN.com writer Tiffany Alexander about one of his first rare book purchases.
Then going on to amass a collection containing over 8,000 items, Montague claims that there are at least 500 to 600 pieces the public has never seen. Because the collection was seized and placed in a secret location where it is heavily secured, Montague and his wife Rose, who helped him catalogue the artifacts, may be the only two who have seen the collection in all its glory.
Through his company Nanny Jack (also owned by his mother and stepfather), Philip J. Merrill, the well-known African American memorabilia and history expert from PBS’s Antiques Roadshow, has worked in a number of capacities since the collection was seized in an effort to help Montague. One of the few people granted access to the storage facility, Merrill, under the watchful eye of armed security, was awed by what he was permitted to see.
One of Merrill’s favorites in the Montague Collection, which also happens to be among its most valuable pieces, pertains to the Lincoln Motion Picture Company. Founded in Omaha, Nebraska by African-American brothers George and Noble Johnson in 1915 and later moved to Los Angeles, Lincoln Motion Picture Company produced several films. The Realization of a Negro’s Ambition, a two-reel feature film released in 1916, is about a Tuskegee graduate who leaves his dad’s farm seeking his fortune in the California oil fields.
Arguably their most popular film, Trooper of Company K, made in 1917, starred Noble Johnson, as well as former members of the 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalries. The film, which highlighted Americans fighting with Mexican troops, was even distributed in white theatres. The Lincoln company also recognized black author Oscar Micheaux’s talent and contacted him to make his novel The Homesteader into a film in 1918.
Montague has a scrapbook detailing the company’s beginning and evolution that includes stills from its posters as well as the company’s letterhead. There are also some film reels and actual posters in the collection from this epic part of black film history.
“That’s the only one known to mankind,” Merrill exclaimed to theGrio in reference to the scrapbook. Beyond its unique status, however, Merrill (who is also a consultant to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture) sees greater value. Drawing attention to the fact that Lincoln Pictures was founded in the same year The Birth of A Nation was released, Merrill notes that the academic value of these artifacts in expanding our knowledge of the early development of the film industry in this country because they “[document] a very obscure and pioneering film company.”
Merrill supports what the American Arts Trust is attempting to do — saving the Montague Collection intact — and encourages the general public to donate money to its efforts. “This should not be the kind of story that ends in tragedy,” he said of the possibility of ABKCO selling off the collection piece by piece. The danger in the elements of the Montague Collection becoming disbursed through a sale is that the pieces will likely end up with collectors who will not properly preserve priceless pieces of black history that cannot be replaced. Only institutions with expertise and dedicated resources can properly protect these relics. The intervention of such institutions to save the collection is what Merrill hopes will occur.
“This can be a groundbreaking opportunity for us to set a precedence on what will happen to other collections in the country,” Merrill continued. “There are other private collections of merit that will come forth and we will be able to refer back to the precedent that we set with how the Montague Collection was saved.” That is, if it is saved. The American Arts Trust hopes to set this precedent.
Schultz and Hahn, the Trust founders, didn’t set out to establish precedents, but they did set out to support and preserve American arts and crafts. “Both David and I have spent our entire professional lives involved with the arts in one fashion or another and we decided to pool our interests, our experiences, our contacts and our passions on behalf of various American arts and crafts,” Schultz told theGrio about their aims.
Crediting David’s wife for noticing one of the early stories on Montague and bringing it to their attention, Schultz says, “She was correct in understanding that it really fits squarely within our mandate. Basically, what we’re trying to do within the Trust is to promote American arts and crafts and draw greater attention to them.”
Compelled by the urgency of The Montague Collection’s need, Schultz said he and Hahn ignored the fact that they “weren’t ready to go public.” It was such a significant collection that they could not wait. “When we read the story, it had such resonance for us that we reached out to the trustees and to the Merrills [of the profession] and we’ve kind of been off to the races since then,” Schultz says.
“It is our belief that a nation on the rise collects and respects the art of its people, and nations on the decline tend to throw it out,” chimed in an impassioned Hahn. “The twentieth century was the jazz century and the American century,” he continued, touching upon the significance of The Montague Collection, “and, now, we’re in the twenty-first century and we don’t want to lose the age that we made.”
For both men, Montague himself is such a motivating figure. “His dream is to see the collection remain intact, be passed on to the American people as his gift and be made widely available for educational and scholarly purposes as well as being displayed for the enjoyment and education of the general public. That’s the kind of thing that really gets our attention,” says Hahn.
Speaking to Steve Bornfeld of the Las Vegas Review-Journal last summer, Montague, now in his early 80s, was very specific about the legacy he especially wanted to give to black youth through his collection. “I wanted to give them something more powerful than guns and turntables,” he said. “I wanted to give them their B.H.D.s., their black history degrees.”
Last year, that dream seemed unattainable. But, this year, it might remain alive. It will take donors and collectors making a concerted effort to save the Montague Collection in the mere days that are left, while there is still time.
Ronda Racha Penrice is the author of African American History For Dummies. She is also editor of UPTOWN Atlanta. Follow her on Twitter at @rondaracha.