Heritage Celebration 2008

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Featuring the tagline "100,000 brothers and sisters turning on to being black...telling it like it is!", Wattstax was a concert held at the Los Angeles Coliseum on August 20, 1972 and organized by Memphis's Stax Records and the Watts Summer Festival committee to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the Watts riots. Wattstax was seen by some as the African-American answer to Woodstock. To encourage as many of L.A.'s Black community as possible to attend, tickets were sold for only $1.00 each. The Reverend Jesse Jackson gave the invocation, which included his famous "I Am - Somebody" poem, which was recited in a call and response with the stadium crowd.

The concert was followed in 1973 by a documentary film featuring the musical acts who performed at the concert interspersed with commentary and comedy by Richard Pryor and Ted Lange.

CLAS' 2008 Heritage Celebration, A Wattstax Story: Uptight and Alright Through the Music of Stevie Wonder honors this seminal concert in Black Los Angeles, that was the forbearer of a number of festival style concerts at the Coliseum in the 1970's including the famous Funk Festivals. In addition to the music, the spirit, minds, and attitudes of Black cuture will be explored as the main characters, Towns and Delila take a trip down memory lane.