MIDNIGHT RAVER recently confirmed that Peter Tosh was a surprise performer at the Blackburn Center at Howard University on May 24, 1981 as part of African Liberation Day celebration. African Liberation Day is a celebration founded by the All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party, which promotes Pan-Africanism in the form of the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism. Tosh was a supporter of the organization, and was a personal friend of pan-african activist Stokely Carmichael.
According to our good friend Ras Karbi who attended the event, the cultural show and benefit was emceed by Carmichael.
It is during this trip to Washington, DC that Tosh is introduced to Paul Hudson AKA H.R., founder and lead singer of DC Rasta-hardcore outfit Bad Brains. Tosh and Hudson spend hours in Tosh’s hotel room reasoning while watching a Ku Klux Klan rally on the street below.
Here is an interview with Tosh that was featured in the September 1981 issue of the DC city paper Unicorn:
On another note, here is an interesting piece of audio. Peter Tosh recorded this interview for Doctor Dread’s Night of the Living Dread radio show, the very first reggae radio show broadcast on WHFS out of Bethesda, MD. The interview was featured on the very first broadcast of Night of the Living Dread. Doctor Dread would quit the radio show one year later and launch RAS Records out of his basement. RAS would go on to become the largest distributor of reggae in the world in the late 1980s.
LEGENDARY REGGAE 