Soul! or SOUL! was a pioneering performance/variety

Variety show

A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...

 television program in the late 1960s and early 1970s produced by New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 PBS

Public Broadcasting Service

The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

 affiliate, WNET

WNET

WNET, channel 13 is a non-commercial educational public television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey. With its signal covering the New York metropolitan area, WNET is a primary station of the Public Broadcasting Service and a primary provider of PBS programming...

. It showcased African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 music

African American music

African-American music is an umbrella term given to a range of musics and musical genres emerging from or influenced by the culture of African Americans, who have long constituted a large and significant ethnic minority of the population of the United States...

, dance and literature

African American literature

African-American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. The genre traces its origins to the works of such late 18th century writers as Phillis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano, reaching early high points with slave narratives and the Harlem...

.

Sponsor

The program was funded in part by the Ford Foundation

Ford Foundation

The Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford....

, who characterized it in 1970 as "the only nationally televised weekly series oriented to the black community and produced by blacks".

Line-up

The program was created and often hosted by Ellis Haizlip

Ellis Haizlip

Ellis Haizlip was an African American theater and television producer. A 1954 graduate of Howard University, he helped many artists progress in their careers, including actress Anna Maria Horsford and singers Nicholas Ashford and Valerie Simpson. He served as executive producer of the Public...

, an openly gay

Gay

Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

 African American closely associated with the Black Arts Movement

Black Arts Movement

The Black Arts Movement or BAM is the artistic branch of the Black Power movement. It was started in Harlem by writer and activist Amiri Baraka...

. Poet Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni

Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. Her primary focus is on the individual and the power one has to make a difference in oneself and in the lives of others. Giovanni’s poetry expresses strong racial pride, respect for family, and her...

 was also a frequent host. Among the musical performers who appeared on the show were Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder

Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...

, Earth, Wind, and Fire, the Dells

The Dells

The Dells are an R&B and crossover musical group. Their successful recordings spanned more than four decades. Formed in 1952 after attending high school together, the Dells' repertoire has included doo-wop, jazz, soul, disco and contemporary rhythm and blues...

, Labelle

Labelle

Labelle is an American all female singing group who were a popular vocal group of the 1960s and 1970s. The group was formed after the disbanding of two rival girl groups in the Philadelphia/Trenton areas, the Ordettes and the Del-Capris, forming as a new version of the former group, later changing...

, Ashford and Simpson, Al Green

Al Green

Albert Greene , better known as Al Green, is an American gospel and soul music singer. He reached the peak of his popularity in the 1970s, with hit singles such as "You Oughta Be With Me", "I'm Still In Love With You", "Love and Happiness", and "Let's Stay Together"...

, Tito Puente

Tito Puente

Tito Puente, , born Ernesto Antonio Puente, was a Latin jazz and Salsa musician. The son of native Puerto Ricans Ernest and Ercilia Puente, of Spanish Harlem in New York City, Puente is often credited as "El Rey de los Timbales" and "The King of Latin Music"...

, McCoy Tyner

McCoy Tyner

McCoy Tyner is a jazz pianist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and a long solo career.-Early life:...

, Max Roach

Max Roach

Maxwell Lemuel "Max" Roach was an American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer.A pioneer of bebop, Roach went on to work in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history...

, and Gladys Knight

Gladys Knight

Gladys Maria Knight , known as the "Empress of Soul", is an American singer-songwriter, actress, businesswoman, humanitarian, and author...

, as well as African performers Hugh Masekela

Hugh Masekela

Hugh Ramopolo Masekela is a South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, composer, and singer.-Early life:Masekela was born in Kwa-Guqa Township, Witbank, South Africa. He began singing and playing piano as a child...

 and Miriam Makeba

Miriam Makeba

Miriam Makeba , nicknamed Mama Africa, was a Grammy Award winning South African singer and civil rights activist....

. Others who appeared on the program included boxer Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...

, Nation of Islam

Nation of Islam

The Nation of Islam is a mainly African-American new religious movement founded in Detroit, Michigan by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in July 1930 to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African-Americans in the United States of America. The movement teaches black pride and...

 leader Louis Farrakhan

Louis Farrakhan

Louis Farrakhan Muhammad, Sr. is the leader of the African-American religious movement the Nation of Islam . He served as the minister of major mosques in Boston and Harlem, and was appointed by the longtime NOI leader, Elijah Muhammad, before his death in 1975, as the National Representative of...

, minister (later politician) Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson

Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to...

, actor / singer Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte

Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...

, actor Sidney Poitier

Sidney Poitier

Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE is a Bahamian American actor, film director, author, and diplomat.In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field...

, and Kathleen Cleaver, wife of Eldridge Cleaver

Eldridge Cleaver

Leroy Eldridge Cleaver better known as Eldridge Cleaver, was a leading member of the Black Panther Party and a writer...

.

Cultural impact

Its viewership in the African American community was enormous: a 1968 Harris poll

Harris Interactive

Harris Interactive , headquartered in New York, New York, is a custom market research firm, known for the Harris Poll. Harris works in a wide range of industries...

 estimated that more than 65% of African American households with access to the show watched it on a regular basis. In 1970 it was carried by 72 public television stations.

Gayle Wald writes that "Soul! offered viewers radical ways of imagining—of hearing, feeling, and seeing—black community. Musically speaking, Soul! refused the division of black arts into high and low culture: the music of the concert hall versus the music of the Apollo

Apollo Theater

The Apollo Theater in New York City is one of the most famous, and older, music halls in the United States, and the most famous club associated almost exclusively with Black performers...

. Soul! made room for both…"