Armstrong Was Misrepresented: How Documentaries and Blogs Mislead You

The point of this essay goes way beyond Louis Armstrong. It’s an illustration of how filmmakers and authors bend the facts in order to make their arguments seem more persuasive. I’m well aware of the pressure that people feel to find support for an idea they like, even if the evidence doesn’t exactly fit or if it has to be taken out of context. And it may be that on occasion I’m guilty of this too, unconsciously. But I try hard not to do that—my conscious policy is that, no matter how much the idea for an essay appeals to me, if the evidence doesn’t support it, I throw it out. I trash 5 to 10 essays every year for this reason.

The Belgian documentarian Johan Grimonprez has a very creative visual style, cutting quickly between the main story and various "scenes of the day." He used this method in his Hitchcock documentary Double Take in 2009, and he uses it in his 2024 documentary, Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat. This recent film details the horrifying plots by Belgium and the U.S.A. against the brilliant Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the newly independent Congo in 1960, which resulted in his torture and brutal murder in January 1961. Throughout the film, jazz of the era plays on the soundtrack, and short clips of jazz musicians such as Max Roach and Dizzy Gillespie are shown.

While the plans to capture and kill Lumumba were in progress, Armstrong performed in the capital, Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) in October 1960. The concert was attended by an immense crowd that was comprised of members of various warring factions, who took a break from battle to enjoy his music. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Belgium and the American C.I.A. continued to move against Lumumba.

Throughout the film, many statements are flashed as text on the screen, and although the director helpfully lists his sources, one doesn’t always know whether those sources are reliable. Below is what it says about Armstrong. (The visual is from Armstrong’s 1936 feature film appearance singing “The Skeleton in the Closet.” Get it? The “skeleton” is the political plotting.) This appears at 2 hours and 4 minutes into the film:

It says, “Convinced he had been used as a smokescreen in the Congo, Armstrong threatened to renounce his U.S. citizenship and move to Ghana.” I never heard of such a “threat” by Armstrong, so I looked into this. The source listed onscreen is Karl Evanzz, The Judas Factor: The Plot to Kill Malcolm X (1992). That book has a footnote that gives his own sources. Let’s look at those first—that is, Evanzz’s sources:

Okay, let’s see those two pieces from the Washington Post:

Washington Post,March 16 (left) & 17, 1965, i.e., a day after each piece was written.

Hmm—that’s great that Louis loved Ghana, but I don’t see anything there about the C.I.A., or renouncing his U.S.A. citizenship. Let’s look at Evanzz’s other source—he gives the complete citation in his bibliography:

Jones, Max and John Chilton. Louis: The Louis Armstrong Story 1900- 1971. London: Da Capo Press, 1988. pp.31-33.

Da Capo is an American publisher, not in London, but I guess he got confused because the book states that it is an exact reprint of the 1971 London edition (plus a new introduction by Dan Morgenstern). But actually, Da Capo is confused as well, because their edition includes an author’s note that was added in 1975. In any case, I know this book and although it is well researched, it is a very positive portrait of Louis and not likely to dwell on any controversies. After spending (wasting?) quite a bit of time searching through three different editions, using digital copies for more thorough searches, I can tell you that the book discusses his tours of Ghana in 1956 and 1960, and basically says how great they were. There is nothing about the C.I.A., or renouncing American citizenship, not on the pages cited (which relate to the 1956 tour, not 1960), nor on any other pages!

This is what I call a “fake footnote.” Some authors (and, let’s be honest, some students) know that most people won’t fact-check footnotes. (Only I am crazy enough to do that regularly—and I am grateful to those subscribers who help to pay for the many hours that I spend doing research.) They know that most people will say “It has a footnoted source, so it must be true.” But that is not always the case.

SO—the question remains, what is the source for the statement on-screen in the film? Here is what Evanzz writes—that is, this is what he concluded, based on the above sources (pp.322-323, the end of the book):

It’s funny to call Armstrong an “impresario,” which suggests that he was a concert producer. And you should know that Ameer was a supporter of Malcolm X who was murdered shortly after Malcolm. But let’s get to the relevant points: Evanzz says that Armstrong accepted an offer to teach in Ghana, “effectively renouncing his American citizenship”! Excuse me!! I have taught in Spain, Italy, Finland, the Netherlands, and elsewhere without “renouncing my citizenship”! Evanzz goes on to say that Louis had “probably” (!) been convinced that the U.S. government had murdered Lumumba. No source is given for that, which means that it’s simply a guess, or an assumption. In other words, Evanzz completely made up this part of the story—but that is precisely the part that Grimonprez chose to put on the screen in his film !!

Ricky Riccardi, my former grad student who is now Armstrong’s archivist and biographer (in three volumes!), notes that Louis never indicated that he knew anything about the role that his concert may have played in "covering up" the Lumumba affair: “He remained proud for the rest of his life of the Congo tour and the fact that they ‘stopped the war’ for him. He even told that story on TV shows as late as 1970.“ As an example, below is Armstrong talking about it on Merv Griffin’s show, March 10, 1970. Louis says they carried him up to the stage on an “African rocking chair” (probably a ceremonial chair). After Louis tells how his concert caused a temporary pause in the Congo battles, Griffin jokingly suggests that Louis might be able to stop the fighting that was then going on in Vietnam:

Louis never said anywhere that he was used by the C.I.A., and it’s evident from his prior history that he was not shy about expressing his anger about such things. For example, when he was asked in 1957 about touring the Soviet Union during the battles over segregation in the U.S.A., Armstrong said, “[When] the people over there ask me what’s wrong with my country, what am I supposed to say?…The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell.” When another entertainer suggested that Armstrong’s irate statements were out of line, and that he simply didn’t understand “civic events,” he replied (quoted in the Jones/Chilton book cited above), “I understand lynching, and that’s a civic event.” These are strong responses indeed!

So, it is certainly not true that Armstrong “threatened to renounce his citizenship and move to Ghana.” While I am certain that there are many things to be learned from both the Evanzz book and the Grimonprez film, they cannot be completely trusted. I am familiar with the way that the two creators operate—like many people, they just grab any statement that bolsters their point of view, without caring if it is reliable, and they throw it into their presentation. But that approach is completely irresponsible and misleading. I’m sure you agree. And that is not how I do my work.

Does this mean that you always have to fanatically fact-check everything you ever hear or read? You probably think that I do that, but let's be realistic—nobody has the time or energy to check everything. Really, the lesson here is this:

If something sounds questionable, remain skeptical until it’s proven or disproven.

That is, whenever you hear or see something that seems unlikely or illogical, especially if it’s in an area where you are knowledgeable, don't distribute it or spread the idea around as “fact.” I will sometimes refer to such things, but I will preface each one by saying, “I don’t know if it’s true, and I haven’t checked it, but ______ says _______.” If it’s something that you wish were true, set that feeling aside until there is good evidence for it.

If you think about it, that's a major foundation of my entire essay series here. Some people call me a “myth buster.” For example, when I read that the Billie Holiday film was based on the idea that the FBI tried to censor “Strange Fruit,” I immediately questioned it, based on my knowledge of the subject. I did many hours of research, and as a result I showed that not only was the “FBI campaign” completely fabricated, but I was able to pinpoint the person who made it up—Johann Hari, a discredited British journalist who had lost his job for plagiarism! He is also, by the way, a king of “fake footnotes.” (My research won a national prize.) And when everybody said that Miles Davis "stole” tunes, I realized that this needed to be researched as well—because I knew that many musicians, including Coltrane and Rollins, had their names on tunes that they didn't write. Were they all thieves? Or only Miles? Or what? I found the answers. (This research won another national prize.)

So once again, my message is: No matter how much you would like something to be true, be skeptical, until somebody does the necessary research to confirm, or disprove the statement. If that research never happens—remain skeptical!

All the best,

Lewis