Whitey on the Moon
A spoken-word critique of the Apollo program's costs.
"Whitey on the Moon" is a spoken word poem by Gil Scott-Heron, released as the ninth track on his 1970 debut album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox. Accompanied by conga drums, the poem critiques the resources spent on the Apollo Moon landings while highlighting medical debt, high taxes, and poverty experienced by Black Americans. It gained renewed attention in 2021 after spaceflights by billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, and was featured in the 2018 film First Man and the 2020 HBO series Lovecraft Country.
Quick Facts
- Artist
- Gil Scott-Heron
- Album
- Small Talk at 125th and Lenox
- Release year
- 1970
- Track number
- 9
- Length
- under two minutes
- Recording studio
- Atlantic Records studio
Facts from the source article.
Background, recording, and content
Gil Scott-Heron, a poet, jazz musician, scholar, and novelist with Jamaican and African American heritage, composed "Whitey on the Moon" during the summer of 1969. The idea came from a remark by writer and activist Eldridge Cleaver, who claimed the space program was designed to divert attention from domestic issues and quiet unrest. Scott-Heron’s mother, Bobbie Scott, came up with the refrain and the final line. The piece was recorded in a studio owned by Atlantic Records late in the summer of 1970, with an audience present to create the feel of a live performance. Over a conga drum beat typical of street poetry, similar to that used by groups like The Last Poets, Scott-Heron recites the poem. The track tells the tale of his "sister Nell," who gets bitten by a rat at the same moment Neil Armstrong steps onto the Moon. It goes on to describe the medical bills for her treatment and the climbing costs of everyday items linked to the lunar landings. It concludes with the biting promise that when the next bills come, he will send them "by air mail special to Whitey on the Moon."
Analysis and reception
"Whitey on the Moon" became exceptionally popular among African-Americans in inner city neighborhoods in New York, Detroit, and Los Angeles. The album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, described by AllMusic as a "volcanic upheaval of intellectualism and social critique," received considerable attention in Black and progressive neighborhoods across the US despite little airtime. The poem's criticism of the Space Race drew far greater attention among that community than similar critiques in Black-owned print media. It shared thematic commonalities with Marvin Gaye's 1971 song "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" and Faith Ringgold's 1969 painting "Flag for the Moon: Die Nigger." The poem's popularity was seen as evidence of growing awareness of urban blight struggles. While the album did not chart, it earned enough attention for Flying Dutchman Records to authorize a second Scott-Heron album, Pieces of a Man, in 1971. The poem is described as exemplifying afrofuturism, or "Black social thought concerning 'culture, technology, and things to come.'" Scott-Heron saw the Apollo landings as exemplifying racial disparities, and the poem critiques the space program by connecting its government funding to the marginalization of Black Americans, identifying government neglect as the root cause of poverty.
Legacy
The 2018 film First Man, a biographical film about Neil Armstrong, prominently features "Whitey on the Moon." Director Damien Chazelle and writer Josh Singer sought to portray the "passionate feelings" of those opposed to the program's cost; Singer stated he was interested in "pulling the veneer off" of a "pretty sugarcoated story." In the film, the poem is read over footage of the Apollo 1 disaster and protests against the space program, performed by Leon Bridges and included on the soundtrack album. The poem is also used prominently in the second episode of HBO's series Lovecraft Country, titled "Whitey's on the Moon," which debuted on August 23, 2020. "Whitey on the Moon" received renewed attention in 2021 following spaceflights by billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson in July 2021, the same year Scott-Heron was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Commentators wrote that the piece was particularly topical given the billions spent on spaceflights amid social and economic inequality. On April 17, 2023, NASA astronaut Victor Glover, who would later pilot Artemis II, said he listened to the poem every Monday on his way to work as a reminder that his community "didn't feel heard."
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