Culture  /  Q&A

Mavis Staples on Prince, Trump, Black Lives Matter, and Her Exercise Regimen

Mavis Staples' lyrics span from the civil-rights-era to today's societal issues.
Mavis Staples singing on stage, head back and hand raised.
Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Blackbird Productions

What Trump and his Administration have wrought is reminiscent of the turbulence of her youth, Staples said: “We’ve gone all the way back to the fifties and the sixties. This is the President of the United States! He’s supposed to bring joy and light and love to the world. It’s all backwards, it’s backwards.” Indeed, as voting rights are restricted and bigotry of all kinds is ascendant, Staples makes clear that her loyalty remains with the oppressed. In “Build a Bridge,” she and Tweedy give a nod to one of our era’s great activist movements:

When I say my life matters You can say yours does too But I betcha never have to remind anyone To look it at from your point of view.

Staples was in close proximity to the civil-rights movement—her father was a confidant of Martin Luther King, Jr., for whom the Staple Singers were often an opening act—but I didn’t take her support for Black Lives Matter as a given. After all, the movement has faced some criticism from the Old Guard. “You know, I feel good about it,” she said. “But I still say that all lives matter. When we were marching with Dr. King, there were black lives and there were white lives marching with us, too. I’m not just being sarcastic or biggity. Black lives matter to everyone, not just black people. People get that all twisted.”

But, I asked, isn’t “black lives matter” important to say? “That is very true. A lot of people don’t think that black lives matter,” she said, and recalled watching torch-wielding white supremacists march through Charlottesville, Virginia. “It brought back memories of the burning of the crosses. The only difference is they didn’t have the white sheets over their heads.”

“We’ve had it hard all our lives, you know. It’s still going on,” Staples said. She’d just seen a news report: black men are being incarcerated for minor offenses and remain so because they lack the money for bail. “The jails are just loaded with black guys!” she said. Amid such systemic institutional horror, Staples is upset that the words “black lives matter” have been misconstrued. She had hoped those words would be seen for what they are: a statement of black people’s humanity. “It made them think that’s all we care about—black. But I care about all lives. Everybody, to me, is the same,” she said.