In Trenton, New Jersey, there’s a unique past as well as a culture that Trentonians today still hold dearly and proudly. Many influential musicians have come out of Trenton, and the city was the location of many events during the Civil Rights Movement. Once, Trenton was a booming city with industries in steel, iron, pottery and rubber. But, after times of racial strife as well as the riots of 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., enough damage had been done to the businesses in downtown Trenton to ensure that they would be closed for good. Trenton became an impoverished area, only perpetuated by white flight. However, the history that dates back to the founding of the United States and the culture that has been nurtured by its natives lives on and has had a major impact on musical style, amongst all the madness and the milestones. Labelle was a powerful female trio that included Trenton-natives Sarah Dash and Nona Hendryx, and mirrored the female and African American empowerment over the second half of the 20th century. Labelle was described as Afrofuturistic, meaning “the self-conscious appropriation of technology in black popular culture in order to think out problems of imaginative freedom in the past, present, and future.” This is exactly what Labelle did as it matured as a musical group, with appearances on popular stages such as Soul Train, and dressed in extravagant, metallic glam-rock costumes.

Works Cited
Baud, Chris. “1963: Trenton Shares in the Dream.” Capital Century, The Trentonian, capitalcentury.com/1963.html.
Fernandez, Tom. “1969: Princeton’s First Female Students.” Capital Century, The Trentonian, capitalcentury.com/1969.html.
Labelle. Labelle, 8 Apr. 1971.
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Mickle, Paul. “Civil Rights History Was Made in Trenton 70 Years Ago.” The Trentonian, The Trentonian, 31 Jan. 2014, www.trentonian.com/article/TT/20140130/NEWS/140139970.
Patti Labelle and the Bluebelles. Somewhere Over the Rainbow, 1966.
Pearson, Kim, and Teresa Marrin Nakra. Trenton Makes Music, www.trentonmakesmusic.org/.
Royster, Francesca T. “Labelle: Funk, Feminism, and the Politics of Flight and Fight.” African Studies Review, Cambridge University Press, 5 Dec. 2013, muse.jhu.edu/article/528296.