A television station has unbelievably unearthed a video of a very young Prince vouching for higher pay for educators.
Long before Purple Rain, little 11-year-old Prince Rogers Nelson was out on the street doing a bit of activism. We know this thanks to Minneapolis WCCO, who came across the wonderful discovery while trawling through old 70s archival footage.
The station’s production manager Matt Liddy found the clip while reporting on a much more recent teacher’s strike in Minneapolis earlier this year. And even though he wasn’t even a teenager yet, Prince’s small face was unmistakeable.
After the rest of the team agreed that it was indeed the superstar singer, a specialist was brought in to restore the old video’s audio and footage. A historian and childhood friend of Prince’s were also sought out to double check they hadn’t misidentified the child in the clip.
“I think they should get a better education too cause, um, and I think they should get some more money cause they work, they be working extra hours for us and all that stuff,” the young Prince says in the video. He was a student at the city’s Lincoln Junior High School when the footage was shot in April 1970.
The video has importance as it’s one of very few videos of Prince from that period of his life. As WCCO says, “If serendipity was a story, then you’re about to watch one of the most fortunate strokes of luck ever… A mysterious gem – unearthed on accident – giving people a glimpse into Minneapolis history through the eyes of a young musical icon — Prince.”
In his later life, Prince continued his activism, particularly for animal rights. In 2001, for example, he anonymously donated $12,000 to the Louisville Free Public Library in order to save the historic Western Branch Library, the U.S.’s very first full-service library for African-Americans, from closure.
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