TOOLS OF THE TRADE:
Song
and the
Civil Rights Movement
CLICK HERE
We Shall Overcome (Mass Meeting Version)
Full version available below NPR article
Prepared by Glenn Oney
For Teaching American History
Lesson Notes
•
The inspiration for this lesson came from the Teaching American History Grant
“Freedom Ride” trip in July 2011, and the Smithsonian Folkways CD set Voices of
the Civil Rights Movement: Black American Freedom Songs, 1960-1966. The
majority of the text in this presentation is taken from the booklet that accompanies
Voices.
•
This lesson was designed to be used with the tracks from Voices. Purchase of these
tracks are highly recommended for teachers of the Civil Rights Movement.
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If you are unable to obtain these songs, this PowerPoint will link to samples of each
song by clicking on the title of the song, and in 3 cases the entire track, which is
available through NPR.org.
•
At the end of the presentation are helpful websites that include more audio and
information, time permitting.
“A pamphlet, no matter how good, is never read more than once,
but a song is learned by heart and repeated over and over.”
Joe Hill, labor organizer and songwriter
2.2.
CLICK HERE to hear sample of
Track 110 Leaning on the Everlasting Arms
I. The Song Culture of
the Civil Rights Movement
• “From 1955 to 1965 . . . American society was rocked by waves of social
and political protest. Black people engaging in massive civil disobedience
served notice to the nation and the world that they would no longer tolerate
the abuses of American racism. The Civil rights Movement heralded a new
era in the Black American struggle for equality . . .
The songs were “the language that focused the
energy of the people who filled the streets and roads
of the South during that period.”
...
Bernice Johnson Reagon
CLICK HERE for the Full Version of
Go Tell it on the Mountain (Fannie Lou Hamer)
Below NPR article
II. Freedom Songs:
Language of Black Struggle
• “Music has always been integral to the Black American struggle for
freedom. The music culture of the Civil Rights Movement was shaped by
its central participants: Black, Southern, and steeped in oral tradition.”
• “The power of the songs . . . manifested itself through the process of
linking oral expression with everyday Movement experiences.”
• “As Civil Rights workers traveled – and as their image and word traveled
still further via the electronic news media – they gave the Movement’s
music wide and effective dissemination.”
• “At the height of the Movement, Newsweek magazine wrote that Civil
Rights Movement music gave people ‘new courage and a new sense of
unity’:
History has never known a protest movement so rich in song as
the Civil Rights Movement . . .”
• CLICK HERE to hear sample of
Track 109 Ain Scared of Nobody (Amanda Perdew & Virginia Davis)
Hollis Watkins & Arvenna Hall of SNCC, after being released from jail. Jackson, MS.
CLICK HERE to hear sample of
Track 108 Oh Freedom (Hollis Watkins)
III. Roots of Black American
Choral Song Style
• “Most Civil Rights Movement singing was congregational: songs sung
unrehearsed in the tradition of Black American choral style.”
• “Traditionally, Black American congregational-style singing is initiated by
a songleader. The qualities of a good songleader are both musical and
organizational. Community gatherings are usually opened with song and
prayer; the songleader is the galvanizer, the maker of the group. A good
songleader must manifest strength, energy, and enthusiasm that make a
group want to sing.”
• “In Black American congregational-style singing, the song begins with one
voice, that of the songleader . . .” then the “. . . other singers fall in –
‘growing’ the song, moving it in a gradual process to fuller potential.”
CLICK HERE to hear sample of
Track 104 Lord Hold My Hand While I Run This Race
III. Roots of Black American
Choral Song Style (Cont.)
• The “role of the songleader varies from one song to another. One of the
strongest characteristics of the African and Black American song tradition
is the call-and-response pattern. The songleader usually issues the call, and
the group responds in alternating sequence . . .”
• CLICK HERE for the Full Version of
Freedom Medley: Freedom Chant; Oh Freedom: This Little Light of Mine
(Freedom Singers) below NPR article
• Sometimes “the primary function of the songleader is to initiate the first
line of each stanza or chorus and thus to identify the new lyrics for the
congregation . . .”
• “Black American choral song style is the union of songleader and
congregation: the commitment of singers, masters of their tradition, to
speak both individually and in one voice.”
Mass Meetings Recordings
•
The songs from disc one of Voices of the Civil Rights Movement: Black American
Freedom Songs, 1960-1966 from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, “were recorded in
mass meetings, most held in churches”.
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These mass meetings, used to organize and energize the Movements participants,
included speakers and singing.
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“Imagine a mass of people, predominantly Black with a few White supporters, of
different backgrounds and life experiences drawn together by a central struggle.”
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Whether it was in Montgomery, Birmingham, Selma, Jackson, Hattiesburg, Greenwood,
Albany, or any of the other cities of protest; voices could be heard coming out of the
churches, the jails, and on the streets.
•
CLICK HERE to hear sample of
Track 112 We Are Soldiers In The Army
Mass Meeting in Montgomery, Alabama
CLICK HERE
to hear
samples of
Track 118 Freedom Train (Sam Block)
Track 107 Freedom Now Chant
Track 117 Jesus on the Mainline,
Tell Him What You Want
(Sam Block)
CLICK HERE to hear samples of
TRACK 114
Wade In the Water (Fannie Lou Hamer)
TRACK 116
Walk With Me Lord (Fannie Lou Hamer)
TRACK 120
We’re Marching on to Freedom Land (Carlton Reese)
Express Yourself
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•
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It doesn't matter to me if you write song lyrics, poetry, or prose -- if you are
concerned about what's happening in your world, and especially if you take
issue with it, songs, poetry and short stories are very important ways to
express what you are feeling. And don't forget visual arts, and dance. The most
important thing I learned as a young person is that the song forms I knew, the
songs I liked, were the best ones for me to use to express myself. I also listened
to other artists and sometimes got great ideas about how to make a song. For
me, the traditional songs I learned as a child from the 19th and early 20th
century; gospel, doo wop, rhythm and blues songs -- these were the sounds I
liked and used as a freedom singer. We were young people and it was
important to us to have songs that named what we saw in our world, and what
we wanted to happen with what we saw.
Source: Reagon, Bernice Johnson. Interview by Maria Daniels, WGBH Boston,
July 2006. (Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/reflect/r03_music.html
CLICK HERE
We Shall Overcome (Mass Meeting Version)
Full version available below NPR article
Extras / Enrichment / Sources
•
A Freedom Singer Shares the Music of the Movement (NPR.org on Talk of the Nation 45 minutes)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123599617#playlist
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A White House Concert with Bob Dylan, Jennifer Hudson, and More (NPR.org Concert Special 59 minutes)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123512342&ps=rs
Songs of the Civil Rights Movement (NPR.org)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99315652&ps=rs
Eyes on the Prize: Music in the Movement by Bernice Johnson Reagon
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/reflect/r03_music.html
Eyes on the Prize: The Story of the Movement (26 Events with Music Tabs)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/story/01_till.html
Smithsonian Folkways Website with Sample Clips of Voices of the Civil Rights Movement
http://www.folkways.si.edu/TrackDetails.aspx?itemid=25681
Sources
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Slide 1 photo: http://rebekahjacobgallery.com/artists/karales/works/Selma-to-Montgomery-Civil-Rights-March.htm
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All other photographs include a hyperlink to the internet source for the images.
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The text for Slides 3-4, and 6-8 is taken from “Voices of the Civil Rights Movement: Black American Freedom Songs, 19601966” CD booklet from Smithsonian Folkways (1997).
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All music comes from from “Voices of the Civil Rights Movement: Black American Freedom Songs, 1960-1966” from
Smithsonian Folkways (1997)