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Freedom Songs
Freedom songs were songs which were sung by participants in the civil rights movement. They are also called "civil rights anthems" or, in the case of songs which are more hymn-like, they are called "civil rights hymns." Freedom songs were an important feature of the way of life which existed during the civil rights movement. The songs contained many meanings for all of the participants in the civil rights movement. Songs could embody sadness, happiness, joy, or determination among many other feelings. Freedom songs served as mechanisms for unity in the black community during the movement. The songs also served as a means of communication among the movement's participants when words were not enough. The song " We Shall Overcome" quickly became the unofficial anthem of the movement. Guy Carawan taught the popular freedom song during the spring of 1960 in a workshop held at Highlander Folk School, making the song extremely popular within the community. Music of the civil rights era ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination in the United States, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the United States, disenfranchisement throughout the United States. The movement had its origins in the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century, although it made its largest legislative gains in the 1960s after years of direct actions and grassroots protests. The social movement's major nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience campaigns eventually secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans. After the American Civil War and the subsequent Abolitionism in the United States, abolition of slavery in the 1860s, the Reconstruction Amendments to the United States Constitution granted emancipation and constitutional rights of citizenship ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
500 Greatest Songs Of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" is a recurring survey compiled by the American magazine ''Rolling Stone''. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and industry figures. The first list was published in December 2004 in a special issue of the magazine, issue number 963, a year after the magazine published its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2010, ''Rolling Stone'' published a revised edition, drawing on the original and a later survey of songs released up until the early 2000s. Another updated edition of the list was published in 2021, with more than half the entries not having appeared on either of the two previous editions; it was based on a new survey and does not factor in the surveys that were conducted for the previous lists. The 2021 list was based on a poll of more than 250 artists, musicians, producers, critics, journalists and industry figures. They each sent in a ranked list of their top 50 songs, and ''Rolling Stone'' tabula ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strange Fruit
"Strange Fruit" is a song written and composed by Abel Meeropol (under his pseudonym Lewis Allan) and recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939. The lyrics were drawn from a poem by Meeropol published in 1937. The song protests the lynching of Black Americans with lyrics that compare the victims to the fruit of trees. Such lynchings had reached a peak in the Southern United States at the turn of the 20th century and the great majority of victims were black.Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma (New York, 1944), page 561. The song has been called "a declaration" and "the beginning of the civil rights movement". Meeropol set his lyrics to music with his wife and the singer Laura Duncan and performed it as a protest song in New York City venues in the late 1930s, including Madison Square Garden. Holiday's version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1978. It was also included in the "Songs of the Century" list of the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music In The Movement Against Apartheid
The apartheid regime in South Africa began in 1948 and lasted until 1994. It involved a system of institutionalized racial segregation and white supremacy, and placed all political power in the hands of a white minority. Opposition to apartheid manifested in a variety of ways, including boycotts, non-violent protests, and armed resistance. Music played a large role in the movement against apartheid within South Africa, as well as in international opposition to apartheid. The impacts of songs opposing apartheid included raising awareness, generating support for the movement against apartheid, building unity within this movement, and "presenting an alternative vision of culture in a future democratic South Africa." The lyrical content and tone of this music reflected the atmosphere that it was composed in. The protest music of the 1950s, soon after apartheid had begun, explicitly addressed peoples' grievances over pass laws and forced relocation. Following the Sharpeville mas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Rights Movement In Popular Culture
The history of the 1954 to 1968 American civil rights movement has been depicted and documented in film, song, theater, television, and the visual arts. These presentations add to and maintain cultural awareness and understanding of the goals, tactics, and accomplishments of the people who organized and participated in this nonviolent movement. Film Documentaries * '' Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment'' (1963), first-hand journalistic reporting of the University of Alabama "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door" integration crisis of June 1963. * ''Nine from Little Rock'' (1964), about the Little Rock Nine who enrolled in an all-white Arkansas high school in 1957. * ''The March'' (1964), about the 1963 March on Washington, was made for the United States Information Agency. * '' Louisiana Diary'' (1964) follows the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) from July to August 1963, as they undertake an African American voter registration drive in Plaquemine, Louisiana. * ''Cicero March'' (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lee Hays
Lee Elhardt Hays (March 14, 1914 – August 26, 1981) was an American folksinger and songwriter, best known for singing bass with the Weavers. Throughout his life, he was concerned with overcoming racism, inequality, and violence in society. He wrote or cowrote "Wasn't That a Time?", "If I Had a Hammer", and " Kisses Sweeter than Wine", which became Weavers' staples. He also familiarized audiences with songs of the 1930s labor movement, such as "We Shall Not Be Moved". Childhood Hays came naturally by his interest in folk music since his uncle was the eminent Missouri and Arkansas folklorist Vance Randolph, author of, among other works, the bestselling ''Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktales'' and ''Who Blewed Up the Church House?''. Hays' social conscience was ignited when at age five he witnessed public lynchings of African-Americans. He was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, the youngest of the four children of William Benjamin Hays, a Methodist minister, and Ell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene", which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. Members of the Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, Seeger re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, counterculture, workers' rights, and environmental causes. A prolific songwriter, his best-known songs include "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" (with additional lyrics by Joe Hickerson), " If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)" (with Lee Hays of the Weavers), " Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" (also with Hays), and "Turn! Turn! Turn!", which have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement. "Flowers" was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
If I Had A Hammer
"If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)" is a protest song written by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays. It was written in 1949 in support of the Progressive movement, and was first recorded by the Weavers, a folk music quartet composed of Seeger, Hays, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman. It was a #10 hit for Peter, Paul and Mary in 1962 and then went to #3 a year later when recorded by Trini Lopez in 1963. The Weavers released the song under the title "The Hammer Song" as a 78 rpm single in March 1950 on Hootenanny Records, 101-A, backed with "Banks of Marble". Early versions The song was first performed publicly by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays on June 3, 1949, at St. Nicholas Arena in New York City at a testimonial dinner for the leaders of the Communist Party of the United States, who were then on trial in federal court, charged with violating the Smith Act by advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government. It was not particularly successful in commercial terms when it was first release ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I Shall Not Be Moved
"I Shall Not Be Moved", also known as "We Shall Not Be Moved", is an African-American slave spiritual, hymn, and protest song dating to the early 19th century American south. It was likely originally sung at revivalist camp-meetings as a slave jubilee. The song describes being "like a tree planted by the waters" who "shall not be moved" because of faith in God. Secularly, as "We Shall Not Be Moved" it gained popularity as a protest and union song of the Civil Rights Movement. The text is based on biblical scripture: In 1908 Alfred H. and B. D. Ackley copyrighted a hymn by the name "I Shall Not Be Moved". Civil rights movement As "We Shall Not Be Moved" the song gained popularity as a protest and union song of the Civil rights movement. The song became popular in the Swedish anti-nuclear and peace movements in the late 1970s, in a Swedish translation by Roland von Malmborg, "" ('Never shall we give up'). Recorded versions Among others, the following artists recorded "I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Weldon Johnson
James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871June 26, 1938) was an American writer and civil rights activist. He was married to civil rights activist Grace Nail Johnson. Johnson was a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where he started working in 1917. In 1920, he was the first African American to be chosen as executive secretary of the organization, effectively the operating officer. He served in that position from 1920 to 1930. Johnson established his reputation as a writer, and was known during the Harlem Renaissance for his poems, novel, and anthologies collecting both poems and spirituals of black culture. He wrote the lyrics for "Lift Every Voice and Sing", which later became known as the Negro National Anthem, the music being written by his younger brother, composer J. Rosamond Johnson. Johnson was appointed under President Theodore Roosevelt as U.S. consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua for most of the period from 1906 to 1913. In 1934, h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lift Ev'ry Voice And Sing
"Lift Every Voice and Sing" is a hymn with lyrics by James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) and set to music by his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson (1873–1954). Written from the context of African Americans in the late 19th century, the hymn is a prayer of thanksgiving as well as a prayer for faithfulness and freedom, with imagery which evokes the biblical Exodus from slavery to the freedom of the "promised land." After its first recitation in 1900, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was communally sung within Black communities, while the NAACP began to promote the hymn as a "Negro national anthem" in 1917. It has been featured in 42 different Christian hymnals, and it has also been performed by various African American singers and musicians. History James Weldon Johnson, Chair of the Florida Baptist Academy in Jacksonville, Florida, had sought to write a poem in commemoration of Abraham Lincoln's birthday. However, amid the ongoing civil rights movement, Johnson decided to write a poe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I'm Gonna Sit At The Welcome Table
The Welcome Table (also known as the I'm Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table, or River of Jordan, or I'm A-Gonna Climb Up Jacob's Ladder or God's Going to Set This World on Fire) is a traditional American gospel and African American folk song by an anonymous author, who was likely enslaved. In 1874 a version of the song was collected and published by the Hampton Institute indicating that it was sung by a child in slavery who was being separated from his mother. The song describes "the marriage feast of the Lamb referred to in the New Testament Book of Revelation. This event takes place when those who put their trust in the Jesus Christ are joined with him in heaven. African-Americans bound in slavery were never welcome to their master’s table and this song echoed their hope of the tables turning in future glory." In 1922 the Florida Normal Quartet first recorded the song as "The Welcome Table." In 1936 the Carter Family recorded a variation of the song as the "River of J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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