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Music’s Influence on Black Activism
TIYA: Listen closely and hear how all these movements connect and know that this is not the
gospel but we only have a little bit of time to cover a whole lot of years
SFX: I’m Black and I’m Proud! James Brown
TIYA: that's not how we have always felt or been portrayed; which is why Black folk started to
use music/songs/singing as a way to communicate without letting the white man or woman
know what they were about.
W.E.B. Dubois would go on to write of the Negro Spirituals/Sorrow Songs, "They walked in
darkness sang songs in the olden days-Sorrow Songs-for they were weary at heart." "...these
weird old songs in which the soul of the black slave spoke to men." Du Bois
SFX: Go Down Moses -Louis Armstrong AND/OR Swing Low Sweet Chariot - Beyonce
TIYA: This is a quote by DuBois, “Throughout all of the sorrow songs there breathes a hope-a
faith in the ultimate justice of things.”
Music grew out of the fact that Blacks became objectified: looked as an object of labor, while
using our "race" as proof and placement of human worth and social status. Although
enslavement was hard for Black men; it served tripley hard for Black women. Black women had
to work in the fields, in da masta's house and were often raped or used to breed.
Reconstruction 1865-1877 served as the worst and best of times for Black people due to the
side effects of being a negro, shot to death, bombs, lynching and no protection under the law.
Sharecropping and Parchman Farm, a prison work camp in Mississippi were the new forms of
enslavement.
SFX: O’ Berta
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Songs of work and leisure grew out of work activity in the fields, prison, on roads, the chain
gang "John Henry.". The song shows blacks defeating white society on its own terms.
SFX: John Henry - Belafonte or Leadbelly
TIYA: "Negro-folk song-the rhythmic cry of the slave-stands to-day not simply as the sole of
American music, but as the most beautiful expression of human experience born this side the
seas." Du Bois
TIYA: Black Women’s Club movement emerged during the 1890's. It came out of the African
cultural tradition of being about family and community. The Black Women's Club was a middle-
class movement which became more urbanized and developed more grass-roots organizations.
They sought out better access to education while they struggled for justice. In 1896 the First
National Conference of the Colored Women of America was convened. Out of this Conference
the National Association of Colored Women was established with Mary Church Terrell serving
as the first president. The motto for NACW was "Lift as We Climb.". Their concerns included
education, lynching, white sexual abuse, social justice and equal rights. After 20 years NACW
had over 1,000 clubs and 100,000 Black women that included the likes of Ida B. Wells-Barnett,
Anna Julia Cooper, Charlotte Brown and Mary Bethune.
As the Black Women’s Club was serving the physical needs of the people, black women
musicians like Memphis Minnie were touring the T.O.B.A. Theater Owners Bookers Association,
musically translating what was happening in people’s souls.
SFX: * Memphis Minnie music* -
TIYA (during the intro of the Memphis Minnie): “ We might never have heard the recordings of
Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and many other great blues singers if the Theatre Owners’ Booking
Association circuit had not showcased so many black entertainers during the early years of the
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twentieth century.” The circuit of theaters open to black performers also became known as the
Chitlin Circuit. T.O.B.A helped spread the blues across the country making it the soundtrack for
the Black Women’s Club Movement. Blues is considered religious and secular, and is rooted in
the totality of Black experience in U.S. It describes the historical and social burden of being
Black in a racist society. The Blues also speaks of Black beauty, women so good looking "make
a bulldog break his chain and a snail to catch a train".
TIYA: Ma Rainey
SFX: Ma Rainey - Booze and Blues
TIYA: Bessie Smith.
SFX: Bessie Smith - Poor Man’s Blues
TIYA: There was also William C. Handy-referred to as the "Father of blues, and in the not-to-
distant future, Nina Simone and Ray Charles.
SFX: Nina Simone - Strange Fruit
TIYA: "The resilience developed by black folks in the face of slavery and post-Reconstruction
violence armed them with a will to survive against seemingly insurmountable odds. Those who
did were the heroes and heroines of the black world -- Fredrick Douglass, Sojourner Truth,
Harriet Tubman, Mary MacLeod Bethune, John Henry, Marcus Garvey and so on. To
summarize, the blues are paradoxical in that they contain the expresso of the agony and pain of
life as experienced by blacks in America; yet, the very act and mode of articulation
demonstrates a toughness that releases, exhilarates and renews." (p. 65 Harrison)
While these pearls of the 1920’s blues were breaking boundaries within the music world the
Black Women’s Club movement placed their financial interest in the education of W.E.B. DuBois
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who would mature to start the Niagara Movement in 1919 which began the legacy of the
National Pan-Hellenic Council of 1930 and the formation of nine black fraternities and sororities.
Alpha Phi Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, Zeta Phi Beta, Sigma Gamma Rho, Phi Beta Sigma,
Omega Psi Phi, Iota Phi Theta, Kappa Alpha Psi, Alpha Kappa Alpha.
Women continue to speak up, stand up and sit down for not only themselves but the
surrounding community. Rosa Parks became the impetus for what became known as the Civil
Rights Movement. In 1955, Rosa Parks decided not to give her seat up to a white man, not
because she was a tired old woman but because in the words of Fannie Lou Hammer, I’m sick
and tired of being sick and tired”. The Montgomery bus boycott lasted over 365 days.
SFX: Everybody Wants Freedom
TIYA: Students took up the cause of civil rights and took intensive training in non-violent tactics
of protest. Then they began major forms of non-violent protest, one of which was doing sit-ins at
lunch counters at Woolworth’s. Under the laws of Jim Crow, the lunch counter was reserved for
whites only. Students sat in the empty seats and waited , some for hours to be served. Students
were spat on, dragged from the counter had drinks thrown on them, verbally and physically
abused and arrested. Within the civil rights movement the organization Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee was formed also know as SNCC. Influential leaders of SNCC, were
John Lewis, Julian Bond, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses, Ella Baker, Stokeley Carmichael who
coined the term, “Black Power.”
SFX: Mahalia Jackson - I Been Buked
When black people marched on Washington Mahalia Jackson was there singing in all her glory.
Rhythm and Blues became the soundtrack for the Civil Right Movement. R&B was mainly an
urban product that reflected a self conscious identity cohesiveness and focused on love. R&B
also combine pop, gospel and blues traditions. Early singers included-Aretha Franklin, Otis
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Redding, The Supremes and now Jennifer Hudson, Anthony Hamilton, Angie Stone, Jill Scott
and India.Arie.
SFX: Angie Stone-No More Rain
SNCC began as a non-violent movement but as the world heard the statement, Black Power
and fueled by the injustice of the Watts riots the movement expanded and became the Black
Power Movement, which did not limit itself to non-violent tactics but embraced their
constitutional right to bear arms and protect their families and neighborhoods. Within the Black
Power movement, the Black Panthers became an organization that was well known led by
passionate leaders: Huey P Newton and Bobby Seale, Elaine Brown, Asada Shakur, Angela
Davis, Yuri Kochiyama, Francis Beal and Barbara Smith.
Soul music became the soundtrack of the movement. It stressed difference between white
music, Black self-respect, celebration of the self/soul, and challenged the music industry.
Fearing a black nation the Music industry tried to "absorb" and dilute soul as well as deprive it of
its distinctiveness.
SFX: Marvin Gaye - What’s Going On?
There are four elements to hip hop-rap, break dancing, djing, and graffiti. Hip Hop emerged in
the 70' and 80's but its roots are in the African cultural tradition of Nommo (spoken word) or
oratory. Signifying and playing the dozens all part of rap. Early rappers-Afrika Bambaataa,
Kurtis Blow. Sylvia Robinson recorded first rap-Sugar Hill Gangs "Rappers Delight- 1979, sold
2 million and rap became major.
SFX: Rappers Delight
Different schools of rap-teacher-nation conscious rap-KRS One, Arrested Development, Sistah
Souljah, Queen Latifah and Public Enemy. Today-Common, Talib Kweli, Mos Def and Black
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Star. 2nd form-gangsta-NWA, Ice Cube. 4th form-player/love-LL Cool J, Salt N Pepa, Mc Lyte
and 4th-porno- 2 Live Crew.
SFX: The Message
“ The civil rights and Black power movements won the war for legal access and laid the
foundation for philosophical and cultural change. The war for economic access for a majority of
Black Americans has yet to be won, however. The call for a Black economic agenda that
revives Black communities and puts young Blacks into long-term jobs has yet to be answered.”
(p47 Kitwana) Perhaps this is the political movement that hip hop will pair with.
SFX:
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Star. 2nd form-gangsta-NWA, Ice Cube. 4th form-player/love-LL Cool J, Salt N Pepa, Mc Lyte
and 4th-porno- 2 Live Crew.
SFX: The Message
“ The civil rights and Black power movements won the war for legal access and laid the
foundation for philosophical and cultural change. The war for economic access for a majority of
Black Americans has yet to be won, however. The call for a Black economic agenda that
revives Black communities and puts young Blacks into long-term jobs has yet to be answered.”
(p47 Kitwana) Perhaps this is the political movement that hip hop will pair with.
SFX:
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