Civil Rights Music

by Reiland Rabaka

  Black popular music, then, is much more than the soundtrack to black popular culture. It is more akin to a musical map and cultural compass that provides us with a window into black folk’s world, and also a window into the ways in which African Americans’ “second-sight” (as W. E. B. Du Bois termed it in The Souls of Black Folk) shapes and shades their worldview. Ellison (1964) went so far to argue that instead of “social or political freedom . . . the art—the blues, the spirituals, the jazz, the dance—was what we had in place of freedom” (247–248).[2] In other words, black folk have long had aesthetic freedom instead of social and political freedom, linguistic wealth instead of monetary wealth. Art has offered African Americans one of the few avenues available to express themselves. However, even African American cultural expression through the arts has had to be masked and muted as a consequence of the rules and regulations of American apartheid.

  My previous musicology/sociology mash-ups, Hip Hop’s Inheritance, Hip Hop’s Amnesia, and The Hip Hop Movement, collectively explored the ways in which the Hip Hop Generation has inherited and carried on (even as they have radically remixed) many of the core concepts of the African American movement music tradition. While there have been a number of studies that have explored African American “movement culture” and African American “movement politics,” rarely has the mixture of black music and black politics or, rather, black music an as expression of black movement politics, been explored across several genres of African American “movement music,” and certainly not with a central focus on the major soundtracks of the Civil Rights Movement: gospel, freedom songs, rhythm & blues, and rock & roll. Here the mixture of music and politics emerging out of the Civil Rights Movement is critically examined as an incredibly important site and source of spiritual rejuvenation, social organization, political education, and cultural transformation, not simply for the non-violent civil rights soldiers of the 1950s and 1960s, but for organic intellectual-artist-activists deeply committed to continuing the core ideals and ethos of the Civil Rights Movement in the twenty-first century.

  That being said, Civil Rights Music: The Soundtracks of the Civil Rights Movement is primarily preoccupied with that liminal, in-between, and often inexplicable place where black popular music and black popular movements meet and merge. Black popular movements are more than merely social and political affairs. Beyond social organization and political activism, black popular movements provide much-needed spaces for cultural development and artistic experimentation, including the mixing of musical and other aesthetic traditions. “Movement music” experimentation has historically led to musical innovation, and musical innovation in turn has led to new music that has myriad meanings and messages—some social, some political, some cultural, some spiritual and, indeed, some sexual. Just as black popular movements have a multiplicity of meanings, this book argues that the music that emerges out of black popular movements has a multiplicity of meanings as well.

  Whether we turn to the first great African American movement, the Abolitionist Movement, or a more recent movement like the Hip Hop Movement, each major black popular movement has produced a signature soundtrack. As a matter of fact, African American movements are as musical as they are political. The articulation of the motto and mission of African American movements is typically communicated through song as much as, if not even more often than, through political speeches, pamphlets, and protests. Although there is a tendency to take this phenomenon for granted in black America (if not in America more generally), I honestly believe that critically engaging the soundtracks of African American social, political, and cultural movements will open up a new interpretive archive and angle that will enable us to deepen and develop our understanding of, not merely the politics and culture of the movement in question, but also the leaders, rank and file, intellectuals, artists, and activists of the movement.

  African American movements are most often multidimensional. Therefore, the art arising out of these movements frequently has multiple meanings and serves a multiplicity of purposes. However, because there is a longstanding tendency to dismiss and downgrade black popular movements, African American “movement art” is often decontextualized and divorced from its movement origins and early evolution. It could probably go without saying that most U.S. citizens know more about the music of the Civil Rights Movement, even if they do not acknowledge it as such (meaning, as “civil rights music”), than they do the remarkable movement the music grew out of. At a time when the Civil Rights Movement seems no more than a relic of an ancient, almost foreign time and place, at a time when many would much rather forget or, at the very least, minimize the fact that the movement was waged against American apartheid, both the sacred and secular music of the movement continues to free-float through American culture and society, reminding us that the Civil Rights Movement irrevocably altered not only our culture and society, but also our understandings of American democracy and American citizenship.

  For many young folk at the dawn of the twenty-first century, the Civil Rights Movement seems simultaneously foreign and familiar. Partly because many of the views and values of the movement have been coopted by the established order and made to appear as though they emerged from the ether, and not the countless anonymous rank and file civil rights soldiers. However, no mistake should be made about it: It was the countless anonymous rank and file civil rights soldiers who inspired Martin Luther King and Ella Baker, as well Septima Clark and Medgar Evers, and Fannie Lou Hamer and A. Philip Randolph. And, it was these same anonymous rank and file civil rights soldiers who, literally, mobilized centuries of African American traditions in their efforts to secure civil rights for all U.S. citizens, especially blacks and other racially oppressed and economically exploited non-whites.

  When we turn our attention away from the almost incessant, if not often obsessive, over-focus on the famous figures of the Civil Rights Movement then, and perhaps only then, can we come to see that during the Civil Rights Movement musical and other myriad kinds of cultural traditions were made and remade, mixed, and remixed. Even after the Civil Rights Movement came to an end of sorts in the middle of the 1960s, “civil rights music” remained and, truth be told, continues to reverberate up to the present moment, serving as a reminder of the movement and, I honestly believe, as a potential way to inspire a new twenty-first century Civil Rights Movement. Here at the outset, I would like to be open and honest with my readers and unambiguously state that this book is my very humble attempt to incite a new twenty-first century Civil Rights Movement. In light of the recent political uproar and moral outrage over the murders (mostly police homicides) of Oscar Grant, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Trayvon Martin, Tanisha Anderson, Tarika Wilson, John Crawford III, Shereese Francis, Michael Brown, Natasha McKenna, Tamar Rice, Ezell Ford, Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Yvette Smith, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, and Samuel DuBose, among many others, I believe that now, perhaps more than at any other period after the movement, we need to return to, and deeply reflect on the Civil Rights Movement.

  As was the sad situation in the middle of the twentieth century during the Civil Rights Movement, the African American masses continue to cry out for adequate health care, housing, employment, education, and an end to police brutality and other forms of state-sanctioned violence at the turn of the twenty-first century, and the ideals and ethos of the Civil Rights Movement continue to illuminate and offer solutions to key social, political, and cultural problems. Therefore, Civil Rights Music is not, nor was it ever intended to be, a work of music criticism divorced from cultural criticism, or a work of musicology written as though history, religion, sociology, politics, and economics do not directly and often direly impact African American music and musicians, especially during the Civil Rights Movement era. In other words, Civil Rights Music seeks to recontextualize or rehistoricize and, consequently, repoliticize a key form of “movement art” emerging from the Civil Rights Movement that many of us today have long taken for granted: “civil rights mu
sic.” But, really now, what is “civil rights music?”

  What is “Civil Rights Music” and Why Is It Relevant Today?

  “Civil rights music” is essentially those forms of music arising out of the Civil Rights Movement that insinuated or alluded to many of the dire aspirations and frustrations that African Americans could not openly express as a consequence of racial segregation and economic exploitation between 1954 and 1965—that is to say, from the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.[3] It is music laden with multiple meanings and cultural codes, making it mean one thing to those active in the movement or with intimate knowledge of the movement, and wholly another thing to those who had or continue to have no real relationship with the movement. During the civil rights era, where many folk may have simply heard a pretty song, movement members often heard a call to action, a musical history of an important event, or a mute tribute to a fallen brother or sister in the struggle. Indeed, this music was much more than merely music to active movement members. But, even though I was born close to a decade after the March on Washington, many of my earliest memories are of me attentively listening to, deeply feeling, and desperately trying to decipher and make sense of what my grandmother repeatedly referred to as “civil rights music.” For Mama Rita, my beloved grandmother, “civil rights music” was certainly the gospel music of the civil rights era, but it also selectively included those secular songs that were sung in a gospel-style and, however subtly, resonated with the mission and messages of the Civil Rights Movement.

  When I was a boy, Mama Rita played “civil rights music” seemingly every day, and was fond of saying, “ain’t no real records been made since Michael Jackson left the Jackson 5 and went solo!” In the most ritualized manner imaginable, each morning she would rise, put on Mahalia Jackson, the Soul Stirrers or Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and read the Bible. Some days the music was so affecting she would be driven to tears. Needless to say, her tears moved me and stirred something deep within. I desperately wanted to know what it was about this music that made Mama Rita cry “happy tears,” as she once softly said to me. After her daily devotion of classic gospel, around lunchtime she would put on classic rhythm & blues, mostly Motown, Stax, Atlantic, Chess, Vee-Jay and Specialty, and even crossover rhythm & blues-cum-rock & roll artists, such as LaVern Baker, Little Richard, Etta James, Fats Domino, Ruth Brown, Chuck Berry, Tina Turner, and Bo Diddley.

  As a consequence of almost obsessively listening to both sacred and secular “civil rights music” during my most formative years, at an early age I developed what can only be described as an usual habit of listening to music to hear what was being communicated beyond the lyrics and the sounds emanating from the singer’s voice and the musicians’ instruments. My grandmother taught me that the lyrics and the music were only part of what was being conveyed through “civil rights music.” Over time I learned to listen intently, not simply to the words that were being sung, but to the way they were being sung, and the passion or purposeful dispassion with which they were being sung. More and more Mama Rita’s old adage that “it ain’t what you say, but often how you say it,” haunted me and helped me understand the power of black popular music, especially her beloved “civil rights music.”

  Obviously, my introduction to what I will be calling “civil rights music” throughout this book initially came by way of my grandmother’s gospel music, and specifically iconic gospel artists such as Mahalia Jackson, Clara Ward, the Blind Boys of Mississippi, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Brother Joe May, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Dorothy Love Coates and, of course, the Soul Stirrers. There was something about this music, especially when my grandmother and mother hummed or sang along with it, that made it seem as though it was, indeed, more than music—meaning more than the dance ditties, love songs, or rap hits popular during my childhood. As a matter of fact, in my little adolescent mind there was something magical about this music because even during the toughest times—when our electricity, water, and gas were turned off, when there was little or no food, when we were evicted from the public housing projects—this music inexplicably seemed to make our burdens bearable. Somewhere along the way I realized that I was not the only one who had experienced abject poverty, who wanted to turn my “nothing” into “something,” and who deeply desired to change themself and their world. Classic gospel music, in particular, seemed to communicate all of this to me, but then there was something more that it seemed to capture and convey.

  Early into my teenage years I realized that there was a big difference between what my grandmother referred to as “Golden Age” gospel and contemporary gospel. It wasn’t just the sound of the music that was different. Often it seemed as though a lot of the classic gospel artists sang as though their lives depended on them expressing something in the subtext, something akin to secret messages to their listeners. Admittedly, I was a peculiar teenage boy, more interested in books, music, and film than I was in basketball, football, and girls, and somehow or another I got it in my mind that I would decipher the “secret messages” buried beneath or in-between the lyrics and music of my favorite gospel songs. It was a crude kind of musicology but, truth be told, it helped to plant the seeds of this book. Free from drum machines, synthesizers, and over-production techniques, “Golden Age” gospel music had an organic, earthy, often rickety soulful sound that seemed to simultaneously soothe and incite. The day I discovered that “Golden Age” gospel music coincided with the Civil Rights Movement was the faithful day that I honestly, albeit naïvely, believed that I had solved the mystery of this music. But, in reality it only made me more curious about the Civil Rights Movement. I began to think to myself: “Well, Mama Rita didn’t call this music ‘civil rights music’ for nothing?” I was intrigued in a way that I had not been in all of my young life.

  Questions swirled around in my mind for what seemed to be an eternity: Was the music inspired by the Civil Rights Movement, or was the Civil Rights Movement inspired by the music? Furthermore, was it foolish of me to believe that music could actually inspire people to action, to risk life and limb for a great cause? And, what was it about gospel music that was so contagious that even the most respected and renowned leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, such as Martin Luther King, Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, and Fannie Lou Hamer, all seemed to draw strength from the singing of these songs with other movement members? From the vantage point of more than twenty-five years, when I think back to what tied everything together for me and really helped me to connect the music to the movement, and vice versa, I suppose I would have to say, first and foremost, that it was the initial airing of the Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965 television series. I could never forget it. I watched it with Mama Rita because we had no television at home. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my boyhood. Mama Rita was a master teacher, a folk philosopher, an organic intellectual, par excellence.

  In almost every episode of Eyes on the Prize there were these fascinating singing leaders and singing marchers. It completely blew my mind that leaders like Fannie Lou Hamer and Martin Luther King seemed to love and enjoy gospel just as much as I did. I felt close to them, as though we shared a special connection through our love for the music and the secret messages in these songs. Soon afterwards, as I began to systematically read about the Civil Rights Movement throughout junior high school and high school, I developed an equally deep love and appreciation for the politics and overarching culture of the movement. It was, to say the least, an incredibly life-altering experience, one that I now credit with helping me begin the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

  After a while I realized that it was not just “Golden Age” gospel music that seemed to express the ethos of the Civil Rights Movement. Indeed, I quickly discovered that certain classic rhythm & blues and rock & roll songs also had multiple meanings and carried cultural codes transmitting the core views and values of the Civil Rights Movement much like Mama Rita had shared with m
e when I was a youngster. At this point, being a brash teenager, I thought it was the coolest and best kept secret on earth, and only Odetta and Richie Havens, Nina Simone and Sam Cooke, LaVern Baker and Little Richard and I was in on it, or “in the know,” as it were. It got giddy. Finally, there was something that could not be repossessed or denied to me simply because I was black, poor, and lived in the public housing projects. But, then again, in order to really and truly understand my love affair with, and affinity for “civil rights music,” my readers will need to understand my intellectual love affair with, and affinity for W. E. B. Du Bois, who is widely considered one of the key founders of the Civil Rights Movement. As I have solemnly stated on many occasions previously, in my father’s virtual absence from my boyhood, Du Bois miraculously stepped in to spiritually, intellectually, and culturally rear and raise me. Du Bois taught me all the things I wished my father had have but could not because, as I painfully discovered when I got a little older, he never had a father actively involved in his life either.

  W. E. B. Du Bois: An Intellectual Life-Altering Encounter with One of the Architects of the Civil Rights Movement

  It was my first grade teacher, Mrs. Robinson, who initially exposed me to the man who would ultimately become my greatest intellectual ancestor and philosophical father figure. It was Black History Month 1978 or, perhaps, 1979, and she passed around these glossy oversized cards with famous African Americans on them. I can still remember it now as though it were yesterday. Everyone in the class received a card: one student got Zora Neale Hurston. Another was given Langston Hughes. Another Josephine Baker. One got Bessie Smith. And another received Louis Armstrong. Then Martin Luther King. Rosa Parks. Paul Robeson. James Baldwin. Someone even got Mahalia Jackson. And it really ruffled my feathers when someone other than myself received the Duke Ellington card. I was beside myself because I believed that I had been mistakenly given a card featuring a Frenchman. I mean, really, I thought to my six year-old self, “what kind of brother has a name like Du Bois?” From the picture on the front of the card he seemed a little “ethnically ambiguous,” but that didn’t bother me as much because I have plenty of family members who can pass for white or, at the least, something other than black.