Civil Rights Music

by Reiland Rabaka

  17. For further discussion of Fanon’s conception of l’expérience vécue du noir (“the lived-experience of the black”), see Fanon (2001, 2008) and my more detailed discussion in Forms of Fanonism (Rabaka 2010b, 49–95).

  18. For further discussion of the political nature of popular art, popular music, and popular culture more generally, and for the most noteworthy works that informed my interpretation here, see Brundage (2011), G. Burns (2016), Combs (1984), Garoian and Gaudelius (2008), Gray (2005), Horsfall, Meij and Probstfield (2013), Jenkins, McPherson and Shattuc (2002), Peddie (2006), Randall (2005), Rosenthal and Flacks (2015), Savage and Nimmo (1990), Street (1986, 1997, 2012), Tasker and Negra (2007), Wagnleitner and May (2000), and J. A. Walker (2001).

  Chapter 3

  Gospel and the Civil Rights Movement

  Songs of Heavenly Salvation and Earthly Liberation: Introduction to Gospel Music, Freedom Songs, and Their Role in the Civil Rights Movement

  W. E. B. Du Bois climatically closed The Souls of Black Folk (1903), a work widely considered a classic treatise on the African American experience, with a chapter on black music and its extraordinary ability to capture and convey black life, black love, black labor, and the black liberation struggle. In the chapter entitled “The Sorrow Songs,” Du Bois declared that African American religious music most often reflects the pulse of black people, their culture and quest for freedom, as well as their aspirations and frustrations. Simultaneously looking backward to the spirituals of the enslaved ancestors and seemingly looking forward to the gospel music of the Civil Rights Movement soldiers, Du Bois prophetically intoned: “They that walked in darkness sang songs in the olden days—Sorrow Songs—for they were weary at heart” (250). Although not typically thought of in political terms or as a movement leader, at the height of the Montgomery Bus Boycott Mahalia Jackson was asked by Martin Luther King if she would sing to help the fledgling Montgomery Improvement Association raise much-needed funds. Jackson enthusiastically agreed. When King queried about her honorarium she is reported to have solemnly said: “I don’t charge the walking people” (cited in Goreau 1975, 219).

  Fifty years after Du Bois wrote of the “Sorrow Songs” and “[t]hey that walked in darkness [who] sang [those] songs in the olden days,” Mahalia Jackson, by the 1950s acknowledged as the “World’s Greatest Gospel Singer” (a sobriquet bestowed on her by her Columbia Records production and marketing team), refused to charge “[t]hey that [continued to] walk [. . .] in darkness” and sing sacred black songs—songs of heavenly salvation and earthly liberation. Just as African American gospel music (hereafter referred to simply as gospel music or, even more plainly, gospel) is emblematic of the evolution of the “Sorrow Songs” (what we now call “the spirituals”), the mass meetings, prayer vigils, boycotts, marches, sit-ins, freedom rides, voter registration drives, and other protest activities of the Civil Rights Movement symbolize the evolution of the political strategies and tactics of “[t]hey that walked in darkness [and] sang songs in the olden days.” Gospel adapted and updated Du Bois’s “Sorrow Songs,” black sacred song, and in many ways gave voice to, not simply the development of the African American sacred song tradition, but also mid-twentieth century issues of African American migration, urbanization, determined desegregation, and intense emphasis on integration.[1]

  This chapter argues that gospel is the major sacred soundtrack of the Civil Rights Movement in much the same way that rhythm & blues and rock & roll represent the major secular soundtracks of the Civil Rights Movement. Instead of quarantining, or sonically segregating the most popular expression of black sacred song from the most popular expressions of black secular song during the Civil Rights Movement, in what follows I utilize the elastic gospel aesthetic of the golden age to bring disparate elements together and discursively develop a fresh interpretation of golden age gospel that places its musical and extra-musical contributions on equal footing with the other major musics encapsulating the ethos of the Civil Rights Movement, specifically rhythm & blues and rock & roll. Whether we turn to freedom songs, rhythm & blues, or rock & roll, during its golden age gospel served as a kind of musical midwife, helping to birth, and then rear and raise the secular soundtracks of the Civil Rights Movement.

  Between 1945 and 1965, which is to say, from the prelude to the postlude of the Civil Rights Movement, sometimes implicitly, and at other times explicitly, African American gospel music invariably focused on freedom. Moreover, like the spirituals sung by the enslaved ancestors, gospel most often unequivocally commented on heavenly salvation and only very vaguely discussed earthly liberation. Nevertheless, it would be a grave mistake to interpret the gospel music of the Civil Rights Movement years as politically uninvolved, escapist, and insouciant. As Anthony Heilbut observed in The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times (1997), the first book-length study of African American gospel, “[g]ospel reflects the conditions and consciousness of its audience, no more, no less” (298). It stands to reason, then, that during one of the most tumultuous periods in post-enslavement African American history, culture, and struggle, black sacred song reflected African American’s incessant emphasis on, and synthesis of heavenly salvation and earthly liberation.[2]

  Gospel music was one of the key socio-political and religio-cultural tools utilized by the leaders and foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement to attract the masses, raise consciousness, enliven elder activism, incite youth activism, invigorate mass meetings, promote prayer vigils, and instill self-confidence. As a matter of fact, the “freedom songs” so fondly adapted and sung by the young folk of the Civil Rights Movement were almost without exception based on familiar spirituals and gospel songs, and almost unfailingly sung in the gospel idiom. For instance, in Protest & Praise: The Sacred Music of Black Religion (1990), reputed black sacred musicologist Jon Michael Spencer revealed that freedom songs can be “divide[d] into two categories”:

  (1) group participation songs, often extemporaneously adapted from existing material by a group involved in civil rights activities, and (2) professionally composed topical songs, which comment on protest events from the sideline. Many freedom songs were adaptations from traditional spiritual and gospel songs. Typically these forms, especially gospel songs, were brought down to the mundane by textual modifications. For example, “If You Miss Me from Praying Down Here” was changed to “If You Miss Me from the Back of the Bus,” “This Little Light of Mine” to “This Little Light of Freedom,” “Woke Up This Morning with My Mind on Jesus” to “Woke Up This Morning with My Mind on Freedom,” “When I’m in Trouble, Lord, Walk with Me” to “Down in the Jailhouse, Lord, Walk with Me,” and “If You Want to Get to Heaven, Do What Jesus Says” to “If You Want to Get Your Freedom, Register and Vote.” (83, all emphasis in original)[3]

  Most often the singing of a particular song during a mass meeting, prayer vigil, boycott, march, sit-in, or freedom ride, as well as in paddy wagons and prisons, typically lasted for an extended period of time. This meant that weary movement members needed to compose new, more immediate, relevant and reinvigorating verses, but not necessarily for artistic variance. Freedom singer-songwriters practiced a kind of intensified lyrical adaptation in order to intimately and urgently express the complexity of African Americans’ critiques of, and resistance to ongoing American apartheid and anti-black racist economic exploitation. In many instances, an individual freedom singer-songwriter composed the new “freedom-focused” verses. At other times the new verses spontaneously evolved out of a group experience or collective struggle, or were offered up impromptu at a mass meeting, march, or sit-in by a song leader inspired by a particularly affecting testimony or event.

  Singing, whether gospel or freedom songs, was not simply a key source of faith and courage during the Civil Rights Movement, but also a means of critically responding to harrowing events and “talking back” to the established order of American apartheid. Additionally, singing—again, whether gospel or freedom songs—can be interpreted as an act of rebellio
us self-assertion and self-determination because it was usually prohibited in city jails and prisons, and otherwise sufficiently called attention to boycotts, marches, or protests, which undoubtedly disrupted the lily-white lies and “business as usual” attitudes and local environments of the Southern segregationists and their Northern liberal racist, however covert, counterparts. For example, in SNCC: The New Abolitionists (1965), Howard Zinn reported that while in Parchman Penitentiary as a consequence of his non-violent civil disobedience, Stokely Carmichael poignantly shared that his mattress was violently taken from his prison cell because he was singing. Zinn famously cited Carmichael as saying:

  I’ll never forget this Sheriff Tyson—he used to wear those big boots. He’d say, “You goddam smart nigger, why you always trying to be so uppity for? I’m going to see to it that you don’t ever get out of this place.” They decided to take our mattresses because we were singing. . . . So they dragged Hank Thomas out and he hung on to his mattress and they took him and it and dropped him with a loud clunk on his back. . . . And then they put wristbreakers on Freddy Leonard, which makes you twist around and around in a snake-like motion, and Tyson said, “Oh, you want to hit me, don’t you?,” and Freddy just looked up at him meekly and said, “No, I just want you to break my arm.” And Sheriff Tyson was visibly shaken, and told the trusty, “Put him back.” I hung on to the mattress and said, “I think we have a right to them and I think you’re unjust,” and he said, “I don’t want to hear all that shit nigger,” and started to put on the wristbreakers. I wouldn’t move and I started to sing “I’m Gonna Tell God How You Treat Me,” and everybody started to sing it and by this time Tyson was really to pieces. He called to the trusties, “Get him in there!” and he went out the door and slammed it, and left everybody else with their mattresses. . . . (57)[4]

  It would seem that Carmichael intimately understood that African American music, in this instance gospel and freedom songs, was an indispensable survival tool for the non-violent soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement. It should also be noted that even in the face of anti-black racist police brutality it was the solemn singing of gospel and freedom songs that, at least in part, gave Carmichael the courage to confront his oppressors and, even if only momentarily, transcend an incredibly odious and traumatic situation. In essence, by somberly singing “I’m Gonna Tell God How You Treat Me” within earshot of Sheriff Tyson and the other jailers, Carmichael was boldly bearing witness before God and the other jailed civil rights soldiers and testifying about his mistreatment and the jailers’ malfeasance.

  Part of what makes singing so central to the Civil Rights Movement is the fact that it subtly politicizes and ingeniously expands the realm of possibilities of the black church tradition of call-and-response and places it in unjust secular settings. The freedom singer is the caller, and God and the people within earshot—whether desegregationists or segregationists—are the responders. For instance, observe in Carmichael’s comments above, both the desegregationists and the segregationists had visceral and palpable responses to Carmichael singing “I’m Gonna Tell God How You Treat Me” while he was being brutalized: the desegregationists chimed in and began to defiantly sing along with Carmichael (he said, “everybody started to sing it”), and the segregationists, even if only temporarily, stopped brutalizing the civil rights soldiers (in fact, Carmichael shared, “by this time Tyson was really to pieces. He called to the trusties, ‘Get him in there!’ and he went out the door and slammed it, and left everybody else with their mattresses. . . . ”).

  Music, something immaterial or incorporeal, in certain situations can actually move or alter the material or, rather, the physical and, as a result, offers oppressed groups an important medium through which they can express their grievances and agonizing endurances. The episode that Carmichael shared above is but one example of hundreds arising out of the Civil Rights Movement where song was utilized to critique and combat unjust treatment, inhospitable conditions, and unethical individuals and inspire courage, raise consciousness, and keep committed to the cause of freedom. Even though Carmichael would eventually come to disagree with Martin Luther King on many matters concerning the black freedom struggle, both leaders agreed that music was the “soul of the movement.” Long before Carmichael came onto the national civil rights scene, indeed, beginning with the Montgomery Bus Boycott, King emphasized the centrality of black song, especially freedom songs, within the civil rights struggle. Consequently, by the time he published his classic Why We Can’t Wait (1964), King enthusiastically concluded:

  An important part of the mass meetings was the freedom songs. In a sense the freedom songs are the soul of the movement. They are more than just incantations of clever phrases designed to invigorate a campaign; they are as old as the history of the Negro in America. They are adaptations of the songs the slaves sang—the sorrow songs, the shouts for joy, the battle hymns and the anthems of our movement. I have heard people talk of their beat and rhythm, but we in the movement are as inspired by their words. “Woke Up This Morning with My Mind Stayed on Freedom” is a sentence that needs no music to make its point. We sing freedom songs today for the same reason the slaves sang them, because we too are in bondage and the songs add hope to our determination that “We shall overcome, black and white together, We shall overcome someday.”

  I have stood in a meeting with hundreds of youngsters and joined in while they sang “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round.” It is not just a song; it is a resolve. A few minutes later, I have seen those same youngsters refuse to turn around from the onrush of a police dog, refuse to turn around before a pugnacious Bull Connor in command of men armed with power hoses. These songs bind us together, give us courage together, help us to march together. (61)

  Acknowledging that the freedom songs were an important part of the musical lineage of the spirituals, King candidly observed that the civil rights soldiers sang freedom songs “for the same reason the slaves sang” the spirituals, because “we too are in bondage and the songs add hope to our determination.” King was keen to note how the freedom songs inspired hope and determination, and with that in mind I would like to strongly stress that the freedom songs were religious because they were unambiguously based on the music arising out of African American religion (and spirituality), and the African American church in specific. Of course, the freedom songs were not necessarily or directly about God or heavenly salvation, but almost invariably about social justice, political struggles, and earthly liberation. Yet and still, even though the freedom songs were not necessarily or directly about God or heavenly salvation, they were solemnly sung with the understanding that God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and, mostly significantly for the freedom singer-songwriters, ever-listening and ever-hearing. Here we have come back to a point I emphasized above: The freedom singer is the caller, and God and the people within earshot—whether desegregationists or segregationists—are the responders.

  When freedom singer-songwriters peppered their songs with the cry and crisis-interjection “Oh, Lord,” they were essentially pausing to say, “Do you hear me, Lord?” or “Are you listening, God?” In appealing to the Lord to listen, the singers were imploring God to intervene in human history in much the same manner as was previously done for African Americans’ enslaved ancestors who sang the spirituals. Typically in the freedom songs there were more references to God than to Jesus Christ (in fact, the two were rarely mentioned together), which would go far to explain the universal (not always and everywhere Christian) character of the freedom songs, as well as Joseph Washington’s (1964) assertion that the freedom songs of the Civil Rights Movement were more or less “sources of spirited support” rather than simply “songs of faith” (207). However, here it is important to observe that it is apparent that when compared with those movement members who did not sing, those who did sing had faith, hope, courage, and determination in the face of seemingly the most insurmountable obstacles.

  Culturally validated via their mi
raculous preservation in, and dissemination through the African American oral tradition and African American sacred song tradition, the freedom songs were the culmination and, in a sense, the secularization of the evolution and ongoing synthesis of the spirituals and gospel in the interest of social commentary, political critique, cultural consciousness-raising, and spiritual enlightenment (e.g., illumination, kenosis, metanoia, revelation, and conversion). This means, then, that freedom songs indeed did carry over some of the religiosity of the spirituals and gospel, but the spirituality and sacred subtext of the freedom songs was not necessarily Christian or Christocentric, but more theocentric—meaning, more or less, God-focused or God-centered. Hence, the freedom songs helped to provide the freedom singer-songwriters and the movement community as a whole—including the Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Catholics, and religious others actively involved in the movement—with a system of core beliefs that verified and testified to the prudence and providence of God regardless of religious affiliation or denomination.

  Therefore, freedom songs were a central source of affirming God, and the singing of freedom songs, not only an act of rebellious self-assertion and self-determination, but also an act of radical religious faith, which is one of the reasons that none other than Martin Luther King openly applauded and actively participated in the singing of freedom songs. Consequently, the resulting reciprocation of song reinvigorating protest and protest reinvigorating song generated a dynamic and deep reservoir of courage and an awesome energy and ethos that obviously enabled fatigued civil rights soldiers, young and old, Jew and Gentile, to continue fighting for freedom. Above all else, it should be observed that both Carmichael and King give us a sense of the centrality of freedom songs in the Civil Rights Movement, and both seem to suggest that these songs instilled faith, hope, courage, and determination in the singers of the songs.