Essay On The Civil Rights Movement

The oral tradition of protest music has a rich history in the United States that dates back to the colonial period. Although many social movements in North America have been coupled with a recognizable style of music, “from slave emancipation to women's suffrage, the labor movement, the antiwar movement, the feminist movement, the environmental movement, etc.”, the most commonly referenced movement is the civil rights movement. The sound of the civil rights movement can be traced back to ‘spirituals’ or songs that combined Christian hymns with elements of African music and culture during the 19th century. Some of these elements, such as the ‘call and response’ style, are still used in modern music today. This is important because, when adapting these styles to suit the civil rights

It is claimed that “Woody Guthrie did it the earliest and most convincingly, Pete Seeger did it the longest, Joan Baez did it most artfully, Phil Ochs tried the hardest, and the young Bob Dylan did it best”, but what that statement ignores is the group of men, women, and children who remain nameless; it neglects to recognize the biggest representatives of every movement: those who proudly stand in the face of their oppressors, rather than a microphone, and sing loud for social change (http://xpatmatt.com/music-with-a-message-a-brief-history-of-protest-music-in-north-america/). Protest songs have given those without a voice a means of communicating to those who refuse to give them one. Instead of a plea for help or sympathy, a song of pity, people utilized this style of music to convey their strength in numbers, unwavering confidence in the truth, and a refusal to stop fighting for what they know to be right. This genre of music created a “sense of solidarity” (“Soundtrack for a Revolution” [TIME]), a sense of solidarity that is still palpable when you hear these songs