Folk Music And The Civil Rights Movement

The American Folk Movement was a revival of folk music in the United States during the 1940s-1970. It offered a rich and serious story, locating the outsider in a specific place and time, a pre-modern, pre-capitalist historical moment when people made music for the pleasure of expression rather than for cash. The folk revival of the 1940s addressed social, moral, and political issues, which labeled them “left-wing.” Folksingers were used to protest political rallies and union meetings, than in the late 40s and early 50s they were used on the campaign trail. In this revival, folk music became the voice of the people-their past, their politics, and the basis for their future. Alan Lomax, Woody Guthrie, Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter, Molly

Seeger had experience with the Old Left folk movement and the songs that dealt with things happening around them; therefore, he was able to put them to present struggles. Seeger gave the SNCC a helping hand to raise money, gather volunteers, and spread awareness of civil rights. Another major contributor, Freedom Singers was black folksingers that sang mostly to white audiences to raise funds. The folk music revival taught whiter students-and folk fans were mostly white-to love blacks, especially rural southerners, as the folk, as the outsiders. Folk music allowed the white students to examine the lives of folk and sympathize. Another influential person to the civil movement was Bob Dylan. He adopted Guthrie’s persona, left politics and hobo style and speech to feel as if he grew up and lived the lifestyle of a “hillbilly.” He was a man that had a guitar and harmonica and sang folk songs that dealt with civil rights issues. However, Dylan helped create a new kind of popular musician who fused the seeming contradictions of the folk revival’s obsession with authenticity with the playacting of minstrelsy, a performer whose authenticity lay in expressing the emotions he shared with the folk. Even though Dylan’s style changed, he stuck with singing protest

The songs were meant for the audience to feel the emotions and experience the lives the individuals endured. Dylan remembered, “folk music was a reality of a more brilliant dimension…and if it called out to you, you could disappear and be sucked into it…It was so real, so more true to life than like itself. It was life magnified.” Dylan was considered authentic because he expressed the emotions of the folk persona, instead of the daily lives. He used the old style of minstrelsy with the authenticity of emotions to get the audience to hear his protests. One issue was dealing with authenticity and transformation, did the two go together? The old “authentic” consisted of the past, and transformation comes from the future. The reinvention of one’s self or living the true self became the new