Thanks for an interesting thread.
I've been thinking about why 60s-style protest songs have been (apparently) scarce in recent protest marches, while chants have (apparently) been common. Two possible reasons come to mind:
1. In the 60s, at least in the Jim Crow South, a major purpose of the songs was to encourage the African Americans to RESIST (bad) laws. Now the purpose of protests is more typically to encourage WHITE Americans to STOP resisting (good) laws. Perhaps songs are better at encouraging the singers, and chants are better for shaming those listening.
2. In the 60s, protests were often in support of African Americans who had been arrested, but whose crimes were nothing that was inherently criminal. Instead they had committed inherently innocent acts (like riding in the front of the bus) that had been made into crimes by bad laws. In the last two decades, protests have often been "in support of" African Americans who were arrested for inherently criminal acts. (I put the phrase "in support of" in quotes because no one, I hope, is truly "in support of" actions like Mychal Bell's. Rather, the protests were in support of treating all crimes with an appropriate degree of severity, regardless of the skin color of the criminal.)
If one is singing in support of, say, Rosa Parks, then a song derived from a Spiritual such as "We Shall Overcome" might seem right. If one were to try singing "We Shall Overcome" in response to, say, the beating of Rodney King, I suspect it would ring hollow. One would not wish to portray a harshly-treated criminal as if he were a martyr.
What do you think?
Kent