African American Protest Slogans & Songs

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: M.Ted
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 07:53 AM

I didn't take your questions to be negative, or hostile, or anything like that--and yes, the demon factor on the internet is that we write in a conversational style, but things like tone of voice, which really imparts a lot of meaning in conversation, aren't there--

Anyway, my main point here is that the civil right movement, like the labor movement and the anti-war movement, used songs as tools for building solidarity--the songs were drawn from folk cultures, to be sure, but most of the people who sang them, on marches, at sit-ins, at rallys, etc, learned them as "Freedom Songs" and did not know them outside of that context--the songs were taught to people by organizers, though the singers may not have considered them to be folksingers rather than organizers.

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: Neil D
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 12:03 AM

...I spent some time at work today reading through the interesting thread that you started regarding African American slogan and songs. I thought about posting a chant we used to do at May 4th memorials at Kent State in the '70's: Two, Four, Six, Eight, Remember Kent and Jackson State. The May 4th coalition always made a point of including a contingent from Jackson State to memorialize the much less publicized, but just as tragic, killing of African American students at Jackson State when police fired indescriminantly into a dormitory. This event happened just a few weeks after the Kent State shootings, but never drew the attention of the media like the white students at Kent State. Thus, the chant....

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: Azizi
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 01:19 AM

Neil, thanks for posting that chant that commemorates the tragic events at Kent State and at Jackson State.

It's too bad we don't learn from our history so we don't have to keep repeating its terrible parts.

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 12:31 PM

When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn.

   Unfortunately, I think sometimes the wrong lessons are learned.
I think today's students have taken this lesson from the past: Don't buck the system. Why aren't todays college students as outraged by the current illegal, immoral war the way students 40 years ago were about Vietnam? I apologize if this is thread drift.

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: M.Ted
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 05:50 PM

Simple--the War in Iraq doesn't really pose any personal threat to them, the way the Vietnam war did.

Under the heading of "wrong lessons learned" when Nixon instituted the lottery, everyone whose birthday fell above the magic number knew they were safe--It knocked the wind out of the anti-war movement, which is just what it was intended to do. If a general conscription was implemented, the streets would be full of protesters in a New York minute--thats why it hasn't happened, and won't happen.

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 07:59 PM

Well, for me the meduim has been the message... The lyrics change but what remains is the strong influence of Afican rhythums... I didn't say African American but African...

Historically these rhythums were brought to this country and took up a life of their own in a different land with a different language but underneath it all, it is still the sounds of Africa... They found their way into the repetitious farm work of the early slaves and continued into the Jim Crow days and into the Civil Rights movement... And beyond...

If onw goes to any antiwar demonstration of any size these days, the hard African rhythum is there front and center with kids pounding African drums and chanting... The chants are converstations... They have two parts... The first is the question and the second is the answer... But underneath the words is the infectious rhythum of Africa... It almost doesn't matter what the words are... The rhythum in itself is revoultionary...

Like I said, the medium is the message...

Jus' my thoughts...

Bobert

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 10:06 PM

ASSiZI-

We seem to being seeing double along the same seam.

You are stuck in the 60's (which makes you... "folk sort-of" on the Mudcat)

There is A LOT of PROTEST!!!! in REAL Africa....from the Sudan to almost Antarctica.

Why milk a cow that has gone dry???? .....Four decades ago?

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: Rowan
Date: 12 Oct 07 - 12:43 AM

Be fair, Gargoyle.

In the post that started the thread Azizi wrote
"The purpose of this thread is to explore the continuity & changes in protest slogans and songs that are associated with the Black American civil rights movement from the mid 1960s to date."

Surely the initiator of the thread can exercise the luxury of defining it however they want; any subsequent posters are really just buying into discussion of the original notion. We've been invited to discuss everything from then until now and many have done just that. To the extent that us respondents have stuck in the 60s, any 'fault' is ours to be shared.

If you wanted to start a thread on African rhythms and its role in current music/protest/etc worldwide or regionally, I'm sure you'd get some takers.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: GUEST,DV
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 11:56 AM

I don't know if this is the proper protest song thread to refresh to post this or not, as there seems to be plenty of them!

But I am interested in both how the songs/singers have changed over time, as well as how we perceive the different strands of them.

While this thread speaks to African American protest songs, I am thinking of other protest songs of the same era as the civil rights movement, and how different they were.

First, many of the protest songs of the anti-war movement weren't folk songs, but rock songs. Going to You Tube and searching 'protest songs' brought up this gal, who has created a list of "top ten" protest songs, and done a clip on each. Thought some here might be interested in it here:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=protest+songs&search_type=

I would add, the protest songs of the United Farmworkers and the Chicano movement were diffferent too, and they seemed to migrate and morph into protest songs on the Central American wars of the 1980s, to what is now the immigration movement, School of the Americas protests, etc.

And then, there seems to be a whole other genre of protest songs that have evolved surrounding political conventions over the years too, which will be seeing (if the media allows us to, that is) soon enough.

Very interesting thread!

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: Azizi
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 12:05 PM

DV, here's the hyperlink to the URL that you posted:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=protest+songs&search_type=

**

I've not given thought to this thread for a while.

At this time, my spirit's not where this thead is. But, I'm glad that links to related threads have been added to this thread, and I'm also glad that you and maybe others are interested in adding comments about this subject.

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: GUEST,DV
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 12:09 PM

Sorry, I also meant to include a link to the search I did first at You Tube on "African American protest songs". It came up with some very interesting hits.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=african+american+protest+songs&search_type=

Thanks for doing the hyperlink--maybe you could add the above?

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: Janice in NJ
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 09:54 PM

Let me take a big step back through time. I was involved in the Civil Rights Movement from 1963 to 1969, and singing was a central part of it. That's something that's too easily forgotten today. Singing was everywhere, and to the musicians who got the most respect from the Movement rank-and-file were themselves activists who came out of the Movement, not just supporters who came to "entertain the troops." Among the musicians I remember best were Len Chandler (who wrote Move On Over or We'll Move On Over You), Rev. Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick (Everybody's Got a Right to Live), Jimmy Collier (Burn, Baby, Burn), Guy and Candy Carawan, and above all the SNCC Freedom Singers (Matt Jones, Cordell Reagon, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Ruth Harris, and Charles Neblett).

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: GUEST,Marymac90
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 03:36 PM

Fascinating thread, Azizi! I'll add two things.

Those interested in this type of music might also be interested in
a network that is still actively singing today. It's called the Peoples' Music Network/Songs of Freedom and Struggle. I know
there is a website. I'll let someone comfy with clickies post it.

The second thought is more about my personal experience. I am white, and I am a social worker in a low-income apartment building for elderly and disabled people that is majority African-American. My first attempt to get people singing was the idea that could
sing Christmas carols in or just outside of the apartments of homebound/disabled people, and it worked quite well. My second
was that we have a sort of all-purpose Memorial Service, for
people to remember those that they are personally missing, during the week of Memorial Day. We sang a lot of hymns, and a lot of people gave rememberances of loved ones. I think if I had offered a "support group" for dealing with grief, I would have had a very poor turnout!

The next singing event I will offer will be a doo wop/oldies event in October. It will be interesting to see if there's a difference in participation, since we'll be singing songs that don't have religious significance. I also have plans for a Black History
Month event next February, which will involve a lot of the Civil Rights Songs mentioned in this thread.

Keep on pushin'

Marymac

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: Azizi
Date: 29 Apr 09 - 10:44 AM

It's been a long time since I posted to and read this thread. I apologize to GUEST,DV for just reading his/her request to add a hyperlink for the web address that was posted in that 03 Aug 08 - 12:09 PM comment. Here's that hyperlink:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=african+american+protest+songs&search_type=

Thanks to all who have posted to this thread.

Keep on keepin on!

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: Stringsinger
Date: 29 Apr 09 - 11:24 AM

There is a wonderful new documentary on the Chaney/Schwerner/Goodman
by Micki Dickoff called "Neshoba". We had privilege of seeing it and meeting Micki
who is a lovely person.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neshoba_(film)

This is one of the most important films done on Civil Rights.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: Azizi
Date: 25 Mar 12 - 07:29 AM

Greetings!

I just published two posts on my pancocojams cultural blog which document examples of chants used in the March 22, 2012 New York City Trayvon Martin Million Hoodies March. Part I of that series showcases chants found in three different videos.

Part II of that series documents examples of chants from that same march that were included in news reports and one tweeter feed about that march.

The links to those posts are: http://​pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/​03/​chanting-at-trayvon-martin-mill​ion.html

and

http://​pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/​03/​chanting-at-trayvon-martin-mill​ion_24.html.

RIP Trayvon and all others who died because of racial profiling!

-Azizi Powell

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: Azizi
Date: 25 Mar 12 - 07:50 AM

I should also mention that the tweeter feed from which I excerpted examples of chants in Part II of that pancocojams blog post may include examples of Occupy Wall Street chants & songs instead of chants from Million Hoodies marchers' chants.

A number of tweeters alleged that OWS attempted to "co-opt" that Million Hoodies march. One example of that alleged attempt to take over that Million Hoodies march was to chant over official speakers.

A documented chant from that march - "Whose street?/ Our streets." 0 is certainly known to be used by Occupy Wall Street activists. And a chant like "No Justice/ No Peace" could have been used by both groups-if indeed those populations of marchers were different.

For the record (no pun intended), a person who attended that New York City Million Hoodies march indicated that two songs were sung: "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around" and "This Little Light Of Mine". Both of those songs are from African American traditions. However, I saw no mention of singing on any news reports of that march (I only read one tweeter feed). And the only example of singing that I saw on a number of videos of that particular march that I watched was a singing/chant "We are one". My guess is that those songs were sung by a group or groups associated with Occupy Wall Street (in part because I STILL don't see any custom of singing at majority African American protest marches and also because the person tweeting the singing of one of these songs mentioned the singing being accompanied by a guitar. I don't think African Americans carry guitars to protest marches as much as White Americans do :o), and the Occupy Wall Street movement is known to be a mostly a White activist movement (except for certain cities such as Oakland, California). Furthermore, as the above mentioned tweeter feed documents, there have been a number of difficulties with race/racism in the USA Occupy Wall Street movement -but that subject goes beyond the intent of this post.

Btw, I added a hyperlink to this Mudcat thread in a comment that posted in the comment section for Part II of that pancocojams series.

-Azizi Powell

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: Azizi
Date: 25 Mar 12 - 08:58 AM

Also, updating my Cocojams website resulted in the old links to pages coming up as "This page is not found".

Here's the current link to the page on Civil Rights songs:
http://cocojams.com/content/african-american-civil-rights-songs (link broken).

That page includes the words to various songs as well as videos of those songs being sung.

---

This page can be seen in facsimile with many of the original links at https://web.archive.org/web/20120222091553/http://cocojams.com/content/african-american-civil-rights-songs

This is via the Internet Archive's "Wayback Machine."

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: Max
Date: 06 May 21 - 11:49 PM

Refresh. A lot of broken links in this great thread. Anyone want to offer some new ones up?

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 May 21 - 12:59 AM

I dropped the URL of the March 25, 2012 post into the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine to get the page that was captured by the archive (that link has been added to that post.) This is a quick fix for many of the older broken links in Mudcat threads. (Not all sites were crawled by the Internet Archive folks, but this one is well-represented there.)

Subject: RE: African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: Donuel
Date: 07 May 21 - 10:20 PM

Thats a great tool!