In the early twentieth century, W.E. B. Du Bois wrote a book entitled The Souls of Black Folks in which he analyzed the Black traditions of musical expression. He characterized their songs as generally falling into two categories: “sorrow songs” and “spirituals.” He noted that these songs were not merely music, “…they were an expression of a life rooted in…

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The Civil War had been fought and won; the 13th amendment (abolishing slavery), the 14th amendment (Negro citizenship and equal protection of the laws) and 15th amendment (Negro males right to vote) to the Federal constitution had been enacted; and, the Civil Rights law of 1866 had been passed. But the Negro still had not gained equality in many places…

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The Jim Crow mentality was not only discriminatory, it was also hateful and violent. The Ku Klux Klan was established in the Reconstruction South. But, it was resurrected in the 1920s when it found roots in some northern states, including Indiana and Ohio. It is estimated that the Klan had more than three million members during the 1920s. Lynching was…

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Because industry needed workers to produce material for the fighting effort, World War I brought about mass movement of blacks out of the South to northern industrial cities. This was called The Great Migration, and lasted until the late 1970s. By that time more than five million black people moved to the northern cities. (Jennings and Brewater, p. 351.) The…

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In an effort to combat the forces of racial prejudice and hate, W.E.B. Du Bois and others founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. The NAACP’s stated goal was to secure for all people the rights guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution. It believed that the cause…

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As noted earlier, segregation existed in the United States armed forces. The Army, Navy and other branches of the services separated blacks and whites into distinct units. (See Josh White’s “Defense Factory Blues.”) It was not until after World War II that President Truman issued an executive order ending discrimination in the armed forces. (Hakim, pp. 298-99.) He had to…

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“The ultimate terror of racism lies in its ability to make the subjects of racism believe in their own inferiority…. Whether it was the act of signing a voter registration form for the first time, or of appearing as a witness against a white person in court, or even the bravery it sometimes took to talk to an organizer, the…

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In 1954, the NAACP’s efforts to reverse the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson that supported the Jim Crow system reached fruition when the United States Supreme Court issued its unanimous opinion in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Kansas) (1954).The Court said: “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Thurgood Marshall, lead counsel for the NAACP,…

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“Out of the pressure and needs involved in maintaining group unity while working under intense pressure and physical hostility, the Sit-In Movement developed its culture. Music was the mainstay of that culture.” (Eyerman and Jamison, p. 45, quoting Bernice Johnson Reagon of The Freedom Singers.) In February, 1960, four black college students from a local university staged a sit-in at…

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In May 1961, a group of 13 young people (seven black and six white) sponsored by CORE and modeled after the 1947 CORE “Journey of Reconciliation” (Anderson, pp. 51-54), who called themselves “the Freedom Riders,” traveled from Washington D.C. to Alabama and Mississippi by interstate bus to register black voters and challenge Jim Crow policies. This was one of about…

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