MAR 25 @ 7 PM: History of Music: From Abolition to Civil Rights Part 2 with John Clark
History of Music: From Abolition to Civil Rights, March 25 at 7pm via Zoom
This program focuses mostly on the music of the Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s, but begins with a controversial Oscar Hammerstein song You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught and We Are Americans Too, a response to a 1956 racial incident involving Nat King Cole. Next, we look at the history of the Civil Rights anthems that came out of the 1950s and 1960s, like We Shall Overcome, Eyes on the Prize and Blowin’ in the Wind and a section on other songs written by Bob Dylan that brought racial issues to even greater national attention. In the latter half of the 1960s there’s Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come and James Brown’s Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud. Also included are noteworthy songs by Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson, Mahalia Jackson, Odetta, Curtis Mayfield, Janis Ian, Sly & the Family Stone and Nina Simone as well as fiery proto-rap protests poetry by spoken word artists Gil Scott-Heron and the Last Poets.