It was in the 1950s that the United States of America began to pay the price for years of treating African Americans like second class citizens. Refusing to be segregated and denied a voice in the selection of their government any longer, African Americans began campaigns of protest and education in an attempt to be treated equally. It wasn't only the Southern States where segregation and other forms of discrimination were practised, but it was states like Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Mississippi where they were most enshrined, either by law or custom, or both.
Therefore it was these states that became literally the main battlegrounds of the Civil Rights movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s. People from all over North America congregated in the South to show their support for the movement by taking an active role in their protests. Sit-ins were staged by black people in whites-only dining facilities, bus seats in the front sections of municipal vehicles were occupied, voter registration drives were undertaken that ensured black people previously shut out from the polls were able to vote, and people marched in the thousands demanding equal rights. The battle they faced wasn't an easy one as they were routinely attacked and beaten by both the police and mobs, and there were deaths among both the white and black protesters.
Now as the churches were key in galvanizing the people in the South, it should come as no surprise that when the protesters turned to song in order to comfort themselves and keep up their spirits, their first thought was the spirituals that were sung in church. It was easy to identify with songs taken from the stories of Moses leading his people to freedom, and it was those songs that were first sung and even adapted to suit the needs of the movement. However, as the recently released DVD of the documentary Let Freedom Sing: How Music Inspired The Civil Rights Movement shows, spirituals weren't the first or only music that were part of the movement. It also shows how the music of the African American community grew to reflect the changing moods of the people as the needs have changed.
Narrated by Louis Gosset Jr., Let Freedom Sing traces the history of music protesting the situation of African Americans from Billie Holiday's performance of "Strange Fruit" with its graphic depiction of black lynching victims hanging from trees, to Public Enemy's songs about life in today's urban core. However, as befits its title, the majority of the movie's focus is on the relationship between the music and the quest for equality. Interviews with musicians and former freedom riders are interspersed with original footage of protests, helping to recreate the era for the viewer and provide first-hand accounts of what the music meant to those involved with these events.
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