Black Music Sunday: We won't water down the songs we sing for Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

[Brexiter]

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, which is now a national holiday here in the U.S. after 15 years of struggle to make it happen, is celebrated on the the third Monday of January, though he was born on Jan. 15, 1929. Over time, much of who the man was and what he inspired has been watered down, with even right-wing racists quoting Dr. King’s words as a cover for what they really believe in (white supremacy and white privilege).

The music that was generated by the movement he helped lead remains as powerful as his words and actions. Let’s listen to some of it today.

RELATED STORY: The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. loved Black music and musicians loved him back

”Black Music Sunday” is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music with over 190 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.

I thought this post on X (formerly known as Twitter) from Dr. King’s daughter Dr. Bernice King was very apt:

Getting ready for #MLKDay2024. Here’s #TheInconvenientKing, my message from #MLKDay 2023: https://t.co/BUjEHj61kU pic.twitter.com/gQzbqNXo6k

— Be A King (@BerniceKing) January 7, 2024

She announced this last year:

The Rev. Bernice King, who leads The King Center in Atlanta, said leaders—especially politicians—too often cheapen her father’s legacy into a “comfortable and convenient King” offering easy platitudes.

“We love to quote King in and around the holiday. … But then we refuse to live King 365 days of the year,” she declared at the commemorative service at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her father once preached.

Given that too many uninformed people are fond of MLK quoting, one of my favorite things to do is cite quotes that can’t be whitewashed. This article from City Heights City Development has some of them:

“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and racism. The problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power.” —King to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) board on March 30, 1967.

“…the price that America must pay for the continued oppression of the Negro and other minority groups is the price of its own destruction.”—The American Dream: July 4, 1965

“White Americans must recognize that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society.”—Where Do We Go From Here? 1967

In the spirit of those quotes, I’m playing some music today that carries those messages. First up, are the SNCC Freedom singers, who sang “We Shall Not Be Moved” at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1964.

RELATED STORY: The SNCC Freedom Singers: Songs of strength and courage that mobilized people to vote

The Freedom Singers’ story begins with the formation of the Albany Movement, as told on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee website:

In October 1961, SNCC field secretaries Charles Sherrod and Cordell Reagon, later joined by Charles Jones, traveled to Albany, Georgia where local citizens, especially students at Albany State College (today Albany State University), an HBCU, were heating up the civil rights struggle. They had come to conduct workshops on nonviolence and to initiate voter registration efforts. At the time, although Albany’s population was 40 percent Black, few were registered to vote. The city itself was completely segregated. Recalled Sherrod, “When we first came to Albany, the people were afraid, really afraid. …” Locals were scared of white retaliation due to the culture of fear created by Police Chief Laurie Pritchett.

The Freedom Singers were a powerful tool for change:

Freedom songs and freedom singing reached new heights during the Albany Movement. At mass meetings, the singing was done in a congregational style. “There weren’t soloists; there were song leaders,” explained Bernice Johnson. Song leaders began a song, but “the minute you started… the song was expanded by the voices of everyone present.” The effect was powerful and empowering.

Cordell Reagon was struck by the depth of the congregational style of singing in Albany. After talking with SNCC executive secretary James Forman, he formed the original SNCC Freedom Singers to sing movement songs to audiences across the nation. Reagon, a tenor, recruited Bernice Johnson to sing alto, Rutha Mae Harris to sing soprano, and Chuck Neblett to sing bass. They were occasionally joined by Albany activist Bertha Gober. The group hit the road in December 1962 on its first tour organized by Toshi Seeger, Pete Seeger’s wife. “We traveled all over the country in a compact Buick,” Rutha Mae Harris recalled. “On one tour, we managed to go fifty thousand miles in nine months without any flights.”The Freedom Singers originated as a student quartet formed in 1962 at Albany State College in Albany, Georgia. After folk singer Pete Seeger witnessed the power of their congregational-style of singing, which fused black Baptist acapella church singing with protest songs and chants, their performances drew aid and support to SNCC during the emerging Civil Rights Movement. Seeger suggested The Freedom Singers as a touring group to the SNCC executive secretary James Forman as a way to fuel future campaigns. As a result, communal song became essential to empowering and educating audiences about civil rights issues and a powerful social weapon of influence in the fight against Jim Crow segregation. Without the music force of broad communal singing, the Civil Rights Movement may not have resonated beyond of the struggles of the Jim Crow South.

Here they are performing and rallying the crowd at the march:

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Ballad of America has a detailed history of “We Shall Not Be Moved,” from the early Black church, to the labor movement, and into the fight for civil rights:

For African Americans, the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution granted legal emancipation, citizenship, and voting rights. However, vernacular customs and the rise of Jim Crow laws enshrined infrastructures of inequality. During the 1930s, a civil rights movement began to coalesce that advocated for fairer treatment of African Americans. The movement gathered momentum in 1954 following the Brown vs. the Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools were unconstitutional.

Like the labor movement, the civil rights movement in the 1950s and ‘60s was a singing movement. Many of the "freedom songs" of the movement were spirituals or gospel songs from the Black church, sometimes with revised lyrics to reflect the current struggles. Martin Luther King, Jr. observed:

In a sense, the freedom songs are the soul of the movement. They are more than just incantations of clever phrases designed to invigorate a campaign; they are as old as the history of the Negro in America. They are adaptations of the songs the slaves sang — the sorrow songs, the shouts for joy, the battle hymns and the anthems of our movement. I have heard people talk of their beat and rhythm, but we in the movement are as inspired by their words. 'Woke up This Morning with My Mind Stayed on Freedom' is a sentence that needs no music to make its point. We sing the freedom songs today for the same reason the slaves sang them, because we too are in bondage and the songs add hope to our determination that 'We shall overcome, black and white together, we shall overcome someday.'

Here’s Mavis Staples singing it live at Chicago Symphony Center in April 2014, where she tells the story of trying to get served in a restaurant:

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RELATED STORY: Black Music Sunday: Celebrating Mavis Staples on her 84th birthday

Here are The Freedom Singers, with singers singers Rutha Harris, Charles Neblett, Bettie Mae Fikes, and Cordell Reagon, introducing “We Are Soldiers in the Army” with some poignant words:

“For those of you who are young and don't know, very recent period in our history, people who were our color did not ride at the front of the bus, could not sit at lunch counters, they had had water fountains that had white on one one fountain and colored on another. We pretty much passed that but it’s people’s hearts we’re trying to change now.”

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RELATED STORY: Black Music Sunday: Songs of freedom from the musicians at the 1963 March on Washington

Out of the Freedom Singers, Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon formed Sweet Honey in the Rock in Washington, D.C., in 1973, and the group still exists today. Their tribute to civil rights organizer, “den mother,” and activist Ella Baker in “Ella’s Song” makes it clear that the struggle for justice is ongoing and we all must remain engaged and heed these words: “We who believe in freedom cannot rest.”

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Here’s Sweet Honey singing “I’m Gon’ Stand” performing at the opening ceremonies for the Equal Justice Initiative Museum, in Montgomery, Alabama, on April 26, 2018.

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The lyrics were written by Bernice Reagon:

We will not bow down to uh-huh racism,

We will not bow down to injustice,

We will not bow down to exploitation,

I’m gon’ stand, I’m gon’ stand.

We will not obey uh-huh racism,

We will not obey injustice,

We will not obey exploitation,

I’m gon’ stand, I’m gon’ stand.

(I) just can’t tolerate racism,

(I) just can’t tolerate injustice,

(I) just can’t tolerate exploitation,

I’m gon’ stand, I’m gon’ stand.

Black poet, author, and educator Sonia Sanchez joined with Sweet Honey to exhort us all to keep on fighting:

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The lyrics for “Sweet Honey in the Rock,” written by Sanchez, are poignant and worth a read.

RELATED STORY: Women lift their voices and sing for justice

I took some time out to rewatch the 2019 documentary “Humanité, The Beloved Community,” which lovingly documents the impact of Dr. King’s assassination on the life of jazz saxophonist Kirk Whalum.

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Whalum remembers the assassination of Dr. King, on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was only nine years old at the time, but the assassination was 14 blocks from Whalem’s home.

We are reminded by singer, songwriter, and activist Tracy Chapman, that the fight is not over. Her 1989 video “Born To Fight” was reviewed by Alexis Whalen at Oldtimemusic:

At its core, Born to Fight is a rallying cry for the marginalized and oppressed, urging them to stand up and fight for their rights. Tracy Chapman’s lyrics convey a sense of resilience and determination, emphasizing the individual’s agency in challenging the status quo. The song addresses themes of social inequality, discrimination, and the pursuit of justice in the face of adversity.

[…]

Born to Fight serves as a reminder that everyone has the power to effect change, regardless of their background or circumstances. It highlights the importance of perseverance when faced with obstacles, emphasizing that the fight for equality is ongoing and requires collective efforts. Through her evocative lyrics, Chapman encourages listeners to take a stand and use their voices to challenge societal norms that perpetuate injustice.

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The lyrics are also worth a read. This song resonates very strongly with me, cause I’ve been fighting now for many decades, and will continue till I’m laid to rest. I’ll close here. I’m sure that you have a long list of songs that have inspired you to keep on keepin’ on. Join me in the comments section below to post them.

In the spirit of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and all the activists who fought and continue to fight—the struggle continues.