“This Little Light of Mine/Freedom Now Chant/Come By Here,” a medley from the historic Civil Rights Movement marches, can be heard in the end credits for the Best Picture Academy Award-nominated film, Selma. These songs, along with many others from the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, were recorded by marcher Carl Benkert, an interior designer who kept a battery-powered reel-to-reel tape recorder hidden in his overcoat. Only months later, his recordings were released on the Folkways record, Freedom Songs: Selma, Alabama.

Learn more about Benkert’s experience recording Freedom Songs in this feature on Smithsonian.com.