Playlist
Sounds of American Freedom from Smithsonian Folkways
The African American song tradition provided the soundtrack to the march to freedom during the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The freedom songs from the movement, such as the ones played here, used the same musical building blocks as traditional African American spirituals and gospel songs with the addition of topical concerns and overt political demands. Martin Luther King, Jr. testified to the integral role of these songs saying, “In a sense the freedom songs are the soul of the movement...They are adaptations of the songs the slave sang: the sorrow songs, the shouts for joy, the battle hymns, and the anthem of our movement.”
Playlist Info
Folkways Suggests
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Songs My Mother Taught MeFannie Lou Hamer
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Songs with Guy CarawanGuy Carawan
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This Little Light of MineGuy Carawan
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From the ArchivesSounds of the Civil Rights Movement -
From the ArchivesSounds of the Cold War from Smithsonian Folkways -
From the Archives200 Years of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ from Smithsonian Folkways -
From the ArchivesA Quarter Century of Smithsonian Folkways -
From the ArchivesValentine’s Day from Smithsonian Folkways
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From the ArchivesSinging for Justice - Lesson Plan | Smithsonian Folkways Magazine -
From the ArchivesDing Dong Dollar | Smithsonian Folkways Magazine -
From the ArchivesBernice Johnson Reagon: Civil Rights song leader -
From the ArchivesCarnival of Memory: Songs of Protest and Remembrance in the Andes | -
From the ArchivesVoices of Struggle: The Civil Rights movement, 1945 to 1965