Civil Rights Music
There are some good print-on-paper sources for the history of music and protest in America. Most also provide song lyrics and pictures of singers, professional and "just folks." These are starting points:
Denisoff, R. Serge. Great Day Coming: Folk Music and the American Left. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971.
Denisoff, R. Serge. Sing a Song of Social Significance. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1983.
Denisoff, R. Serge, and Richard A. Peterson, editors. The Sounds of Social Change: Studies in Popular Culture. Chicago, Rand McNally, 1972. Collection of essays.
Glazer, Tom, comp. Songs of Peace, Freedom, and Protest. New York, D. McKay Co., 1970. With helpful notes by Glazer.
Reed,Thomas Vernon. The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. This is a broader study, extending beyond just music.
Seeger, Pete, and Bob Reiser, compilers. Carry It On!: The Story of America's Working People in Song and Picture. Bethlehem, PA: Sing Out, 1991.
Recordings:
Folkways, the record company that produced albums of many of America's most famous singers of folk songs and social and political protest music in the last half of the 20th century, closed its doors several years ago, but their sound archives are now part of the collections of the Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian, in turn, has reissued many of Folkways' most famous albums and produced several new anthologies drawn from older Folkways' disks. These three are probably the best bets for classroom use:
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. Give Your Hands to Struggle. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Folkways, 1997.
Sing For Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement through Its Songs. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Folkways ; Cambridge, Mass.: nationally distributed by Rounder Records, 1990. Geared to grades 4-12. Hymns, speeches, spirituals, gospel songs, and prayers drawn from 1960s field recordings in the South. Performances by SNCC Freedom Singers, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ralph Abernathy.
Voices of the Civil Rights Movement: Black American Freedom Songs 1960-1966. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Folkways. Washington, D.C., p1997. Also designed for Grades 4-12. Recordings of more than 40 freedom songs from the 1960s civil rights movement, including "We Shall Not Be Moved," "This Little Light of Mine," Oh Freedom," and "We Shall Overcome." Accompanying booklet includes extensive notes, historical photos, supplemental discography, and a bibliography.
Web resources:
Wikipedia has good articles with useful links for artists like Pete Seeger, Guy Carawan, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Janis Ian, and Phil Ochs. Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, James Brown, John Coltrane, Chuck Berry, Curtis Mayfield, Nine Simone, Otis Redding, etc. The online encyclopedia also provides a convenient full text of the verses of "We Shall Overcome":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Shall_Overcome
The Highlander School is still very much alive and well with a website providing a good list of books and other resources about the history of the school, a list very much geared to the needs of classroom teachers:
http://www.highlandercenter.org/a-history6.asp
As this is the first essay in History Now that requires audio resources
as well as images and text, I'll violate my usual rule of providing links
only to websites that are absolutely free. The Smithsonian's' "Global
Sound" website provides downloads of the music from the three albums
I recommended above. Each download is $.99, but the riches are incredible.
Here's the Global Sound URL:
http://www.smithsonianglobalsound.org/signup.aspx
Be sure to read their statement of the rules of "fair use" of
materials downloaded from this site. It's very clear and straightforward:
Check out this blog for a fascinating history of "We Shall Overcome":
http://blogs.citypages.com/pscholtes/2006/06/something_about.asp
