Martin Luther King knew that the Civil Rights movement needed a soundtrack. The Civil Rights movement incorporated jazz, folk, R&B and gospel to use music that everybody could relate to and be inspired by to help change America in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Here are some of them:
“Oh, Freedom” is a post-Civil War African-American freedom song. It is often associated with the American Civil Rights Movement, with Odetta, who recorded it as part of the “Spiritual Trilogy”, on her Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues album, and with Joan Baez, who performed the song at the 1963 March on Washington. Baez has since performed the song live numerous times, both during her concerts and at other events. The song was first recorded in 1931 by the E. R. Nance Family with Clarence Dooley as “Sweet Freedom”.
“I Shall Not Be Moved” is an African American spiritual. The song describes how the singer is “like a tree planted by the waters” who “shall not be moved” because of their faith in God. Secularly, as “We Shall Not Be Moved” it gained popularity as a Civil Rights Movement, protest, and union song.
The text is based on a portion of Biblical scripture, namely Jeremiah 17:8-9 — Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when buy viagra high street heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
“Go Tell It on the Mountain” is an African-American spiritual song, compiled by John Wesley Work, Jr., dating back to at least 1865, that has been sung and recorded by many gospel and secular performers. It is considered a Christmas carol because its original lyrics celebrate the Nativity of Jesus:
In 1963, the musical team Peter, Paul and Mary, along with their musical director Milt Okun, adapted and rewrote “Go Tell It on the Mountain” as “Tell It on the Mountain”, their lyrics referring specifically to: Exodus and using the phrase “Let my people go,” but referring implicitly to the Civil Rights struggle of the early 1960s. This version became a moderately successful single for them (US #33 pop, 1964).
According to Religious Studies professor and Civil Rights historian Charles Marsh, it was African American Civil Rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer who combined this song with the spiritual “Go Down Moses,” taking the last line of the chorus, “Let my people go” and substituting it in the chorus of “Go Tell It on the Mountain.”[1] Marsh does not document this claim, but notes that Hamer was highly active in civil rights work beginning in the 1950s, and that the use of the Exodus story and the singing of spirituals played a central role in her activities.