The Struggle Against Segregation and for Civil Rights in the United States
An Approximation Through American Protest-Song
Abstract The racial segregation established in the United States at the end of the 19th century was the object of criticism and rejection by certain sectors of American society, who formed various organizations that channeled this discontent and tried to structure a response that would put an end to the situation of inequality. The 1950s and 1960s accentuated the struggle for civil rights through new forms of resistance and criticism of the segregationist regime.This new situation was the subject of an abundant musical production that, in the form of protest songs and songs for freedom, served as a vehicle of expression for the Civil Rights Movement of the African-American community, expressing its aspirations and frustrations.The objective of this paper is to compile and examine the portrait that these compositions cultivated of the struggle for Civil Rights through the events that marked this claim. In order to reach this goal, this article will take into account both the actions of protest whose purpose was to obtain a new legislation that would put an end to racial segregation and the violent reactions that it provoked in the Southern states. I will analyze the lyrical contents of the songs which will allow us to determine the positioning of the singer-songwriters and determine their approach to the struggle against segregation.
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Arsenault, R. (2006). Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. Nueva York: Oxford University Press.
Barkley, E. F. (2007). Crossroads. The Multicultural Roots of America’s Popular Music. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Barnet, R. D., Nemerov, B., Taylor, M. R. (2004). The Story Behind the Song. 150 Songs that Chronicle the 20th Century. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Boucher, D. (2004). Images and Distorted Facts: Politics, Poetry and Protest in the Songs of Bob Dylan. En G. Browning, D. Boucher (eds.), The Political Art of Bob Dylan (pp. 134-169). Nueva York: Palgrave McMillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230522541_7
Broadwater, A. (2015). Marian Anderson. Diva and Humanitarian. Berkeley Heights: Enslow Publishers.
Brown Tindall, G. y Emory Shi, D. (2007). America. A Narrative History. Londres: W. W. Norton.
Brown, L. L. (2010). John Coltrane and Black America’s Quest for Freedom. Nueva York: Oxford University Press.
Brown, R. (2004). Bob Dylan’s Critique of Judgement: ‘Thinking’ about the Law. En G. Browning, D. Boucher (eds.), The Political Art of Bob Dylan (pp. 34-54). Nueva York: Palgrave McMillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230522541_3
Browning, G. (2004). Dylan and Lyotard: Is It Happening? En G. Browning, D. Boucher (eds.), The Political Art of Bob Dylan (pp. 105-133). Nueva York: Palgrave McMillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230522541_6
Bryant, N. (2006). Black Man Who Was Crazy Enough to Apply to Ole Miss. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 53, pp. 60-71.
Cahodas, N. (1998). Princess Noire. The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone. Nueva York: Pantheon Books.
Carawan, G. y Carawan, C. (1992). Sing for Freedom. The Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through its Songs. Bethlehem: A Sing Out Publication.
Carmichael, S. y Hamilton, C. V. (1992). Black Power: The Politics of Liberation. New York: Vintage Books.
Clinton, H. (2009). Revolution in the air. The Songs of Bob Dylan. 1957-1973. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.
Cohen, A. (2019). Move on Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226653174.001.0001
Collins, A. (2003). Songs Sung Red, White and Blue: The Stories Behind America’s Best-Loved Patriotic Songs. Nueva York: Harper Collins.
Denning, M. (1996). The Cultural Front: The Labouring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century. Nueva York: Verso.
Dunson, J. (1965). Freedom in the Air. Song Movements of the 60’s. Nueva York: International Publishers.
Eagles, C. W. (2009). The Fight for Men’s Minds: The Aftermath of the Ole Miss Riot of 1962. The Journal of Mississippi History, 71(1), pp. 1-53.
Eliot, M. (1989). Phil Ochs. The Death of a Rebel. Nueva York: Omnibus Press.
Estes, S. (2015). Charleston in Black and White. Race and Power in the South After the Civil Rights Movement. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469622323.001.0001
Fernández Ferrer, A. (2007). La canción folk norteamericana. Granada: Universidad de Granada.
Forcucci, S. L. (1984). A Folk Song History of America. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Fuss, Ch. J. (1996). Joan Baez. A Bio-Bibliography. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Gaines, M. (2013). The Quadruple Consciousness of Nina Simone. Women&Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, 23(2), pp. 248-267. https://doi.org/10.1080/0740770X.2013.825428
Glen, J. M. (1988). Highlander: No Ordinary School, 1932-1962. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.
Gourse, L. (1997). The Billie Holiday Companion. Seven Decades of Commentary. Nueva York: Schirmer.
Greene, M. (2007). Billie Holiday. A Biography. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Greene, M. E. (1943). Josh White Starts Them Listening. Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life, January, 1943, pp. 112-114.
Greenway, J. (1953). American Folksong of Protest. Filadelfia: Pennsylvania University Press.
Hendrickson, P. (2005). The Ladies Before Rosa: Let Us Now Praise Unfamous Women. Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 8(2), pp. 287-298. https://doi.org/10.1353/rap.2005.0076
Heylin, C. (2009). Revolution in the Air. The Songs of Bob Dylan, 1957-1973. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.
Hill, L. (2004). The Deacons for Defense. Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Horton, M.; Freire, P. (1990). We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change. Filadelfia: Temple University Press.
Hughes, Ch. (2009). Allowed to be Free: Bob Dylan and the Civil Rights Movement. En C. J. Sheehy y S. Thomas. Highway 61 revisited (pp. 44-59). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Jackson, M.; McLeod, E. W. (1966). Movin’ on up. Nueva York: Hawthorn Books.
Jones, M. (1995). Historia de Estados Unidos, 1607-1992. Madrid: Cátedra.
Kennedy, D. M. (2005). Entre el miedo y la libertad. Los EE. UU.: de la Gran Depresión al fin de la Segunda Guerra Mundial (1929-1945). Barcelona: Edhasa.
Kolin, P. C. (2009). Emmett Till in Music and Song. Southern Cultures, 15(3), pp. 115-138. https://doi.org/10.1353/scu.0.0072
Korstad, R. R. (2003). Civil Rights Unionism. Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth Century South. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. https://doi.org/10.5149/uncp/9780807854549
Lafayette, B. (2008). Freedom Rider Diary. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Lafayette, B. (2013). In Peace and Freedom. Lexington: University of Kentucky.
Levy, Peter. B. (2018). The Great Uprising. London: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108381659
Light, A. (2016). What Happened, Miss Simone? A Biography. Nueva York: Crown Publishing Group.
Lowery, C. D. y Marszalek, J. F. (1992). Encyclopedia of the African-American Civil Rights. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Lynskey, D. (2011). 33 Revolutions per Minute. A History of Protest Songs from Billie Holiday to Greenday. Nueva York: Harper Collins.
Malone, B. C. (2008). The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Maly, M. T. (2005). Beyond Segregation: Multiracial and Multiethnic Neighbourhoods. Filadelfia: Temple University Press.
Margolick, D. (2000). Strange Fruit. Nueva York: The Ecco Press.
Martin, B. D. (2004). The Theatre Is in the Street: Politics and Public Performance in 1960s America. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
McAdam, D. (1988). Freedom Summer. Nueva York: Oxford University Press.
McGuire, P. (1983). A Jim Crow Army. Letters from Black Soldiers in World War II. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
McWhorter, D. (2008). The Enduring Courage of the Freedom Riders. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 61, pp. 66-73.
Merriam, A. (1964): The Anthropology of Music. Evanston: Northwestern University.
Mitchell, G. (2007). The North American Folk Music Revival. Burlington: Ashgate.
Morrison, M. K. C. (1987). Black Political Mobilization. Leadership, Power & Mass Behavior. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Peretti, B. W. (2009). Lift Every Voice. The History of African American Music. Lanham: Rowman&Littlefield Publishing Group.
Perry, S. (2013). Strange Fruit, Ekphrasis, and the Lynching Scene. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 43(5), pp. 449-474. https://doi.org/10.1080/02773945.2013.839822
Reed, T. V (2005). The Art of Protest. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Reiland, R. (2016). Civil Rights Music. The Soundtrack of the Civil Rights Movement. Londres: Lexington Books.
Riley, T. (1999). Hard Rain. A Dylan Commentary. Nueva York: Da Capo Press.
Rotolo, S. (2008). A Freewheelin’ Time. A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties. Nueva York: Broadway Books.
Schumacher, M. (1996). There but fortune. The Life of Phil Ochs. Nueva York: Hyperion.
Simone, N. (1991). The Autobiography of Nina Simone with Steve Cleary. I Put a Spell on You. Nueva York: Pantheon Books.
Smith, R. J. (2012). The Life and Music of James Brown. Londres: Penguin.
Southern, E. (1997). The Music of Black Americans. A History. Nueva York: W & W. Norton Company.
Spener, D. (2016). We Shall Not Be Moved. Filadelfia: Temple University Press. https://doi.org/10.26530/OAPEN_605458
Stanton, M. (2003). Freedom Walk: Mississippi or Bust. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Taylor, J.; Israelson, C. (2015). The Political World of Bob Dylan. Freedom and Justice, Power and Sin. Nueva York: Palgrave McMillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137477477
Turck, M. C. (2009). Freedom Voices. Young Voices and the Struggle for Civil Rights. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.
Wald, E. (2002). Josh White. Society Blues. Nueva York: Routledge.
Wilde, L. (2004). The Cry of Humanity: Dylan’s Expressionist Period. En G. Browning y D. Boucher (eds.), The Political Art of Bob Dylan (pp. 79-104). Nueva York: Palgrave McMillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230522541_5
Williams, P. (1990). Performing artist. The music of Bob Dylan. Volume One. 1960-1973. Lancaster: Underwood-Miller.
Wood, A. L. (2009). Lynching and Spectacle. Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. https://doi.org/10.5149/9780807878118_wood
Barkley, E. F. (2007). Crossroads. The Multicultural Roots of America’s Popular Music. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Barnet, R. D., Nemerov, B., Taylor, M. R. (2004). The Story Behind the Song. 150 Songs that Chronicle the 20th Century. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Boucher, D. (2004). Images and Distorted Facts: Politics, Poetry and Protest in the Songs of Bob Dylan. En G. Browning, D. Boucher (eds.), The Political Art of Bob Dylan (pp. 134-169). Nueva York: Palgrave McMillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230522541_7
Broadwater, A. (2015). Marian Anderson. Diva and Humanitarian. Berkeley Heights: Enslow Publishers.
Brown Tindall, G. y Emory Shi, D. (2007). America. A Narrative History. Londres: W. W. Norton.
Brown, L. L. (2010). John Coltrane and Black America’s Quest for Freedom. Nueva York: Oxford University Press.
Brown, R. (2004). Bob Dylan’s Critique of Judgement: ‘Thinking’ about the Law. En G. Browning, D. Boucher (eds.), The Political Art of Bob Dylan (pp. 34-54). Nueva York: Palgrave McMillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230522541_3
Browning, G. (2004). Dylan and Lyotard: Is It Happening? En G. Browning, D. Boucher (eds.), The Political Art of Bob Dylan (pp. 105-133). Nueva York: Palgrave McMillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230522541_6
Bryant, N. (2006). Black Man Who Was Crazy Enough to Apply to Ole Miss. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 53, pp. 60-71.
Cahodas, N. (1998). Princess Noire. The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone. Nueva York: Pantheon Books.
Carawan, G. y Carawan, C. (1992). Sing for Freedom. The Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through its Songs. Bethlehem: A Sing Out Publication.
Carmichael, S. y Hamilton, C. V. (1992). Black Power: The Politics of Liberation. New York: Vintage Books.
Clinton, H. (2009). Revolution in the air. The Songs of Bob Dylan. 1957-1973. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.
Cohen, A. (2019). Move on Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226653174.001.0001
Collins, A. (2003). Songs Sung Red, White and Blue: The Stories Behind America’s Best-Loved Patriotic Songs. Nueva York: Harper Collins.
Denning, M. (1996). The Cultural Front: The Labouring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century. Nueva York: Verso.
Dunson, J. (1965). Freedom in the Air. Song Movements of the 60’s. Nueva York: International Publishers.
Eagles, C. W. (2009). The Fight for Men’s Minds: The Aftermath of the Ole Miss Riot of 1962. The Journal of Mississippi History, 71(1), pp. 1-53.
Eliot, M. (1989). Phil Ochs. The Death of a Rebel. Nueva York: Omnibus Press.
Estes, S. (2015). Charleston in Black and White. Race and Power in the South After the Civil Rights Movement. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469622323.001.0001
Fernández Ferrer, A. (2007). La canción folk norteamericana. Granada: Universidad de Granada.
Forcucci, S. L. (1984). A Folk Song History of America. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Fuss, Ch. J. (1996). Joan Baez. A Bio-Bibliography. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Gaines, M. (2013). The Quadruple Consciousness of Nina Simone. Women&Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, 23(2), pp. 248-267. https://doi.org/10.1080/0740770X.2013.825428
Glen, J. M. (1988). Highlander: No Ordinary School, 1932-1962. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.
Gourse, L. (1997). The Billie Holiday Companion. Seven Decades of Commentary. Nueva York: Schirmer.
Greene, M. (2007). Billie Holiday. A Biography. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Greene, M. E. (1943). Josh White Starts Them Listening. Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life, January, 1943, pp. 112-114.
Greenway, J. (1953). American Folksong of Protest. Filadelfia: Pennsylvania University Press.
Hendrickson, P. (2005). The Ladies Before Rosa: Let Us Now Praise Unfamous Women. Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 8(2), pp. 287-298. https://doi.org/10.1353/rap.2005.0076
Heylin, C. (2009). Revolution in the Air. The Songs of Bob Dylan, 1957-1973. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.
Hill, L. (2004). The Deacons for Defense. Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Horton, M.; Freire, P. (1990). We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change. Filadelfia: Temple University Press.
Hughes, Ch. (2009). Allowed to be Free: Bob Dylan and the Civil Rights Movement. En C. J. Sheehy y S. Thomas. Highway 61 revisited (pp. 44-59). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Jackson, M.; McLeod, E. W. (1966). Movin’ on up. Nueva York: Hawthorn Books.
Jones, M. (1995). Historia de Estados Unidos, 1607-1992. Madrid: Cátedra.
Kennedy, D. M. (2005). Entre el miedo y la libertad. Los EE. UU.: de la Gran Depresión al fin de la Segunda Guerra Mundial (1929-1945). Barcelona: Edhasa.
Kolin, P. C. (2009). Emmett Till in Music and Song. Southern Cultures, 15(3), pp. 115-138. https://doi.org/10.1353/scu.0.0072
Korstad, R. R. (2003). Civil Rights Unionism. Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth Century South. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. https://doi.org/10.5149/uncp/9780807854549
Lafayette, B. (2008). Freedom Rider Diary. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Lafayette, B. (2013). In Peace and Freedom. Lexington: University of Kentucky.
Levy, Peter. B. (2018). The Great Uprising. London: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108381659
Light, A. (2016). What Happened, Miss Simone? A Biography. Nueva York: Crown Publishing Group.
Lowery, C. D. y Marszalek, J. F. (1992). Encyclopedia of the African-American Civil Rights. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Lynskey, D. (2011). 33 Revolutions per Minute. A History of Protest Songs from Billie Holiday to Greenday. Nueva York: Harper Collins.
Malone, B. C. (2008). The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Maly, M. T. (2005). Beyond Segregation: Multiracial and Multiethnic Neighbourhoods. Filadelfia: Temple University Press.
Margolick, D. (2000). Strange Fruit. Nueva York: The Ecco Press.
Martin, B. D. (2004). The Theatre Is in the Street: Politics and Public Performance in 1960s America. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
McAdam, D. (1988). Freedom Summer. Nueva York: Oxford University Press.
McGuire, P. (1983). A Jim Crow Army. Letters from Black Soldiers in World War II. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
McWhorter, D. (2008). The Enduring Courage of the Freedom Riders. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 61, pp. 66-73.
Merriam, A. (1964): The Anthropology of Music. Evanston: Northwestern University.
Mitchell, G. (2007). The North American Folk Music Revival. Burlington: Ashgate.
Morrison, M. K. C. (1987). Black Political Mobilization. Leadership, Power & Mass Behavior. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Peretti, B. W. (2009). Lift Every Voice. The History of African American Music. Lanham: Rowman&Littlefield Publishing Group.
Perry, S. (2013). Strange Fruit, Ekphrasis, and the Lynching Scene. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 43(5), pp. 449-474. https://doi.org/10.1080/02773945.2013.839822
Reed, T. V (2005). The Art of Protest. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Reiland, R. (2016). Civil Rights Music. The Soundtrack of the Civil Rights Movement. Londres: Lexington Books.
Riley, T. (1999). Hard Rain. A Dylan Commentary. Nueva York: Da Capo Press.
Rotolo, S. (2008). A Freewheelin’ Time. A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties. Nueva York: Broadway Books.
Schumacher, M. (1996). There but fortune. The Life of Phil Ochs. Nueva York: Hyperion.
Simone, N. (1991). The Autobiography of Nina Simone with Steve Cleary. I Put a Spell on You. Nueva York: Pantheon Books.
Smith, R. J. (2012). The Life and Music of James Brown. Londres: Penguin.
Southern, E. (1997). The Music of Black Americans. A History. Nueva York: W & W. Norton Company.
Spener, D. (2016). We Shall Not Be Moved. Filadelfia: Temple University Press. https://doi.org/10.26530/OAPEN_605458
Stanton, M. (2003). Freedom Walk: Mississippi or Bust. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Taylor, J.; Israelson, C. (2015). The Political World of Bob Dylan. Freedom and Justice, Power and Sin. Nueva York: Palgrave McMillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137477477
Turck, M. C. (2009). Freedom Voices. Young Voices and the Struggle for Civil Rights. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.
Wald, E. (2002). Josh White. Society Blues. Nueva York: Routledge.
Wilde, L. (2004). The Cry of Humanity: Dylan’s Expressionist Period. En G. Browning y D. Boucher (eds.), The Political Art of Bob Dylan (pp. 79-104). Nueva York: Palgrave McMillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230522541_5
Williams, P. (1990). Performing artist. The music of Bob Dylan. Volume One. 1960-1973. Lancaster: Underwood-Miller.
Wood, A. L. (2009). Lynching and Spectacle. Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. https://doi.org/10.5149/9780807878118_wood
García Martín, J. A. (2022). The Struggle Against Segregation and for Civil Rights in the United States: An Approximation Through American Protest-Song. El Futuro Del Pasado, 13, 451–504. https://doi.org/10.14201/fdp.27376
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