# data[].attributes.body
Gospel music was predominently sung by enslaved peoples in the 1600s. It was a way for them to process and exemplify their feelings about their lives. At first it was labeled "African American Spiritual" but later became known as gospel due to its heavy religious affiliations with Christain churches. It rose to prominence in the 1930's. Some churches weren't to fond of the new taste in music since it dabbled heavily into "secular music" such as jazz, blues, and ragtime. I think that gospel is important becuase it shows the maleability of music, not can it only be jazz, rock, or rap, it can also be something used for cultural traditions.

https://www.loc.gov/collections/songs-of-america/articles-and-essays/musical-styles/ritual-and-worship/african-american-gospel

# data[].attributes.body
The Declaration of Independence was influential to the American Revolution. It was meant to showcase to the world (through the power of the press) that America was breaking away from British rule to govern itself. For many in the time period of 1770, they were tired of the taxes they had to pay to the king along with being occupied. They could barely earn a proper living, nor did they get representation in Parliament. This is very important as it is the cornerstone (along with the Constituiton) of our American Society.

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

https://bensguide.gpo.gov/m-declaration-of-independence-1776#:~:text=On%20July%202%2C%201776%2C%20the,American%20colonies%20from%20Great%20Britain.

# data[].attributes.body
Nobody knows the true origins of the Blues but William Christopher Handy is titled "The Father of the Blues" because he popularized it. He heard a man playing a guitar with a knife and singing what would soon to be known as the Blues. William took this inspiration and ran with it. It spread from Mississippi to other parts of the US due to travelling singers and eventually became ingrained within many aspects of music. The Blues are often somber and harmonic, containing the deep feelings of those who sing it. This is important because it influenced all forms of HipHop that we see today along with Gospel and more! Music is just another avenue to express the love or disdain for this world or governmental structures that many use it for.

https://www.allaboutbluesmusic.com/the-origins-of-blues-music/

https://www.pbs.org/theblues/classroom/essaysblues.html

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
All About Blues Music | Life is too short for boring music

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The story of the Blues began in northwestern Mississippi in the late 1800's. It was initially a folk music popular among former slaves living in the Mississippi Delta, the flat plain between the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers. With the Great Migration of black workers that began around that time the Blues spread around the south and the rest of the United States.

The Blues was performed in a variety of settings and styles: musicians often played in 'tent shows' while accompanying travelling doctors, musical companies, comedians, magicians, and even circuses. Ballads would be played, as well as ragtime, Gospel songs, and folk tunes. From the Atlantic coast all the way down to the Gulf-and across time-the melancholy flatted notes of the Blues reached many. The typical Blues scale, using flattened notes, was taken up enthusiastically by New Orleans' Jazz musicians, and it became a cornerstone of this 'citified cousin' of country Blues in the early years of the century. When a show reached a town or city, they would perform in the theatres, but always to segregated audiences. The organisers would put on special performances for their white patrons, because strict 'Jim Crow' laws prevented integrated crowds but, on the up-side, this arrangement gave Black performers full ownership of the form on their own terms. The black churches were also independent, and the Gospel music that celebrated their resistance, solidarity and joy, also had the flattened notes of the Blues scale and the 'call and response' vocals typical of the Blues.

Wandering Songsters

These traveling musicians would do anything to get around and make their shows, whether it was hitching train rides or playing on sidewalks when the clubs and juke-joints were too full. They also played at brothels and drinking halls and sport lounges; when workers got paid they would be there to congratulate and entertain them. Pianists playing in these establishments adapted the Blues to the wild atmosphere of these places, further popularizing the genre. As long as he had his harmonica and guitar there was nowhere the traveling Blues musician couldn't go or play.

The Blues they played wasn't always melancholy: much of it was lively and up-tempo, matching the atmosphere of the clubs and dance halls musicians played in. It was a great outlet for the plantation and factory workers around the United States, who endured many hardships daily. Throughout history the Blues has been a great outlet for expressing life's hardships, but it is also great for expressing joy and celebration, which has made it so timeless and relatable to all who have heard it.

The 'Father of the Blues'.

W. C. Handy

While is there isn't a definite origin as to who exactly created the Blues, we do have a good idea as to how it came to us today: W.C. Handy.

William Christopher Handy was born in Alabama in 1873 and who worked a number of odd jobs before establishing himself as both a musician and a music teacher. He was raised in a strict household that forbade musical instruments, but he secretly bought a guitar and spent hours practicing the trumpet in his first band.

In 1903 he was appointed as bandleader of the Knights of Pythius Orchestra in Clarksdale, Mississippi after leaving a teaching post in Alabama. While waiting for a delayed train on tour he heard a man singing and playing guitar nearby. The man was pressing the blade of his knife on the strings, producing sliding chromatic notes along a three chord progression; the singing proved just as interesting, as he turned a boring wait into a captivating musical journey.

It made an impression on Handy, who described the performance as 'haunting'. With his talent and musical education he wasted no time in copying down his fellow traveler's 12-bar song structure that moved along those three chords, using flattened 'blue notes' too. The vocal part consisted of four bars that were repeated, answered by a third line. The result of this discovery would grow into the Blues as we know it today.

Handy was later commissioned to write a campaign song for the elections in his new home, Memphis, Tennessee by future mayor EH 'Boss' Crump. The twelve-bar opus was titled 'Memphis Blues' and is the first example of the music to be written and published as sheet music. Following that he established a music publishing house in New York City, as well as continuing his work as a bandleader. Through his work and contributions to the genre he earned the title 'Father of the Blues'.

W C Handy's Orchestra with 'St. Louis Blues';

The First Blues Singer (And the Blues Mother)

Ma Rainey

No birth is complete without a mother, and Ma Rainey was, for all intents and purposes, the mother of the Blues. Rainey was born Gertrude Pridgett in 1886 in Columbus, Georgia. She first made her name as a singer at a talent show at the age of 12, and by16 she joined parents' travelling musical act, where she continued earning her stripes.

Things changed after a show in Clarksdale when Gertrude heard a young woman singing a moving song about-you guessed it-lost love. Like W.C. Handy before her Gertrude had the brain for music and quickly memorized it, using it as the closing number in her act with much success. After marrying fellow musician William 'Pa' Rainey she adopted the moniker Ma Rainey and the two began performing as 'Ma and Pa Rainey- the Assassinators of the Blues'. The Blues Diva went on to enjoy a lengthy and fruitful, performing with the likes of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith, who was also her protegeé.

Her career is proof that hard work pays off: after 20 years of playing in backwater theaters she ended her career with millions of records sold and jam-packed concerts at some of the biggest theaters around.

Ma Rainey's 'Jelly Bean Blues' from 1924 has the young Louis Armstrong on cornet;

The men from Clarksdale.

Located in the heart of the Delta, Clarksdale has been dubbed the birthplace the Blues, with the exact spot attributed to the Dockery Plantation. Many sharecropping families and field workers occupied this space, including one Henry Sloan. Not much is known about Sloan, besides that he was born around 1870 and that he was a popular singer and guitarist by the 1900s. He was also a mentor to many future legends, including Charley Patton, Tommy Johnson, Willie Brown and the great Robert Johnson.

It was said that he boarded a train for Chicago in 1917 and simply vanished after that. It could be that it was Henry Sloan that W.C. Handy heard on that fateful day, adding even more mystery to his character, and solidifying his influence on the Blues. Regardless of the rumours his influence is far-reaching: from the electrifying Chicago Blues, to the Blues Revival of the 60s, and even into the birth of rock and roll, he inspired a generation of musicians into creating a cultural phenomenon that forever shaped a nation and music itself.

The Birth of Jazz

he story doesn't end here! Down in New Orleans something different was brewing, and it wasn't gumbo. The Blues scale's trademark flattened notes piqued the interest of enthusiastically by local musicians, who adopted it and formed a new style of music based off of it called 'Jazz'.

Often referred to as country Blues' 'urban cousin', it was widely popular and constantly performed in theatres, but always to segregated audiences due to the 'Jim Crow' laws of the day. There was a silver lining to this: black musicians still had full ownership of the music and played it as they saw fit.

It wasn't just the flatted notes that influenced Jazz: call and response singing had been perfectly transferred onto instruments, and the emotional roller coaster found new tracks to take listeners on.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The story of the Blues began in northwestern Mississippi in the late 1800's. It was initially a folk music popular among former slaves living in the Mississippi Delta, the flat plain between the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers. With the Great Migration of black workers that began around that time the Blues spread around the south and the rest of the United States.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Jacob Riis: Revealing "How the Other Half Lives" Riis and Reform

# data[].attributes.headline
Jacob Riis "How the Other Half Lives" -1890

# data[].attributes.subject
Jacob Riis "How the Other Half Lives" -1890

# data[].attributes.body
How The Other Half Lives is a book written by Jacob Riis, who used his power of free speech to attack the housing inequalities within the densely populated New York of 1890. Based on statistics and other info he gathered, he saw that the poorer citizens lived in dilapidated and unsanitary tenements. He pushed to have them rebuilt and updated to include better access to light, air, sanitation, fire safety and more. This is very important because it set a new health standard for these tenements and really reformed the regulations set around houses.

https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jacob-riis/riis-and-reform.html
https://nyujournalismprojects.org/portfolio/books/book287.html

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
New York City

When Jacob Riis published How the Other Half Lives in 1890, the U.S. Census Bureau ranked New York as the most densely populated city in the United States-1.5 million inhabitants. Riis claimed that per square mile, it was one of the most densely populated places on the planet. The city is pictured in this large-scale panoramic map, a popular cartographic form used to depict U.S. and Canadian cities and towns during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Known also as bird's-eye views or perspective maps, panoramic maps render places as if viewed from above at an oblique angle. Although not generally drawn to scale, they show street patterns, individual buildings, and major landscape features in perspective. This map helps visualize the extreme density, particularly in the Lower East and West Sides of Manhattan, and Jacob Riis's lifelong concern with ameliorating the lot of those that lived in its crowded slums.

Flat in Hell's Kitchen on the West Side

Riis wrote in his 1889 article for Scribner's Magazine, "How the Other Half Lives:" "Not that all the tenements above Fourteenth Street are good, or even better than those we have seen. There is Hell's Kitchen and Murderers' Row in the region of West-side slaughter-houses and three-cent whiskey. . . . " The couple in this photograph taken by Riis lived on New York City's West 38th Street in a barracks that covered an entire city block and lacked interior windows, ventilation, and indoor plumbing.

Jacob Riis. Flat in Hell's Kitchen, "Ruin," 1887-1889. Modern gelatin printing out paper. Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis, 199 (90.3.4.155) (003.00.00)

Fire Insurance Map

During the first half of the nineteenth century, most fire insurance companies were small and based in a single city. The underwriters could personally examine properties they were about to insure. As insurance companies became larger and expanded their coverage to numerous cities, a mapping industry developed to support the greater need. Insurance maps provided block-by-block inventories of existing buildings-such as the map of the New York City's Hell's Kitchen, home to a large population of Irish immigrants in Riis's time. The outline or footprint of each building is indicated, and the buildings are color coded to show the construction material: pink for brick, yellow for wood, and green indicated "specially hazardous risks" for insurers.

Children of the Dump

In the winter of 1892, Riis visited eleven of the city's sixteen riverside dumps to investigate the enforcement of two public health laws: one required that old rags be washed before resale, and the other forbade rag pickers from living in the dumps. He learned that neither law was enforced. Riis interviewed the rag pickers and took seven photographs, five of which were reproduced as line engravings in the Evening Sun. Riis saw women and children working and living in the dumps. He wrote: "I found boys who ought to have been at school, picking bones and sorting rags. They said that they slept there, and as the men did, why should they not? It was their home. They were children of the dump, literally."

Public Space

As older dense buildings gave way to new tenement design, Riis advocated for open-air parks for children, who previously had nowhere but the streets or the dark hallways and cramped back spaces of tenements to play. Riis helped raise support for small public parks and thought that every public school should have a playground. He believed in the right of boys and girls to play as part of healthy early child development, and as an outlet for energies that could instead be turned to lives of vice or crime. One of Jacob Riis's triumphs as a reformer was the creation of Mulberry Bend Park where crime-ridden housing had once been. Riis believed in the benefits of exposure to nature and also supported the idea of excursions for city kids to farms and meadows in the countryside.
Read the transcript
"Playgrounds as a Cure for City Crime," Brooklyn Times, April 27, 1900, from page in Riis's scrapbook. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (017.00.00)

Establishing Parks and Playgrounds

Riis photographed a privately funded, experimental playground at West 28th Street between 11th and 12th Avenues, the block pictured in the map above, where equipment was installed, and a janitor and two teachers were hired to watch the children. Riis described the park: "It was not exactly an attractive place. . . . But the children thought it lovely, and lovely it was for Poverty Gap, if not for Fifth Avenue." Riis helped establish several small public parks in tenement neighborhoods including a park on Rivington Street. This petition, signed by 300 school girls "to make the corporation yard at the foot of Rivington St. into a public play-ground," succeeded. Hamilton Fish Park opened in 1900.

Bandits' Roost

Bandits' Roost was an alley on Mulberry Street on New York's Lower East Side, where Italian immigrants paid excessive rent to live in "rear tenements," ramshackle structures that were added onto old houses. Riis, working with amateur photographers Richard Hoe Lawrence and Henry G. Piffard, took this photograph with a stereoscopic camera, which produced two side-by-side images: on the left is a woman with two small children; on the right, young "toughs" look warily at the camera. Riis led a ten-year crusade to clean up the area in which this photograph was taken; called "Mulberry Bend," it was notorious as a haven for gangs and criminal activity.

Piece Work-Cigar-Making

Riis devoted a chapter of How the Other Half Lives to "The Bohemians-Tenement-House Cigar Making." Riis described these Eastern European immigrants as working seventeen-hour days, seven days a week, inside their apartments rank with toxic fumes, making pennies an hour by stripping and drying piles of tobacco leaves and rolling finished products. In the Riis photograph, the parents work at the cigar mold and their oldest child, at the center of the frame, prepares the tobacco leaves for rolling.

Jacob Riis. Bohemian Cigar Makers at Work, 1889-1890. Modern gelatin printing out paper. Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis (90.13.4.149) (027.00.00)

Fire Insurance Map

During the first half of the nineteenth century, most fire insurance companies were small and based in a single city. The underwriters could personally examine properties they were about to insure. As insurance companies became larger and expanded their coverage to numerous cities, a mapping industry developed to support the greater need. Insurance maps provided block-by-block inventories of existing buildings-such as the map above of an area east of the Bowery where there was a dense concentration of Jewish tenement sweatshops. The outline or footprint of each building is indicated, and the buildings are color coded to show the construction material: pink for brick, yellow for wood, and green indicated "specially hazardous risks" for insurers.

Educating the Young

Pietro worked as a bootblack before he was hit by a streetcar and maimed. Riis made two photographs of the boy at his home on Jersey Street, where he was learning to write English, "in the hope of his doing something somewhere at sometime to make up for what he had lost." In the photograph above, the thirteen-year-old Pietro is shown with his mother and young sibling.

Riis believed that introducing immigrant children to the principles of American democracy would go a long way toward making them proud citizens. The administrator of the Beach Street Industrial School on the Lower East Side of New York asked the students to vote on whether the school day should begin with a salute to the American flag. Riis's photograph shows the students casting their ballots, monitored by the student election inspectors

Eldridge Street Station

In 1892 and 1893, Riis took photographs of the deplorable conditions of the police lodging houses, which served as the city's homeless shelters. These images illustrated his articles and a lecture at the Academy of Medicine in February 1893-a lecture Riis gave to garner support for closing the houses and replacing them with a municipal wayfarer's lodge. The police station lodging rooms at 87/89 Eldridge Street, located on the lower right portion of the map above, sheltered only women. When a sick man asked to stay for the night, he was placed in an empty room and laid down on the bare plank floor. It was soon discovered that he had typhus. Riis wrote:

It was a piece of good luck that it was this [station] the typhus lodger found his way, or there is no telling where the trail of contagion he would have started might have ended

In Jersey Street

An Italian family lived in this one-room, windowless home on Jersey Street, a few blocks from Riis's Mulberry Street office. Jersey Street in the map above is sandwiched between Prince and East Houston Streets and is crammed with the back-to-back tenements that Riis railed against. In Riis's photograph the family's possessions and furnishings, which includes a rolled mattress, barrel, and piles of clothes; a dustpan, a basin, a wooden pallet that may have served as a bed, and a cast iron stove and various containers, fill the frame. Riis commented on the Italian custom of swaddling: "You can see how they wrap [their babies] around and around until you can almost stand them on either end and they won't bend, so tightly are they bound."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Jacob Riis: Revealing "How the Other Half Lives" Riis and Reform

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Riis often said he was not alone in pressing for urban reform. As the Gilded Age ended, his sentimental appeals to Christian empathy were eclipsed by more organized means to combat poverty. New college educated Progressive reformers saw unionization, woman suffrage, protective legislation, and government intervention as ways to achieve far-reaching social change.

# data[].attributes.body
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was an expose on the meat-packing industry. In his book he discussed the horrors of the meat packing process which led to rats, spit and much more being mixed in with your meat. This book caught the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt who was appalled by the practices of these meat companies. Soon, laws and regulations were passed to make sure food was properly processed. Which led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-24-1-b-upton-sinclairs-the-jungle-muckraking-the-meat-packing-industry.html#:~:text=Sinclair's%20The%20Jungle%3A-,Muckraking%20the%20Meat%2DPacking%20Industry,new%20federal%20food%20safety%20laws.

# data[].attributes.body
During the time of the Vietnam War, Muhammad Ali refused to listen to the draft that summoned him to the battlefield. He said "No I will not go 10,000 miles to help kill innocent [brown] people". Looking at what kind of popularity he had in his hayday, his boxing career gave him a lot of influence within the community. When you include his deep affiliation with the Civil Rights Movement, and his amazing PR skills, it's no wonder why so many looked up to him.
I believe that him not wanting to fight and actively rebuking the mere notion of bringing freedom to other peoples through monstrous murders swayed many to rethink their plans to follow the draft. Despite all the money he lost, boxing licenses revoked, being blacklisted in the boxing community, and serving time in prison, he kept going hard against the Vietnam War, refusing to budge in his beliefs. This was a great use of his freedom of speech, religion, and press.

https://www.pbs.org/video/muhammad-ali-refuses-vietnam-war-draft-gqtvtv/#:~:text=When%20Ali%20arrived%20to%20be,a%20five%2Dyear%20prison%20sentence.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rainerzitelmann/2020/01/20/muhammad-aliworld-champion-in-self-marketing-and-pr/?sh=41a9f3223dda

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Muhammad Ali
Prior to his match against Foley, Ali received news he had been drafted to fight in Vietnam. When Ali arrived to be inducted in the United States Armed Forces, however, he refused, citing his religion forbade him from serving. The cost for his refusal would prove to be drastic: the stripping of his heavyweight title, a suspension from boxing, a $10,000 fine, and a five-year prison sentence.

Aired: 09/20/21

Rating: NR

From:

Problems Playing Video? Report a Problem |

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Muhammad Ali | Muhammad Ali Refuses the Vietnam War Draft | Episode 2 | PBS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Muhammad Ali Prior to his match against Foley, Ali received news he had been drafted to fight in Vietnam. When Ali arrived to be inducted in the United States Armed Forces, however, he refused, citing his religion forbade him from serving.

# data[].attributes.body
On the August 24, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech about his wishes regarding the Civil Rights Movement. In his speech he talked heavily about wanting to create a better society that people of all races and skin complexions can sit at the same table. Meaning that 1 race wasn't better than the other. This was him excersising his freedom of the press at the Lincoln Memorial at Washington D.C. This is very important because it led to a huge shift in the way our country runs and lessened many racial discriminations.

https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP4iY1TtS3s

# data[].attributes.headline
Sam Cooke "A Change Is Gonna Come" -1964

# data[].attributes.subject
Sam Cooke "A Change Is Gonna Come" -1964

# data[].attributes.body
Sam Cooke wrote "A Change is Gonna Come" during the Civil Rights Movement after being thrown out of a white-only motel. Many of his lyrics encapsulated the painful neglect and mistreatment Blacks were facing in the 60s. The title itself hints at the wanting-ness of change felt by the black community. "I go downtown somebody keep tellin' me don't hang around" I think this line specifically shows the discrimination they felt. Back then racial tensions were high and staying in a populated area for too long practically invited racist people to pick on you. Simply standing at a bus stop could get rocks thrown at you.
I grew up to my father listening to this song and he loved it. Not just because of Sam Cooke's amazing voice as he sang "I was booooooorrrn by the river!" but because of the deep messaging behind it. It's about not giving up, to keep fighting even when you are "knocked back on [your] knees". Eventually a change is gonna come.
There's a reason why social movements to this day still use this song as a rallying cry for hope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrAGbRHxyHs

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-unlikely-story-of-a-change-is-gonna-come

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sam Cooke - A Change Is Gonna Come {LYRICS}

# data[].attributes.headline
James Brown "Say It Loud - I'm Black And I'm Proud" -1968

# data[].attributes.subject
James Brown "Say It Loud - I'm Black And I'm Proud" -1968

# data[].attributes.body
"Look-a-here. Some people say we got a lottta malice, some say it's a lotta nerve. But I say we won't quit movin' until we get what we deserve. We've been buked and we've been scourned..."

This song dropped 4 months after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. With the Civil Rights Movement in full effect, it's support bulstered the fighting spirt of Black Americans. According to wbur.org, there was mass hysteria within the black community around whether or not they should accept their dark skin. People thought that their darker skin was simply making life harder for them, so they would "[put on makeup to lighten their skin]" in hopes that life would be easier in a white dominated society.
In the Brown's chorus, it repeats "Say it loud- Im black and Im proud" which is a call to the crowd to accept their heritage and skin complexion. Not only is this an effective use of free speech, but its also of the press and expression.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hj1iWqoYEc

https://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2018/07/24/james-brown-black-pride

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Say it Loud- I'm Black and Proud James Brown

# data[].attributes.headline
AI Robots Taking Our Jobs (21st century)

# data[].attributes.subject
AI Robots Taking Our Jobs (21st century)

# data[].attributes.body
The newest fear of Mankind? AI! It is here to steal your jobs, your life and even your WIFE! Have you truly thought about what would happen if you were suddenly replaced by capable computers devoid of emotion, exhaustion, and were fine with being slaves to the modernday work industry? Well I can tell you that that future looks pretty grim.
Lately AI has been on the rise and it's only improving. People are reporting that they "fear" AI eventually meeting and exceeding the quality of human produced works and replacing them. BBC.com and employers believe that we "[shouldn't worry about AI taking our jobs]" instead we should gain the skills to use it to our advantage. Creating a more symbiotic workflow using AI as a tool.
This is a very important topic to discuss because AI like ChatGPT is starting to become prominent in the world and its power almost seems limitless the more it gets updates. Eventually everyone will have to come to grips that AI is here to stay from now and forever...At least until we have a major power crises and the powergrid shuts down.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230418-ai-anxiety-artificial-intelligence-replace-jobs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Many workers worry AI is coming for their jobs. Can we get past the fear and find a silver lining?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.