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African American spirituals, gospel, and folk music all played an important role in the Civil Rights Movement. These songs, called freedom songs, motivated African Americans through long marches, helped create psychological strength against brutality, and conveyed the moral urgency of the freedom struggle.
In this presentation, I will show you five of the main freedom songs that made the most impact during the Civil Rights Movement.

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This being not only the most celebrated of all freedom song, but also offers a good illustration of cultural hybridism. For example, in 1959, when a Tennessee state police officer tried to forcibly close down Highlander in summer of 1959, a black high schooler named Mary Ethel Dozier added the verse, "We are not afraid". Her contribution was a perfect example of how freedom songs where often created, or recreated, in the very teeth of the ongoing struggle.

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In this song, Berry offered a partial allegory of the 1961 freedom rides organized by the CORE and continued by SNCC to protest the continued segregation of interstate transportation in the South. The song tells an imagery relating to the Exodus story of The Bible, that most potent of all tales of the escape to a better place, relating back to Freedom Riders and their goal of desegregation of interstate transportation in the South.

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In 1964, Nina Simone, a versatile musical genius who defined easy stylistic categorization by straddling all kinds of genres of music, most famously made the rollicking and darkly humorous, "Mississippi Goddamn" that excoriated the Jim Crow South and celebrated the strength of the black community as it struggled against discrimination.

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4. "A Change is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke

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4. "A Change is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke

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This song, made in 1964, was a self-penned song initially recorded for a benefit album to raise funds for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. All in all, in this song, Sam Cooke used his remarkably supple voice and gospel sensibilities to protest racism and encourage faith in the possibilities for a more egalitarian world.

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5. "This Little Light of Mine" reworked by Betty Mae Fikes

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5. "This Little Light of Mine" reworked by Betty Mae Fikes

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Last but not least, is this outstanding rework of an existing freedom song, captured local details of the struggle in Selma, Alabama. In 1965, Fikes defiantly told archetypal racist Southern law officers Jim Clark and Al Lingo- that where involved in Bloody Sunday - that she and her colleagues intended t keep the light of freedom burning despite the brutality they faced in purist of voting rights. In result, influencing many other African American protesters during the Civil Rights Movement.

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Through the 1950's and 1960's, tons of rhythm-and-blues and soul songs like these five spoke to the growth of black pride, the view of African Americans, the beauties of black culture, and the specifics of the civil rights struggle.

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Libary of Congress. (2021). LIBARY OF CONGRESS. Retrieved from Libary of Congress Web site: https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-rights-history-project/articles-and-essays/music-in-the-civil-rights-movement/

Ward, B. (2019). The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Retrieved from AP US History Study Guide Web site: https://ap.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/civil-rights-movement/essays/%E2%80%9Cpeople-get-ready%E2%80%9D-music-and-civil-rights-movement-1950s