How Did Nina Simone Influence The Civil Rights Movement

During the 1960’s, Nina got involved with the current events – the civil rights fight – as an activist. Outraged by the events and her own struggles this led her to take action; She used her music to try to change society. Her music was often anthems for civil right movements - such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee - during the 1960s and 1970s. After almost 50 years of music, Nina Simone

Nina Simone used music to challenge, provoke, incite, and inform the masses during the period that we know as the Civil Rights Era. In the songs” Four Women”, “Young Gifted and Black”, and Mississippi God Damn”, Nina Simone musically maps a personal "intersectionality" as it relates to being a black American female artist. Kimberly Crenshaw defines "intersectionality" as an inability for black women to separate race, class and gender. Nina Simone’s music directly addresses this paradigm. While she is celebrated as a prolific artist her political and social activism is understated despite her front- line presence in the movement. According to Ruth Feldstein “Nina Simone recast black activism in the 1960’s.” Feldstein goes on to say

In the 1960’s, Nina became known as the “voice” of the Civil Rights Movement. One of her most famous songs, “Mississippi Goddamned,” was banned on southern radios because some say “goddam” was in the title. However many others and I believe it was because of the racial and social control system. “When she wrote it, Simone had been fed up with the country’s racial unrest. Medgar Evers, a Mississippi-born civil rights activist, was assassinated in his home state in 1963. That same year, the Ku Klux Klan bombed a Birmingham Baptist church and as a result, four young black girls were killed. Simone took to her notebook and piano to express her

Any artist uses their surroundings as inspiration. An African American female artist deal with being the underdog. The situations they were placed in, ended up being inspirational moments. These moments became inspirational because they were personal stories, life learned lessons, and life changing moments. This essay only mentions three strong, powerful, monumental women. However, there are many more females who have helped the African American woman artist culture. They are still hidden. It is essays like this that help spread their stories, and their art

In the 1920’s, blues was a very popular and dominating genre in the music industry. Generally, the blues was sung by African American women because according to the book entitled, “Blues Legacies and Black Feminism” by Angela Davis, “…The most widely heard individual purveyors of the blues—were women.” (Davis 4) The blues delivers certain emotions such as sadness, loneliness, love, sex, and feelings about the certain circumstances the artist may be going through at the time. Two women who dominate this style of music are Gertrude “Ma” Rainey and Bessie Smith. As stated by “Gay & Lesbian Biography”, “The careers of Rainey and Smith are closely interwoven.” Ma Rainey is a woman who is admired for both her amazing vocals and her ability to entertain. Bessie Smith is a woman who started off as a background dancer for her peer Ma Rainey, but then went on to emulate her by outdoing her success. Both women are very talented musicians who can not only sing and entertain, but they also create an impact as two of the most influential feminists during the 1920’s who helped shape the blues into what it is today.

She was the starving musician, the jazz singer who did all she could to stay alive and still do what she loves. The dedication she displayed to jazz is not easy to explain. She was a perfectionist in her fashion, depending upon her excellent ear, unique voice and honesty and love for people to keep her love alive.

Throughout African-American history, music has proven to be a powerful and transformative force. From slavery to the Civil Rights Movement, the use of song fortified spirit, serving as a guiding light for the oppressed group. Although it had a limited impact on the Civil Rights Movement, the use of music by the African-American community significantly conveyed the message of hope to those affected by racial oppression, which mustered strength and resilience within the people. The historical and sociocultural circumstance from which music emerged in the African-American community demonstrates its fundamental values. The contextual nature of song impacted its usage and the affect that this had on other methods of protest. Different Civil Rights

Throughout African American history, especially during slavery music has been used as a coping mechanism to assist one with enduring hardship and opposition. Music specifically jazz and the blues can have many boundless effects on one’s life. In this case, in Sonny’s life, music was his only source of hope and strength to redemption.

Born in New Orleans, in 1911, Mahalia Jackson, Gospel’s leading ambassador and advocate, grew up in a conservatively religious family, with church music playing a prominent role in her early years. At age sixteen, Jackson met the Gospel composer and arranger, Thomas A. Dorsey, who co-wrote her first hit, “Move up on a Little Higher”, sold over eighteen million copies. Heavily involved in the civil rights movement in the 1950s and ‘60s, Jackson was renowned for her energetic passionate vocal ability and style, singing with deep conviction. Close friend and passionate civil-rights activist, Dr. Martin Luther King, described Jackson’s contra-alto sound as, “A voice like this one comes not once in a century, but once in a millennium” (New Encyclopaedia, 2017). One of her famous adaptations, was the originally Negro spiritual, “How I Got Over”, which was sung before Martin Luther King’s famous Washington Speech, “I Had A Dream”, displaying the close connection in which Gospel music and the supporters

Florence Price is an essential figure in the musical world as well as in the history of African-Americans and females. Having published her first work by age 11, Ms. Price proceeded to create beautiful music and influence the world

Bessie Smith is an American Jazz musician in the genre of blues. She was born on the date of 15th April 1894. She is known to well for her dominance in the blues genre music in the span of around 1920s and 1930s. Bessie attributes her success, by working continuously with Louis Armstrong. Research indicates that Louis was a key inspiration when it comes to the perfection of jazz vocals. In her time, Bessie Smith proudly boasts as one of the best Blues musicians both in the US and the world as a whole. However, her life was cut short in 1937 on September 26th, in a fatal car accident. Regarding the above-mentioned information, this paper discusses more the life of Bessie Smith, collectively with the dominance in the Blue Music (Scott, 2008).

By most accounts, Bessie Smith was a rough, crude, violent woman. She was also one of the greatest Blues singers of the 1920s. The road that took her to the title “Empress of the Blues” was not an easy one. It was certainly not one of the romantic "rags to riches" tales that Horatio Alger made popular during her time. For a young black woman from the South the journey was anything but easy, and it would require a special kind of person, and Bessie Smith was definitely that. She was a woman who fought for what she believed in and backed down to no one. She had a boundless determination, which sometimes became a flaming hot temper, and no one was exempt from it. Yet these same experiences and temperament also expressed great loyalty to those

spread. But with fame came even heavier tasks as she caught the attention of the

Known as the “Empress Of Blues”, Bessie Smith was said to have revolutionized the vocal end of Blues Music. She showed a lot of pride as an independent African-American woman. Her style in performance and lyrics often reflected her lifestyle. Bessie Smith was one of the first female jazz artists, and she paved the way for many musicians who followed.

Mahalia Jackson was known as the “Gospel Queen” as she lived her life inspiring many African Americans. Jackson was born on October 26, 1911, into a poor family in New Orleans, Louisiana. She had six people in her family: her mother, Clarity Jackson; her father, John Jackson, Sr.; her brothers, Wilmon and John Jackson, Jr.; and her sisters, Pearl and Yvonne Jackson. Living in the segregated South, Jackson’s father had several jobs; he was a longshoreman, a barber, and a preacher. Her mother, the one who took care of the six as a devout Baptist, unfortunately, died when Jackson was five. Young Mahalia Jackson started singing at the age of 4 in Mount Moriah Baptist Church. In 1963, before Dr. King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, Mahalia Jackson sang an inspirational song called “I Been ‘Buked and I Been Scorned,” to over 200,000 people. Mahalia Jackson, unfortunately, died on January 27, 1972, never fulfilling her dream of building a nondenominational temple. Dedicated to Mahalia The Mahalia Jackson Theatre was built and is located in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was dedicated to the “Gospel Queen” for letting the world experience her music. Two major influences that impacted the life and music career of Mahalia Jackson were her religion and her family.