What does justice sound like? A personal civil rights playlist by Syreeta McFadden
http://fusion.net/listicle/45326/what-does-justice-sound-like-a-personal-civil-rights-playlist/
My education about the civil-rights movement didn’t come from a textbook; it was communicated in song.
Songs of the civil rights movement were the most effective weapon against injustice. Inwardly, they strengthened the individual’s spiritual resolve to the cause; outwardly, the voices multiplied by the tens of thousands demonstrated that they were a force to reckon with. The lyricism in gospel songs was subversive outside the church, carrying coded messages challenging the immorality of Jim Crow laws and aimed to shame the consciousness of those who enforced them: How can one be Christian and demean African-Americans?
The songs were, and are, a collective memory, a way to document the culture and spirit that sustained the movement.
Take Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s favorite hymn, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” which my grandmother taught us to sing.
