Chapter 15. The Song Culture of the Civil Rights Movement

Audio Examples

Go Tell It on the Mountain
"Go Tell It on the Mountain" is a traditional Christmas song heralding the birth of the Christ child. It was usually sung as an arranged spiritual by Black high school and college choirs. The verses come from the traditional repertoire and are also found in the spirituals "Go Down Moses" and "Wade in the Water." This song was recorded in Greenwood, Mississippi as a mass meeting with the songleading function carried out by a core of singers led by Fannie Lou Hamer.
(Smithsonian Folkways Recordings album #40084 1997)

We Shall Overcome
Led by Fannie Lou Hamer, the theme song of the Movement closed a mass meeting in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in 1964.
(Smithsonian Folkways Recordings album #40084 1997)

We Shall Not Be Moved
This song, a part of the Black sacred song repertoire, was one of several used throughout the union drives to organize Black laborers during the 1930's and the 1940's. Here the original SNCC Freedom Singers are led by Rutha Harria, who used the darkest and heaviest qualities of her voice when singing traditional songs.
(Smithsonian Folkways Recordings album #40084 1997)

Notes for these examples were written by Bernice Johnson Reagon and accompanied the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings album titled Voices of the Civil Rights Movement, Black American Freedom Songs 1960-1966. Musical examples were taken from the same album.

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