For African Americans, gaining freedom has been a hard struggle. Through the Civil Rights Movement that continued well into the 1970s, African Americans fought to gain rights that would allow them the most basic privileges. Though not enslaved anymore, African Americans quickly learned that freedom was not as easy or what they thought it would be. “Freedom” was a white man’s life that included equality within all aspects of life and no discrimination. After returning from war, African American men began to want more equal rights and opportunities, they expected justice form the country that they had fought for. This included the right to vote, citizenship, and desegregation. For every black man and woman, no opportunity was simply given. If they were accepted, it was with criticism and discrimination. With the new freedom that disco music gave black artists, they began to have more options within society. With Disco, black men were given the opportunity to become more than the stereotype. They brought forth a new sophistication, masculinity and sexuality that allowed black “soul music” to create a stake for itself in popular culture and the music industry. “Disco provided a partial map of black America’s shifting relationship to masculinity, upward mobility, and politics in the post-civil rights era.” Their music, though many times seen as a form of conformity and a rip-off of pop music, gave them a presence. It allowed them to “move beyond stultifying racial categorizations that confined them.” No longer were they confined to the accepted stereotype of a male; they started be seen as smooth, lovable, and sexual, everything women wanted and began to respond to. While their music gave men new freedom, many people criticized thei...
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...t about the glitz and the glam of drag queens, sexuality, and throbbing dance floors; it gave those excluded groups the courage to fight for a place in society and caused them to gain that freedom. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed,” disco gave African American men, gays, and women the strength the demand their freedom, it wasn’t being given after years of movements so through disco and their music, they stood together and fought for it and won it.
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The African-American civil rights movement was a cruel time for the African American race to endure due to the harsh discrimination and segregation that they faced. This movement fought for the rights and the equality of African Americans in the United States. With all that was going on, African Americans turned to music for motivation, courage, inspiration and strength to overcome the difficult obstacles that they would soon face. “Non-violence marchers faced beating, hosing, burning, shooting, or jail with no defense other than their courage and songs” (Hast 45). “It's been a long, a long time coming/ But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will” (Cooke, Sam. A Change Is Gonna Come). Music was their greatest hope for change in the near future and is the thing that kept them fighting for what they deserved. They came together with each other due to the lyrics of many different songs that kept the civil rights movement alive and known. Music painted a vision that they could picture and look forward to; it was a dream that they could fight for. “Music empowered African Americans to hold tight to their dream of racial equality” (Jeske). A genre of music that bought society together during this movement was folk.
Segregation and discrimination in America was a serious social issue that affected the lifestyle of African-Americans in the 1960’s and the civil rights movement was a social movement that had an aim of ending racial inequalities. As a result of the segregation between these two cultures, there was a lot of rising racial tension which consequently led to the culmination of race riots. The social issues at that time played a significant part in Gordy’s success in the production of Motown as he wanted to produce the “sound of young America” regardless of one’s colour or race and to take this sound to wider audiences including Baby Boomers. “Motown was about music for all people- white and black, blue and green, cops and the robbers…I was reluctant to have our music alienate anyone…” (Gordy, 2011). According to Boyce (2008), the image and sound of Motown was all about the promotion of “cross over” music without the involvement of politics, but Gordy ended up showing some support for the civil rights movement as he recorded and distributed Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘The Great March to Freedom’ speech in 1963, later founding a Black Forum
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Rock n’ roll gave people the voice they did not have in the early years. As the genre of music became more wide spread, people actually began to speak out. Altschuler touches on the exploration of how the rock n' roll culture roughly integrated with replaced and conflicted with preceding cultural values. Many of these values were very touch topics. Besides black civil rights, sexuality were one of the most sensitive t...
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Rock ‘n’ roll and 20th Century Culture According to Philip Ennis, rock ‘n’ roll emerged from the convergence of social transformations which resulted from World War II (Ryan 927). Despite its pop culture origins, rock music is arguably one of the strongest cultural factors to develop in this century. Artists such as Lennon, McCartney and Dylan defined the emotions of a generation and, in the last decade, it as even been acknowledged by members of the establishment which it hoped to change as a major influence in the country. In order to understand how rock went from a sign of rebellion to a cultural icon, it is necessary to understand where it came from.
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The development of Rock ‘n’ Roll in the late 1940s and early 1950s by young African Americans coincided with a sensitive time in America. Civil rights movements were under way around the country as African Americans struggles to gain equal treatment and the same access to resources as their white neighbors. As courts began to vote in favor of integration, tensions between whites and blacks escalated. As the catchy rhythm of Rock ‘n’ Roll began to cross racial boundaries many whites began to feel threatened by the music, claiming its role in promoting integration. This became especially problematic as their youth became especially drawn to ...
Also Disco was the one music's that was to carry forward the ideas of the late 1960's "Hippy Philosophy" of "Making love not war". But with Disco music and culture it went onto carried on the Hippy philosophy of making love and not war - in more fun and acceptable way for one and all. If I do say so myself on a more grander and a more sophisticated level.