Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Nina Simone a civil right leader
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Nina Simone a civil right leader
Over and over again critics write about Nina Simone’s power and charisma throughout the Civil Rights Movement. She sang the words of an entire movement, “All I want is equality/ for my sister, my brother, my people, and me./ Yes, you lied to me all these years”(Simone Mississippi). She sang out for her entire race, and with a “smoky- toned” voice, when four young girls were killed in a church bombing (Lewis). She sang “Will my country fall, stand or fall?/ Is it too late for us all?/ And did Martin Luther King just die in vain? (Simone Why?) after the death of MLK. Nina Simone… a singer with many different voices, a singer who denies categorization, a woman who is genre-less to prove a point.
"'It's always been my aim to stay outside any category'. 'That's my freedom,'" she insisted to one reporter. But it was a "freedom" that, according to biographer David Nathan, "drove industry pundits and the music press crazy as they tried to categorize her" (Brooks). Critics have tried to catalog her in genres ranging from the most obvious, jazz, to “wing to bebop to free jazz within which...
“We Shall Overcome” was a popular song of comfort and strength during the civil rights movement; it was a rallying cry for many black people who had experienced the racial injustices of the south. The song instilled hope that one day they would “overcome” the overt and institutional racism preventing them from possessing the same rights as white citizens. Anne Moody describes several instances when this song helped uplift her through the low points of her life as a black woman growing up in Mississippi in the 1950s and early 1960s. By the end of her autobiography “Coming Of Age In Mississippi” (1968), she saw a stream of excessive and unending violence perpetrated by white people and the crippling effects of poverty on the black people of
...ng to this day, she is one of few who could compete with the men of hip-hop, but she never pretended to be anything but a woman. She not only sang about female empowerment, but she wrote about being a woman from the insecurities that we as women sometimes feel to the nirvana of being in love. Sensuality and femininity were always as important to her which was her strength, and message to get out to women especially those of color.
This piece of auto biographical works is one of the greatest pieces of literature and will continue to inspire young and old black Americans to this day be cause of her hard and racially tense background is what produced an eloquent piece of work that feels at times more fiction than non fiction
In Liz Garbus’ documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone?, displays the life of musician and activist Nina Simone. The documentary follows different experiences of her life that were critical to the development of Nina Simone over the years. Born in Tryon, North Carolina by the name of Eunice Waymon she aspired to be a classical pianist, but as she got older and began playing in bars she changed her focus to performing and singing. The film then describes the success of her career and her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement to the very personal aspects of her life dealing with her abusive husband/manager Andrew Stroud and her continuous depression.
The movie Lady Day: The Many Faces Of Billie Holiday paints an interesting, and thought provoking portrait of one of jazz and blues most charismatic, and influential artists. The incomparable talent of Billie Holiday, both truth and legend are immortalized in this one-hour documentary film. The film follows Holiday, also referred to as “Lady Day” or “Lady”, through the many triumphs and trials of her career, and does it’s very best to separate the facts from fiction. Her autobiography Lady Sings The Blues is used as a rough guide of how she desired her life story to be viewed by her public. Those who knew her, worked with her, and loved her paint a different picture than this popular, and mostly fictional autobiography.
Her family ties to the south, her unique talent, her ability to travel and make money are similar to the Blues women movement that preceded her. It can be said that Nina Simone goes a step further the by directly attacking inequities pertaining to race and gender in her music. However, what distinguishes her is her unique musicianship and that is what ultimately garners her massive exposure and experiences than those of her past contemporaries. Like the Blues women Simone expands ideas pertaining to self-expression, identity and beauty as they relate to black women. She does this by embracing what is definitively African American and connecting that to a historical context. By doing so she is the embodiment of a political statement. Her journey which began like many entertaine...
“When I sing, I don't want them to see that my face is black. I don't want them to see that my face is white. I want them to see my soul. And that is colorless.” Marian Anderson, an African American opera singer, was not only known for her soprano to bass voice range, but also for her positive attitude on being a black singer during the Civil Rights Movement (Bio). Although Marian is not widely known today, her success at such a young age, numerous famous performances, perseverance during the Constitution Hall incident, and her attitude after the incident caused not only Americans, but presidents to look at civil rights differently.
She used her music to speak out on the injustices that she saw black people face as a community. Eventually, within her music career there would be a shift in the use of her music for individual gain to community advancement, which signaled her deliberate entrance into the movement . As she became more politicized in her musical career, she made sure that she reflected this change on an aesthetic level as well. She replaced her wigs with Afros and wore African garb during her performances . She explicitly made it clear with whom her alliance lied. One of the prevalent arguments around Nina Simone, is that her involvement in the Civil Rights and Black Power movement, ultimately led to the decline and eventual end of her career. During her career, after aligning with both movements, would make controversial statements during her performances. These statements such as, “certain songs [are] for all you black folk out there” was seen as controversial considering the fact that the majority of her audience was white . As she began to fully embrace her blackness and advocate for the black community, she was also at the same time creating distance between herself and the white community that used to regularly consume her
Her stage career began in 1919 in the United States when she toured with The Jones Family Band and The Dixie Steppers (About Josephine Baker). During that time she did comical skits, but wished to advance to a chorus girl. Originally she was thought to be “too skinny and too dark,” but when one of the dancers left, she was able to fill in (About). The audience loved her.
The words “civil rights” trigger a sense in the human mind. One of remorse, passion, and hope in a cause worth fighting for. Those weathered by its raging storms refer to it as a turning point in American life after over a century under segregation that can only be described as a necessary silence that African Americans were forced to take on the matter. However, the human mind found itself a way to express those feelings that flowed from its veins. That expression of power and revolt was music. Music acted as the horses that pulled pearlescent chariots of liberty and freedom to the front doors of the White House through public protests, involvement of musical artists, and its impact on the lives and culture of those who were oppressed. As a person against “civil rights”, it was viewed as a very simple matter, the music of the era was the devil’s work and needed to be stopped. Those approving of “civil rights” just pushed the activists further and further to the freedoms they believed that African Americans deserved.
During the Civil Rights Movement, Bob Dylan used his talent of music as his tool to help the movement sweep through the nation. Dylan had very big ambitions for not only his life alone, but for the world. Dylan had a massive influence on people’s minds, hearts, and souls. Dylan had a message to share. He was looking for a change, and it would come along if he had anything to do with it.
This scene from The Jazz Singer (1927) starts with Jakie Rabinowitz (Al Jolson) talking to the audience in the nightclub he is preforming in that night. To get them excited, he tells them “you ain’t heard nothin’!”and he then begins to animatedly sing and dance around the stage. The camera cuts back and forth between the audience and Jackie as he preforms. The audience claps along as he sings and at the end of the song it cuts to a long shot of the crowd. They clap as Jackie stands on the stage looking down appreciatively at them. This scene is important to note because it contains the elements of a musical and, importantly, it is where the musical genre began.
Joan Baez, a famous folk singer, sang her most famous song “Oh Freedom” during the civil rights movement. She expressed her want and need for equality and freedom f...
...nspired to make a change that she knew that nothing could stop her, not even her family. In a way, she seemed to want to prove that she could rise above the rest. She refused to let fear eat at her and inflict in her the weakness that poisoned her family. As a child she was a witness to too much violence and pain and much too often she could feel the hopelessness that many African Americans felt. She was set in her beliefs to make choices freely and help others like herself do so as well.
Toni Morrison’s Jazz is an eclectic reading based on elements of African American culture that produce, surround, and are an integral part of literary text. As we know, African American culture is distinguishable from other American cultures by its emphasis on music. This attention to music has produced two original forms, blues and jazz, and has developed distinctive traditions of others like gospel. Jazz is based mainly on one of these forms, namely –as the title infer- on jazz. This form pervades the whole book and provides not only subject and theme but also literary technique for the novel. Consequently, Jazz is not only the novel about the jazz era but also a novel that develops jazz “strategies” and creates a “jazz” of its own.