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"Follow the Drinking Gourd"
Follow the Drinking Gourd is an African American folk song. The Drinking Gourd is another name for the Big Dipper asterism. Folklore has it that slaves in the United States used it as point of reference so they would not get lost. According to legend, the song was used by a conductor of the Underground Railroad, called Peg Leg Joe, to guide some fugitive slaves. This song demanded that slaves ought to follow the "gourd" -the big dipper- that took slaves to safety. -
"Go down Moses" ( "Let my people go" )
It is a spiritual negro. The themes of Negro spirituals are redemption, the triumph of hope over misery and deliverance. These songs reflect the deep faith of African Americans and sometimes contain hidden messages of resistance. The slaves who sang this song disapproved of slavery and their life conditions. The slaves demanded that Moïse should help them and expect white masters to free them. -
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Slavery
African American slaves created their own spiritual and working songs to use among themselves. Although under slavery they could not directly express the desire to be free, they could sing songs based on Old Testament stories related to their conditions. Slaves were not provided adequate clothing by many saveowners. Slaves were alloted the bare minimum of food by slaveowners. Slaves were badly treated by the masters. The slaves were left very short breaks to do whatever they wanted by Masters. -
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Abolitionist and women's rights
In the midst of the war, President Abraham Lincoln decides to emancipate the slaves.The XIII Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1865. It declared that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude will exist in the United States or in any of the places under its jurisdiction". The struggle for women's suffrage in the United States began with the women's rights movement in the mid-19th century. The laws were not let women vote. African Americans were treated differently by the white people. -
"Get off the track", Jesse Hutchinson
It is an abolitionist song. The song is dedicated to anti-slavery publisher Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, "In recognition of his fearlessnessin the cause of human rights. The melody he used, or rather appropriated, was from "Old Dan Tucker". It was an immediate hit, at least with the abolitionist crowd. Jesse describes the progress of equality as a high speed train. Jesse Hutchinson insisted that the African Americans ought to emancipate. He disagreed with the inequalities. -
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" Julia Ward Howe
It is an American patriotic and rteligious song. This hymn takes up traditional music and modifies the text of the John Brown's Body march. It is a song written in homage to John Brown, martyr of the abolitionist cause. Julia expected judment to denounce the truth, and the glory of the emancipation. -
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The workers
In the 1890s, songbooks in American cities were begun distributing by workers. The Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the Wobblies, most thoroughly combined songs and actions in their movement for union building and workers' rights in the early 1900s. The organization's recruitment, solidarity and strike strategy were been in central by the songs.New lyrics were showed adaptability to suit the moment by these tunes. -
"Bread and Roses" James Oppenheim
His title is used as the slogan during the demonstration of the textile workers of Lawrence, Massachusetts in January-March 1912, today known in the United States as the "Bread and Roses strike". Through this slogan, the demonstrators demanded that the government should give a better salary. They insisted that government ought to give better working conditions. They disapproved of the fact that a whole group of workers are being punished because of a single slacker. -
"The Preacher and the Slave" Joe Hill
It was written as a parody of the hymn "In the Sweet By-and-By". Several songs have been written parodying the hymns of the Salvation Army, "The Preacher and the Slave" being the most successful. In this song, Joe Hill coined the expression "'pie in the sky". Joe Hill reproached the preachers for promising to the workers pie in paradise when they will dead. He insisted that workers of all countries ought to unite to fight for freedom. -
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The Great Depression
The period of world history which goes from the crash of 1929 in the United States until the Second World War was been the great depression. Preceded by the powerful expansion of the 1920s, it was the largest economic depression of the twentieth century, which was accompanied by severe deflation and soaring unemployment. Find work was complicated for the workers. The workers were not helped to find jobs during the economic crisis by the government. -
"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime ?" Yip Harburg
It is one of the most famous American songs of the era of the Great Depression. The melody is based on a Russian-Jewish lullaby. The song tells the story of the universal man, whose honest work to achieve the American Dream was foiled by the economic collapse. Harburg wanted the man who lost his job to not be reduced to begging for charity. He disagreed with the fact that workers do not profit from the fruits of their labor and are roundabout by others. -
"Strange Fruit" Billie Holiday
She protests the lynching of black Americans, with words that compare the victims to the fruits of the trees. Originally a poem called "Bitter Fruit", it was written by Jewish school under the pseudonym Lewis Allen in response to the lynching in the southern states of the US. Billie Holiday was inspired by it. He blamed whites for lynching, racism and black discrimination. The song is shocking, it is brutal and marks the spirits which helps to get the message across. -
"We Will Overcome"
The modern version of the song was said to have been sung for the first time by tobacco workers, led by Lucille Simmons. In the years following the strike, members of the Cigar Factory Union, including Lucille Simmons, became involved in various forms of progressive unionism and civil rights activism. They insisted that the labor ought to be change politically, civilly and union at local, state and national level. The tobacco workers disapproved the racial and sexuel discriminations. -
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War, Labor and race
An executive order banning discrimination in the defense industries was issued by President Franklin.The fight against fascism in World War II the contradictions between America's ideals of democracy and equality and its treatment of racial minorities were brought to the fore by the fight against fascism in World War II . Meanwhile,demands for equality in civilian life were asserted by african americans -
"Deportee" Woody Guthrie
"Deportee" is a protest song detailing the plane crash on January 28, 1948. The crash happened in the Los Gatos Canyon. Guthrie was inspired to write the song by what he saw as the racist mistreatment of passengers before and after the crash. The accident resulted in the deaths of 28 migrant farm workers who were deported from California to Mexico. He reproached journalists with the fact that they don't mention the names of the dead but simply call them the deportees. -
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Civil Rights and Vietnam War
A long struggle for decades by African Americans and their like-minded allies to end institutionalized racial discriminatrion, disenfranchisement and racial segregation was been the civil rights movement in the U.S. New protections in federal law for the human rights of all Americans were obtained by the strong nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience of the social campaigning movement. The Vietnam War arose out of the first Indochina War against the Communist Viet Minh. -
"Mississippi Goddam" Nina Simone
The song refers to the murder of Medgar Evers and the bombing of the Baptist Church on 16th Street. Goddam can be translated by "good god" but also "whore". Four southern states refuse to broadcast the track which is also subject to censorship on national television. She disapproved of the murder of black activist Medgar Evers by a white supremacist from the Ku Klux Klan. She disagreed with the madness of a hypocritical, deaf and unjust society and she disapproved of the fear and death lurking. -
"Only a Pawn in Their Game" Bob Dylan
Dylan evokes the death of black militant Medgar Evers, assassinated in 1963 in Mississippi by Byron De La Beckwith.For him, the politicians and officials in the South, maintain the racism of the white popular masses out of interest. He blamed the racist institutions of the southern U.S for using the murdere as an instrument, as a pawn in their game. He reproached the tenants of white supremacy in the old South for revenging on the most active members of the civil rights movement. -
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Anti-Etablishment
Conventional social, political, and economic principles of a society were opposed to an anti-etashblishment vision or belief. Individuals who were against the establishment often spoke of "fighting the man", "selling to the establishment" and "demolishing the establishment". Major changes in society by opposing the "establishment" were involved by many well-known activists and activists groups. -
"Fight the Power" Public Enemy
"Fight the Power" incorporates various samples and allusions to African-American culture,including exhortations for civil rights,black church services, and music by James Brown.They disapproved of the problems and conditions of the Afro-American community.According to them, if we choose to happy and thus not worry about anything, what is the point of entering into a struggle ?This is the main theme of the sound, they demanded that afro-americans should get their goal by force of circumstances. -
"I Wanna Kill Sam" Ice Cube
This Ice Cube's song screams its fed up with the America that doesn't stop lying to the whole world and to blacks without anyone reacting as if people had become invisible or silent spectators. He accused America of trying little by little to exterminate blacks by sending them to war because that is supposedly the only war for them blacks to get out and using their precarious conditions to promise them mountains and wonders. -
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Message Music
Musicians of all genres continue to write protest songs, although many complain that these songs are not being broadcast or distributed widely. Environmental issues, economic injustice, social injustice, the power of the media and racism were spoken by protest songs. A way to fight injustices, to change things are been protest songs. -
"We Want Peace" Lenny Kravitz
It is an antiwar song. Lenny Kravitz wants we to have the peace. He accuses the politicians for thinking the war is the way while he thinks love has the power. He disagrees with the war and thinks that there is nothing gained, only losing lives. According to him there is no peace if we do not try. -
"American Idiot" Green Day
Some people think this song is anti-America. However, if you pay attention to the lyrics, you might find that in many ways the song is very patriotic. They blame the government for doing us idiots without individuality who are constantly amazed by commercials, campaigns and reality TV. They accuse politicians and the media of telling us what to do, what to buy and what to believe. They expected the nation to not be isolated and hated because of stupid decisions the government makes.
