Civil Rights Anthem

Civil Rights Anthem

Civil Rights anthems is a relational concept to protest song, but one that is specifically linked to the African-American Civil Rights Movement. The songs were often sung during protests or marches related to the movement. Participants in the Civil Rights Movement referred to these songs as "Freedom Songs" rather than "anthems."

In several cases these songs began as gospel or spiritual, the most famous being

  • "We Shall Overcome" and
  • "Go Tell it on the Mountain".

Nina Simone is also known for writing of such songs, such as:

  • "Mississippi Goddam", from Nina Simone in Concert (1964).
  • "To Be Young, Gifted and Black", from Black Gold (1970), this song was also dubbed the "official civil rights anthem".

Activist Fannie Lou Hamer is known for singing songs at marches or other protests. Zilphia Horton also played a role in the conversion of spirituals to civil rights songs.

Read more about Civil Rights Anthem:  Additional Civil Rights Anthems

Famous quotes containing the words civil rights, civil and/or rights:

    “The common goal of 22 million Afro-Americans is respect as human beings, the God-given right to be a human being. Our common goal is to obtain the human rights that America has been denying us. We can never get civil rights in America until our human rights are first restored. We will never be recognized as citizens there until we are first recognized as humans.”
    —Malcolm X (1925–1965)

    “Physical force has no value, where there is nothing else. Snow in snow-banks, fire in volcanoes and solfataras is cheap. The luxury of ice is in tropical countries, and midsummer days. The luxury of fire is, to have a little on our hearth; and of electricity, not the volleys of the charged cloud, but the manageable stream on the battery-wires. So of spirit, or energy; the rests or remains of it in the civil and moral man, are worth all the cannibals in the Pacific.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “When we lose love, we lose also our identification with the universe and with eternal values—an identification which alone makes it possible for us to lay our lives on the altar for what we believe.”
    —Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 3, ch. 2 (1962)