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:
“... one of the blind spots of most Negroes is their failure to realize that small overtures from whites have a large significance ... I now realize that this feeling inevitably takes possession of one in the bitter struggle for equality. Indeed, I share it. Yet I wonder how we can expect total acceptance to step full grown from the womb of prejudice, with no embryo or infancy or childhood stages.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 10 (1962)
“We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“All the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing, and a mere bubble, except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous Judiciary.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)