Music and the Civil Rights Movement

"In his autobigraphy An Easy Burden, the Reverend Andrew Young, a close associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., describes the powerful role that music played in the civil rights movement. "We could hear this unity in the singing voices and speaking voices of the people, it seemed we could even hear it in the earth itself like a soft rumbling, a rhythmic beating of drums from all over the South. It was a knowing, with undeniable and unshakable conviction, that our time had come. The South would never be the same again."

Depicting the struggle as "The Singing Movement," Young goes on to say that, through music, a great secret was discovered: "Black people, otherwise cowed, discouraged, and faced with innumerable and insuperable obstacles, could transcend all those difficulties and forge a new determination, a new faith and strength, when fortified with song."

As an example, Young tells the story of one freedom meeting at a church in rural Georgia that was interrupted by the arrival of the sheriff and his deputies. The people were terrified as the sheriff warned them not to talk about registering to vote, and vowed that there would be no Freedom Riders in his county. Then, slowly, the congregation began to hum. "We'll Never Turn Back." As the humming intensified, accompanied by singing and moaning, the sounds in the church entirely drowned out the officers. "The sheriff didn't know what to do." Young notes. "He seemed to be afraid to tell the people to shut up. Finally, he and his men just turned their backs and stomped out. Those beautiful people sang that sheriff right out of their church!"... from The Mozart Effect by Don Campbell