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| Pete Seeger, troubadour of the folk music period, "We Shall Overcome" |
Demonstrations in the 1960's often had musicians who championed freedom and civil rights. Woody Guthrie's music about the condition of the poor and Pete Seeger's musical anthems drove much of the folk music of the day.
Folk music was created to arouse feelings, emotions in people according to the author of a book called ,“Reds, Whites, and Blues: Social Movements, Folk Music, and Race in the United States”in which"We Shall Overcome" is an example of how music relates events.
The book examines the song itself as it came originally from a church hymn in 1901, then was incorporated as part of the labor movement of the 1930's and 1940's.
The American Revolution became “Yankee Doodle,” while abolitionists gather together with African Americans over spirituals. Some of the musical presentations had what we consider now classics such as as “ Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” “Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”
Modern times has been encapsulated in American folk music as well, "We Shall Overcome," identified with the civil rights movements of the 1960's.
The 21st century has its movements and its historical events as well,including the recent oil spill in the Gulf and Hurricane Katrina along with other disasters and special issues.
But the song of Woody Guthrie,as it is sung all over the country, recorded by Arlo Gutrie, Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen and a host of other musicians, came out of the struggles of the depression and spoke of the wonders of America, that continues to be thought about today. Who knows where the anthems might lead, but "This Land Is Your Land" is considered by folk music connoisseurs a binding one that was used as the anthem to unite all Americans.
These days folks seldom hear the old anthems, and there are few that people sing together that relate contemporary concerns. And Guthrie's song about America does not include Alaska and Hawaii, both states admitted to the Union years after he created the famous folk anthem.
There were songs to unify the country and make Americans proud, like Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land," that has been sung and recorded by both folk and contemporary musicians.
According to the book, written by UCLA sociologist William Roy, "We Shall Overcome" became alive again with Reverend Martin Luther King and the movement of civil rights that sprang up in the 1950's with sit-ins and demonstrations and reached its zenith as civil rights legislation became enacted for both women and minorities in 1964. It became the anthem for that period.
"We Shall Overcome" has been identified with the song ever since.
Roy's chronicles the song and its mission and also looks at the evolution of folk music in the relating of events connected with people's feelings.People even associate certain music with certain events, as they do with "We Shall Overcome."
Roy examines the course of folk music's history and how one movement or another was highlighted by certain songs.Indeed, the book indicates how the actual news of the day was chronicled by this special music.
In an interview at the University of South Carolina, Roy, a professor of sociology and chair of UCLA’s sociology department when he wrote the book, said “Doing music —especially in racially mixed groups — became an act of defiance against segregation.” The song still manages to bring tears to the eyes of the sociologist who joined the civil rights movement as an undergraduate in the ’60s at Atlanta’s Emory University. “It’s a powerful reminder of participating in history, of making a difference,” he said.
Roy explains,however, the first people to actually use the term "folk music"identified it with their own and were of European extraction. Out of the intermingling of sounds of English music, the Appalachian form was born again in ballads of “Barbara Allen.”
Perhaps it is a time for new beginnings, as many people believe might help people understand, especially given the racial incidents of the past year, the riots in Ferguson and the demonstrations that followed as well as the worries about war on the horizon, as President Obama and the Republicans in Congress square off over a deal with Iran that some say could prevent war.
Where is the anthem that can illustrate the feelings of today and the collective wish of peace and brotherhood? Or shall it remain the music of the past brought back again, for people to use when they march together for the sake of man's peace and brotherhood once more.
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