Music Tells Story of Civil Rights Struggle

The voices, raw and emotional, stream out of the past into Gregory Freeland’s classroom.

The Caribbean tune is the familiar “Banana Boat Song.” But the lyrics on the CD are much different -- and far more serious as performed by The Freedom Singers in 1963 Mississippi:

Come Mr. Kennedy take me out my misery/Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long/Can’t you see what segregation is doing to me/Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long

In this political science class at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, the lesson of the day is how black activists in the 1960s gathered at churches to organize protests during the height of the civil rights movement. Part of that organizing was writing and singing “freedom songs,” which took popular and religious tunes and gave them politically charged lyrics.

“They used music, not only to motivate and inspire them, but to give them strength,” Freeland said.

Freeland uses music, too -- as a vehicle for teaching college students in this mostly white, suburban area about the African American struggle for equal rights.

In his Music and the Civil Rights Movement class, students study the songs that moved many during that period of great political change, from the soulful ballads of Sam Cooke to the folk songs of Joan Baez.

Student Marcus Green said the class gives him an interesting perspective -- much like learning about a movie by listening to the soundtrack.

“I think I was a little sheltered before about how recently those struggles took place,” said Green, 20, who is black. “It’s really affecting me.”

Freeland, 56, a political science professor, developed the course after attending a civil rights education seminar at Harvard University a few years ago. He has taught the history of the civil rights movement before, but this is the first semester he has done it through the music.

Though scholars have written on the topic, Freeland said he doesn’t know of any other university that teaches it as a course. He said he hopes that will change, because he has found it engages students -- who often tap their feet as they take notes.

“The students all watch MTV and they all have their records,” Freeland said. “Young people can really relate to music.”

That was evident during a recent class when Ron Paris, a former lead singer of The Platters -- a rhythm and blues group most famous for its song “Only You” -- was a guest speaker.

Students were captivated as Paris, who occasionally burst into song, talked about how soul music of the 1950s paved the way for the civil rights movement in the next decade.

At a time when black Americans in parts of the country couldn’t attend the same schools as whites, or even drink from the same water fountains, Paris said the music often was the only thing keeping people going.

“It kept us alive and, for the artists, kept food on the tables,” said Paris, 61, decked out in a 1960s-style mint-green silk tuxedo jacket.

Still, R&B; wasn’t recognized as a mainstream sound until 1955-1957, Paris said, and he lists three songs that stand out from that time: “Only You” by The Platters; “Tutti Frutti” by Little Richard and “Darling, You Send Me” by Cooke.

Before Cooke, Paris said, “the conventional wisdom was that only whites could sing about universal subjects like love.”

Cooke also played a major role in making “the rope” -- literally used to separate white and black audiences -- disappear.

“He would rather cancel shows than play for a segregated audience,” Paris said.

On a wall, Paris flashed images from the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., church, where four African American girls were killed. He noted that those charged with the crime were convicted just a few years ago. Then he sang “A Change is Gonna Come,” which Cooke wrote in 1964:

I was born by the river in a little tent/And just like the river, I’ve been running ever since/It’s been a long time coming/But I know a change is gonna come.../I go to the movie, and I go downtown/Somebody keep telling me ‘Don’t hang around’/It’s been a long time coming/But I know a change is gonna come”

Jim Carnes, director of the Teaching Tolerance program at the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, said teaching this history through music is a “dynamic approach,” although he had not heard of the Cal Lutheran class.

“It’s a wonderful hook,” he said. “Instead of just learning about the dates, characters and issues involved, this is a noncognitive dimension that goes to the emotional side, and the heart, of the movement.”

Freeland said he was inspired to create his class in part by a talk about the music delivered at that Harvard seminar by civil rights leader Julian Bond, who is board chairman of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

In the civil rights history course he teaches at the University of Virginia, Bond said, he devotes one day each semester to music and can usually persuade a few students to sing one of the hymns used during the 1960 bus boycotts.

“It lets the class understand how powerful music can be,” said Bond, who said he hasn’t heard of any civil rights classes other than Freeland’s so devoted to music.

The civil rights movement is often remembered in terms of its anthems, Freeland said, the most famous of which was “We Shall Overcome,” adapted from 19th century gospel songs.

In another sign of renewed academic interest, Occidental College recently sponsored lectures by folk musician Guy Carawan, an alumnus who helped make the arrangement of that beloved song more forceful in 1960.

Freeland’s class, which he plans to offer again next year, pairs music with books about civil rights, including “Parting the Waters” by Taylor Branch. Students write four term papers, including a biography of an influential R&B; artist from the 1950s -- from Big Joe Turner to Mahalia Jackson -- and an analysis of freedom song lyrics.

Recently, Freeland took students to a black church in Oxnard to give them a feel for the energy in African American spirituality. The emotion from such singing helped push the civil rights movement forward, Freeland said, and it is missing from modern protests, including opposition to the war in Iraq.

“It’s not enough to chant or just repeat phrases,” Freeland said. “The song adds a lot.”