Black History Month Part 2 – We start with Paul Robeson and “No More Auction Block for Me”. Slavery had been abolished by the Civil War, right? Obviously there came new methods of slavery — you just couldn’t call it slavery: the song “Jim Crow” speaks volumes. Prisons became sources for the new slave labor. Looking for prison songs we run into chain gangs. I had heard Sam Cooke’s “Chain Gang” hundreds of times but had never really stopped to consider what it actually meant. Alan Lomax documented the music of all Americans – including prisoners, thank goodness.
Prison was also used to stifle dissent: John Lewis, Angela Davis, and so many others.
This topic is more than a little depressing so we spent the last hour with the brilliant, vibrant, accomplished music made by black artists over the last century.
We began with Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye and, it goes without saying, we ran out of time and barely scratched the surface.
Comments, questions, suggestions? [email protected]