Protest Music

The Reverend Charles Tindley wrote the hymn “I'll Overcome Some Day” in 1903, which was sung in his Philadelphia church and which might have been based on the more traditional African American spiritual “I'll Be All Right.” Black and white Alabama coal miners [Page 1177]in 1908 changed the “I” to “We” and introduced the labor song “We Will Overcome Some Day,” published in the United Mine Workers Journal, February 4, 1909. It was adapted in 1945 by striking American Tobacco Company workers, members of the CIO Food and Tobacco Workers Union, mostly African American women, in Charleston, South Carolina. A few of the strikers soon visited the Highlander Center, in Monteagle, Tennessee, where they taught the song to the school's music leader, Zilphia Horton. She quickly shared it with folk performer Pete Seeger. It appeared as song number 281 in the September 1948 issue of People's Songs bulletin. In the 1960s it became the anthem of the civil rights movement. From church, to picket line, to civil rights demonstrations, and out into the world, “We Shall Overcome” has shown the power of a song, with deep religious, folk, and labor roots, to make a difference. And it has demonstrated the broad reach of a protest song.

Protest music has been widespread throughout American history. Broadly defined, protest songs have been designed to challenge the status quo, in the process perhaps championing labor strikes and unions, civil rights, gay rights, socialism, communism, and anarchism, peace and justice, women's rights, and much more. Protest songs can also serve a conservative cause, such as segregation, criticism of a liberal president, or anti-socialism, but the term usually refers to music from the liberal/left/radical side of the political spectrum. Protest songs can get across a particular, even emotional, message, promote a unified challenge, and in other ways use music for political purposes. Most types of music—popular, jazz, blues, country, spirituals and gospel, rock and roll, rap and hip hop, musical theater, even classical—can include a protest theme or message, although folk music has been the more popular form for getting across topical and political content or a call to arms.

British tunes were adopted during the Revolutionary War to support independence, such as “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” and throughout the 19th century there was much music of a political nature. Various sorts of topical songs existed—labor and abolitionist tunes, farmers' laments, spirituals, and third-party political ballads. Drawing on the influence of minstrel shows, Civil War songs, hymns, and sentimental parlor songs, this music expressed a wide range of discontents and dreams. The songs performed various functions. At one level they succinctly formed a message that was rhymed and easily understandable, and at another they energized groups for particular activities. Topical songs appeared in thousands of songsters and broadsides, while others turned up in labor papers. Often lacking music or even a tune, these songs connected with popular musical tastes and understandings. The role of protest songs expanded in the early 20th century. The rise of labor organizations, including the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) stimulated the use of songs during meetings and in organizing drives.

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