The Power of Music

In today's class, we discussed the role of music throughout not only the Civil Rights Movement, but beforehand with Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit." I found it interesting that people like her were able to make people so aware about problems in society, Holiday did this with "Strange Fruit" as she described how black people were getting lynched and left for people to see in the South. She helped to expose the racism and brutality that was occurring during such awful times. This is a prime example of how music can be so powerful to a society, which relates to what we talked about last week. Music gives people the voice and the attention to allow people to discuss such trying problems of their time that needs to change.

Nina Simone is another example of using the power of music, especially with her song "Mississippi Goddamn." She references the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. and the four little girls, who were bombed in the church in Alabama. While watching the documentary about her, Nina Simone's daughter said something long the lines of her voice "breaking" after a specific performance of her famous song because of how angry she was. This stood out to me especially because it shows just how passionate she was about gaining equal rights for black people. She is an inspiration to many as she used such a large platform to get her message across, not abuse it for the fame and money. She is a prime example of how powerful music can be. She was bold and cursed in her song to show her anger and passion, which effectively got her message across to the public.

There are still people who use such a platform today, like Beyonce, as we discussed in class. While there were stories of police brutality, she had people dressed as black panthers in her performance to also get her message across. Music is such an important tool used in the world today, but was definitely rooted from such influential people of our past.