I found it interesting that initially the chapter started about by saying that although Martin Luther King Jr. was a great orator and leader, the Civil Rights Movement wasn’t just limited to him. He did have “high public vitality" but this "obscured the extent to which the movement worked from a model of collective leadership and was driven by thousands of ordinary citizens.” This was a constant theme in this chapter—a theme about the astounding power of large numbers of people, large amounts of time, depth and patience; as well as minor incidents which led to a great thing. It was about “local, group centered leadership rather than a central hierarchical national organization.” Most importantly to me it was often a “woman-led movement” which forced people to look at a deeply racist society. It was the women, the college students, the freedom rides, boycotts and other institutions which made up this movement. I went to Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary school, so you can imagine as a child these important elements were not emphasized in my learning.
The contrast of instances leading up to Movement—the American society pressuring blacks to hold internalized racism while fighting Nazi racism—was quite astounding. I never comprehended the international views on Southern apartheid as an international embarrassment. Additionally, I would have loved to have these kinds of contrasts when learning about the Movement earlier in my life, but I guess that what makes this a great book. It blatantly points out things like, “Perhaps it is the way to look at white people who had the luxury of not paying much attention to black struggle.”
Falling back on the importance of locality and ordinary people; one of the things that made freedom songs and “liberation musicology” so effective was that it became a tool used by the everyday black person. Music being a key tool in the Civil Rights Movement (which started years before the 1950s-60s) was so ingenious and reflective of a group of people who organized in a slow, emerging process. The power of the length and flow of a freedom song like “We Shall Overcome” is an analogy to the length and flow of the black struggle. It’s all a little clearer now.
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After reading The Art of Protest and then reading Stacy's post, I read some more on the topic. I had remembered once from an earlier class something about music and how powerful it can be in bringing people together and in means of inspiration. So while Martin Luther King Jr. was a great leader and symbol for the Civil Rights movement, he is not the only part of it. So many people speak of him like he goes hand in hand with Civil Rights, but there is a lot more to it than that. The music in this time, the freedom songs were like tools for equality. This is something that I found to be true throughout black history. In America's earliest days, white slave owners found it entertaining that their slave played the drums like they did and music as they did. But they failed to realize this truth...where the slaves often came from different tribes and could thus not speak the same language (and this was done on purpose) so that they could not converse with each other, plans and means to unite and form plans against their owners, they did have their music. Which each person knew some music from their experience in life, and it became a tool and a way to communicate to each other, what they needed. And it was sneaky, because it was a hidden tool, more like entertainment was just the mask for the real idea, the idea of bringing people together. The tool was in the drums, and the music they played. So when I read this it really reminded me of this and how this idea of music being used as a tool in the Civil Rights Movement, is nothing new, but probably more focused on now, since music continues to grow in form and thought and life.
And going to what Stacy said, I, too wish I had learned these things about the Civil Rights Movement and the Southern apartheid as an embarrassment. That is not at all the way the schools I attended taught it, and it is just interesting that it can be shown in this manner, that really conveys to me, embarrassment. I wonder why to some extent it was not taught like this while we were younger. I suspect the desire to have young minds foster great joy and love for the country and its past that we are a part of. And that image is one that should never be negative, or seen in embarrassment. Take Columbus Day even...it is celebrated as a holiday. That makes me sick. So mad, because even to this day the majority of Americans celebrate it, and I think most of the explorers were monsters and murders, exploiters and didn't give a care about any thing but their own selfish glory and greed...but I'm rambling now, the point is, is that, I think that many people view things in history as holidays, or things to be celebrated, or that were important or needed, and in reality, they were awful for the country and how others view the country.
-Catie
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