Song written for the movie Selma draws on rich civil ...

Song written for the movie "Selma"
draws on rich civil rights tradition

By Chicago Tribune, adapted by Newsela staff on 02.22.15
Word Count 875

Rapper Common performs at the Oscars on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2015, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
His song "Glory" from "Selma" won best original song at the Academy Awards. Photo: Photo by John
Shearer/Invision/AP

The stirring “Glory” is the musical centerpiece of the 2014 Oscar-nominated
movie “Selma.” In the midst of it, rapper Common summarizes how words,
melody and a protest merged during the civil-rights movement.
“We sing, our music is the cuts that we bleed through,” he raps. "Glory" won
best original song at the Academy Awards on Sunday.
The blood of dozens of African-Americans was spilled in the first of three
attempted voting rights marches to the Alabama capital of Montgomery from
Selma 50 years ago, on March 7, 1965. But as “Glory” suggests, the legacy of
Selma is hardly in the past.

From Selma To Ferguson

“The movement is a rhythm to us, freedom is like religion to us,” Common raps
in “Glory.” Then he draws a connection between the ‘50s civil-rights pioneer
Rosa Parks and last year’s protests in Ferguson, Missouri, over the police
slaying of an unarmed African-American resident, Michael Brown:

“… That’s why Rosa sat on the bus, that’s why we walk through Ferguson with
our hands up.”

In the months after the outrage stirred by the deaths of Brown and another
unarmed African-American, Eric Garner, in New York, singer D’Angelo released
his first album in more than a decade. “Black Messiah” included references to
the chain of events between Selma and Ferguson. “All we wanted was a chance
to talk,” he sings in “Charade." “ ‘stead we only got outlined in chalk.”

It is the most recent evidence that the soundtrack for the civil rights movement
continues to be written. As Newsweek magazine said in 1964, “History has
never known a protest movement so rich in song.”

These Songs Of Freedom

In its original incarnation during the ‘60s, African-American “freedom songs”
aimed to motivate protesters to march into harm’s way. They also spread news
of the struggle to a mainstream audience. The gospel music of black churches
spoke to a better life in the hereafter, but soul, R&B and jazz speeded up the
timetable so that the good life — or at least an equal opportunity to live it —
could be experienced now. Preachers and ministers such as Martin Luther King
articulated the movement’s goals. Meanwhile, artists such as Chicago’s Curtis
Mayfield, Sam Cooke and the Staple Singers crafted a music rooted in gospel
but speaking the language of popular culture.

Mayfield wrote and sang on a string of message-oriented records, including
“Keep on Pushing” and “People Get Ready.” Cooke delivered the yearning “A
Change is Gonna Come.” There was also Little Milton’s “We’re Gonna Make It,”
Oscar Brown Jr.’s searing “Driva Man” with Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, Nina
Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam.”

All this creativity was inspired by pain, struggle and bloodshed. The three Selma
marches in 1965 aimed to draw attention to the struggle for black voting rights.
They proved to be a turning point in the struggle, as police turned tear gas,
dogs and clubs on the unarmed protesters with a ferocity that shook even the
occupants of the White House.

Making Of The "Freedom Highway"

Pops Staples, leader of the acclaimed Chicago gospel group the Staple
Singers, was touring when he saw media coverage of the event, and was
horrified. He had become friends with King and he and his family had been
appearing at rallies with him and on behalf of his civil rights agenda. What he
saw and experienced in the company of King politicized him. “If he can preach
it, we can sing it,” he told the members of his group — daughters Mavis and
Cleotha and son Pervis. After Selma, Pops wrote one of the signature songs of
the movement, “Freedom Highway.” The song debuted only a few weeks later in
a concert at the New Nazareth Church on Chicago’s South Side.

The concert was documented on an album originally issued on Epic Records in
1965. It had since gone out of print, but is finally being reissued in an expanded
edition next month that secures its place as one of the great concert recordings
ever.

The newly mastered recording puts the listener in the front pew. After a stately
version of “We Shall Overcome,” Pops Staples pauses to introduce his new
song. “From that march, word was revealed and a song was composed,” he
says. His opening guitar music sounds like a trumpet calling citizens to action.
Despite a litany of racial slights and atrocities in African-American history,
nothing will deter us from pushing forward, Mavis roars: “Made up my mind, and
I won’t turn around.” It’s an exhilarating performance, the congregation hearing
the song for the first time but clapping along feverishly.

"Sweet Home"

“I wanna make heaven my home, but I want to enjoy myself a little down here,
too,” Pops says as the last chord fades. “I wonder, can I get a witness tonight?”

Pops bore witness until his last days, as his final recording attests. “Don’t Lose
This” released this week, was recorded with his children in the years before his
death in 2000.

On “Sweet Home,” Pops and Mavis sing a duet, as if taking stock. The struggle
they joined in earnest during the ‘60s shows no sign of abating. “Lord, I wonder
will I ever get home?” they sing. Weariness tears up their voices, but they’re still
on the freedom highway.