Music A Medium of Resistance

The Psalms of the bible have been described as the hymn book of biblical Israel. In the Psalms you can find music that speaks to every human context that a person can/will experience in life. The Psalms contain songs (Psalm means song) of disappointment and depression, songs of joy and hope, songs of suffering, even songs of hatred toward one’s enemies (read Psalm 137), and Psalms of deliverance from one’s enemies.

Music has always been a part of the DNA of African descended people to express emotions, feelings and experiences, from the Psalms of the bible to the songs of African people on the continent and in the diaspora today.

The late Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker wrote a powerful book titled “Somebody’s Calling My Name: Black sacred music and social change.” In the book, Dr. Walker created what he called the music tree to document the evolution of Black music here in the U.S. Dr. Walker stated that “If you listen to what Black people are singing religiously, it will provide a clue as to what is happening to them sociologically.”

It was the late son of Jamaican parents, Harry Belafonte, who was a student of the great Paul Robeson, who told him that “artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s anchor. We are the compass for humanity’s conscious.”

What these essential and insightful quotes express is how Black people in North America used music to warn, to wake up, and to express the longings for liberation from the racist white Christian nationalistic ideations of supremacy.

The Negro spirituals were code language of escape from chattel slavery. The blues were expressions of frustrations with the false freedom Black people were given when Reconstruction was deconstructed to provide reparations to the evil human traffickers who had enslaved Black people. It was the blues singer/musician Lead Belly who first used the phrase “Stay Woke,” in a song about the Scottsboro Boys and the threat of lynch mobs in Alabama.

During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, music played an integral part in motivating and organizing the movement. The song by Pastor and hymnologist Charles Albert Tindley, “I’ll Overcome Someday,” was transformed during the 1960s by the organizers of the movement to “We Shall Overcome Someday,” and Singers Pete Seeger and Joan Baez used their platform to publicize the movement through this song.

In fact, during the late 1960s and 1970s, R&B artists began to flood the airways with songs of consciousness and resistance against the Vietnam War and the oppressive contexts that were heating up all over the nation. From Edwin Starr’s singing about the evil of war, to the Impressions singing about “moving on up,” to Curtis Mayfield singing “if there’s a hell below, we’re all gonna go.” The Temptations called the chaos of the early 1970s a “Ball of Confusion,” and Stevie Wonder told a sacred, sad story about “living for the city,” and Gil Scott Heron told us that “The Revolution will not be Televised.” Then Marvin Gaye gave us his classic theme album “What’s Going On,” with the penetrating track that touched the soul like “Inner City Blues.” Early Hip Hop gave us artists like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, who gave us a Message. There were artists like KRS-ONE, X-Clan, Poor Righteous Teachers, Monie Love, The Jungle Brothers, Mos Def, Queen Latifa, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and Public Enemy with the battle cry “fight the power” and so many more until record companies and radio conglomerates tempted many away from consciousness to consumerism and conflict.

My question is, where are the gatekeepers now? Why don’t religious and non-religious people demand better from the artists who make millions but have no consciousness in this present context? If there ever was a time we needed our music to match the moment, it is now. Harry Belafonte also said, “My activism has always existed. My art gave me the platform to do something about the activism.” We need artist today to use their platforms to sound the alarm.
Be Authentic, Be Aware and Stay Woke! Uhuru Sassa!

The Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.” Contact the church by email at [email protected] or by phone at 219-944-0500.