Just give me my equality
As one hears Nina Simone’s ‘Brown
Baby’, a song expressing hope for a child living a better life than the strife
that characterized African American people’s lives at the time, it is
impossible to not be deeply moved as she belts out ‘freedom’. The
spine-tingling intonation seems to capture centuries of desire for freedom, an ideal
as elusive as it was dear. Brown Baby’s optimism is eventually drowned out by
the wailing of oppression, the blast of gunshot violence, the uproar for justice,
and the deafening silence of those in power charged with keeping peace. Defiantly
proud of her African roots and appearance, Simone channelled her anger, resentment,
and frustration into her art and two years later, the world heard ‘Mississippi
Goddamn’. Unlike the short, sweet longing of her previous single, ‘Mississippi
Goddamn’ is an expression of rage; the indefinite hope she previously sought
for a child to be born into a just world is to be wrested from the men of
today. The world, as it is, subjugates people of colour but more importantly,
makes them wait and tells them to ‘go slow’ every time a rightful cry is raised
for liberty. The oppressed can’t wait anymore, will not ‘go slow’, because they’re
tired of anticipating an eventual, hopeful freedom. They’ve been released from
the chains but they’re still in the bondage of inferiority. They’re still
looked down upon by the white man, and equality is a far cry away.
Simone had nothing short of an
illustrious musical career but it were the songs that she lent to the civil
rights movement that she called ‘her most important ones’. Having led a
troubled life, Simone is well-known for publicly voicing her anger at the white
man’s apathy and censure of African American reaction. Her haunting renditions
of African American hopes, resentment, frustration, and woes captivated many
and encapsulated what they felt. Music, hence, was an important dimension of
the civil rights movement for not only did it bring vigour to the struggle but offered
both an escape, in its promises of a more equal future or return to a distant,
glorious past, and an outlet, for justifiable animosity and impatience reverberating
within people of colour. It was an indispensable tool for motivating people to
come out to protest in indignation and demand that America be theirs just as
much as it was the whites’. These songs presented a safe space, in absence of a
physical one, for the African American community to belong to and find meaning
in. It was something that was truly theirs and, even with the copious imitations,
the white men couldn’t take from them. With few precious ways for people of
colour to earn good money and gain recognition, most found themselves tunnelled
into professions of entertainment. They were enslaved before only to be
commodified later. Yet, the very spotlight was reclaimed by the artists and
turned to highlight the new-age oppression of their communities. The power of
their songs is enduring with many artists of the 21st Century deriving
inspiration and the masses of colour continuing to return to these spaces.
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