What Happened, Miss Simone?

Nina Simone embodies the inner turmoil that Martin Luther King alluded in his sermon on the unfulfilled dreams of King David, In the documentary “What Happened, Miss Simone?” we come to see one of the greatest musical talents of the late 20^th century prevented from pursuing her dreams and forced into molds palatable to the white populace, leading to an internal the strife that underscored the mental anguish that Simone suffered in her later years and her precipitous fall from grace. I argue that her story reflects the internal longing for expression and personhood that those of the black community feel, the same experience Dubois described in “The Souls of Black Folk”, such that we can gain a glimpse of what it entailed (and what it entails) to seek to be unapologetically oneself in a society dominated by a racialized discourse.

Early on we come to see Simone describe her lifelong dream of becoming the first black female classical concert pianist in America. When discussing her lessons with Mrs. Mazzonovich, she describes crossing the railroad tracks that were the dividing line between the white and black communities. From a household where discussions on race were not allowed, she describes becoming “terribly aware of how isolated (she) was from other children” and how isolated she was from both the white and black communities. Her description matches the same anguish and alienation that Dubois described as a child who became acutely aware of the Veil, who began to see himself through it, and who sought the opportunities (in this case the opportunity to play classical music) that the white world has laid claim over. She understands that her rejection from the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia was because of her race only months later as she describes never consciously thinking of herself in those terms prior to such events. This awareness of oneself, a double consciousness of sorts, is thus what is the pre-condition to her career in music for it began out of the necessity to support one’s family after her dreams had been stifled.

Though there are moments where we can see Simone revel in her performances and her passion for music and though we can see her innovations with blues music using classical techniques such as fugue and counterpoints, the immense melancholy, and longing she felt when she performed at Carnegie Hall but wrote to her parents about how she could not do classical music speaks to the condition of both unfulfillment and how barriers to self-expression is what guided her career. As a paragon of talent, she was still shackled by an abusive and controlling husband who worked her to the bone and a society that refused to see her in the role that she wanted to see herself in.

The civil rights movement becomes the vehicle for her own self-expression and songs like “Mississippi Godamn” and “Young, Gifted, and Black” reflected Simone’s sense of artistic duty to comment on the issues of the times. Though Simone states in an interview that she could not imagine how an artist could not be politically conscious, it is evident that her increasing passion for the cause was an outcome of her immense frustration and inner strife, which itself was the product of the stifling of black voices that the movement was fighting against. Nina Simone’s increasingly political performances were met with complete rejection by promoters and a dwindling career. This once again demonstrates how her indomitable pursuit to be herself, to express what she wanted to, was struck down and it highlights how firm the barriers to personhood are. Simone became much like the boys who rejected all things white that Dubois spoke of in that she rejected all success for her participation in the civil rights movement. Yet Simone was acutely aware that she did not want this role, stating that she wishes often that it wasn’t her burden to bear. She described herself screaming internally without a voice, an ideal articulation of the lack of personhood and expression of self. In the end, Simone wept as she said that she was sorry she could not become the world’s first concert pianist and that she would have been happier if she did, demonstrating how nothing was a substitute for the chance to pursue her dream which was taken from her. In conclusion, Nina Simone is the epitome of unfulfilled dreams, of the ever-present double consciousness, of the internal strife that is so essential to the black experience.