Luci Murphy is an American singer, political activist, community organizer, and language interpreter. [1] Since the 1960s, she has been performing political songs in musical styles such as jazz and blues. [1] [2] In 1987, she performed in Germany in the Festival of Political Songs.
Luci Murphy sings in the genres of jazz and blues. [2] [3] She has performed in Cuba, China, Brazil and Palestinian camps in Lebanon. [1] [4] She often encourages her audience to join in to sing. [5] Within the jazz opera Love Songs From the Liberation Wars, she sings the recitative part of the opera in which the pain and anguish of one of the African-American factory women living in the Jim Crow era is emphasized. [2]
She has given support to the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-war movement, the anti-apartheid movement, anti-police brutality movement, pro-labor union rights movement, the Puerto Rican independence movement, the Palestinian liberation, the Cuban revolution, the Venezuelan Bolivarian revolution. The topics of her songs include civil rights, the end of white supremacy, affordable housing, food security, union rights, peace, and Palestine and Latin American self-determination, among other causes. Within her songs, she has spoken against US police brutality, Palestinian and Colombian population displacement, and the Cuban blockade. [1]
| Date | Location | Event | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1978 | Havana, Cuba | World Festival of Youth and Students | An international event organized by the World Federation of Democratic Youth |
| 1982 | New York City, New York | Peoples Voice Café | Alternative coffeehouse offering live entertainment in New York City, from folk music and protest songs to rap and jazz, and poetry, storytelling, and dance. |
| 1986 | San José, Costa Rica | Music Festival: La paz del mundo comienza en CentroAmerica en homenaje a Olaf Palme | Represented the people of the United States at this international festival featuring Mercedes Sosa and Luis Enrique Mejia Godoy. [6] |
| 1987 | Berlin, East Germany | Festival of Political Songs | The largest music event in East Germany |
A protest song is a song that is associated with a movement for protest and social change and hence part of the broader category of topical songs. It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre.
Joan Chandos Baez is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more than 30 albums.
Nina Simone was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, composer, arranger, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned styles including classical, folk, gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, and pop. Her piano playing was strongly influenced by baroque and classical music, especially Johann Sebastian Bach, and accompanied expressive, jazz-like singing in her contralto voice.
The connection between music and politics has been seen in many cultures. People in the past and present – especially politicians, politically-engaged musicians and listeners – hold that music can 'express' political ideas and ideologies, such as rejection of the establishment ('anti-establishment') or protest against state or private actions, including war through anti-war songs, but also energize national sentiments and nationalist ideologies through national anthems and patriotic songs. Because people attribute these meanings and effects to the music they consider political, music plays an important role in political campaigns, protest marches as well as state ceremonies. Much of the music that is considered political or related to politics are songs, and many of these are topical songs, i.e. songs with topical lyrics, made for a particular time and place.
"Strange Fruit" is a song written and composed by Abel Meeropol and recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939. The lyrics were drawn from a poem by Meeropol published in 1937. The song protests the lynching of Black Americans with lyrics that compare the victims to the fruit of trees. Such lynchings had reached a peak in the Southern United States at the turn of the 20th century and the great majority of victims were black. The song has been called "a declaration" and "the beginning of the civil rights movement".
Zenzile Miriam Makeba, nicknamed Mama Africa, was a South African singer, songwriter, actress, and civil rights activist. Associated with musical genres including Afropop, jazz, and world music, she was an advocate against apartheid and white-minority government in South Africa.
Leila Khaled is a former Palestinian militant and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). She is famous as the first woman to hijack an airplane.
Susannah McCorkle was an American jazz singer.
Leslie Feinberg was an American butch lesbian, transgender activist, communist, and author. Feinberg authored Stone Butch Blues in 1993. Her writing, notably Stone Butch Blues and her pioneering non-fiction book Transgender Warriors (1996), laid the groundwork for much of the terminology and awareness around gender studies and was instrumental in bringing these issues to a more mainstream audience.
Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals. An important figure in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, she influenced many of the key figures of the folk-revival of that time, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, and Janis Joplin. In 2011 Time magazine included her recording of "Take This Hammer" on its list of the 100 Greatest Popular Songs, stating that "Rosa Parks was her No. 1 fan, and Martin Luther King Jr. called her the queen of American folk music."
Barbara Dane is an American folk, blues, and jazz singer, guitarist, record producer, and political activist. She co-founded Paredon Records with Irwin Silber.
David Kenneth Ritz Van Ronk was an American folk singer. An important figure in the American folk music revival and New York City's Greenwich Village scene in the 1960s, he was nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street".
Rita Mae Brown is an American feminist writer, best known for her coming-of-age autobiographical novel, Rubyfruit Jungle. Brown was active in a number of civil rights campaigns and criticized the marginalization of lesbians within feminist groups. Brown received the Pioneer Award for lifetime achievement at the Lambda Literary Awards in 2015.
Fred Ho was an American jazz baritone saxophonist, composer, bandleader, playwright, writer and Marxist social activist.
The Freedom Singers originated as a quartet formed in 1962 at Albany State College in Albany, Georgia. After folk singer Pete Seeger witnessed the power of their congregational-style of singing, which fused black Baptist a cappella church singing with popular music at the time, as well as protest songs and chants. Churches were considered to be safe spaces, acting as a shelter from the racism of the outside world. As a result, churches paved the way for the creation of the freedom song. After witnessing the influence of freedom songs, Seeger suggested The Freedom Singers as a touring group to the SNCC executive secretary James Forman as a way to fuel future campaigns. Intrinsically connected, their performances drew aid and support to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the emerging civil rights movement. As a result, communal song became essential to empowering and educating audiences about civil rights issues and a powerful social weapon of influence in the fight against Jim Crow segregation. Their most notable song “We Shall Not Be Moved” translated from the original Freedom Singers to the second generation of Freedom Singers, and finally to the Freedom Voices, made up of field secretaries from SNCC. "We Shall Not Be Moved" is considered by many to be the "face" of the Civil Rights movement. Rutha Mae Harris, a former freedom singer, speculated that without the music force of broad communal singing, the civil rights movement may not have resonated beyond the struggles of the Jim Crow South. Since the Freedom Singers were so successful, a second group was created called the Freedom Voices.
Irakli Kakabadze is a Georgian writer, performance artist, peace and human rights activist. In 2009, he was awarded the Oxfam/Novib PEN Freedom of Expression Prize. Kakabadze's articles and stories have been published in Georgian, Russian, and English newspapers and magazines. In 2007 he received the Lilian Hellman/Hammett grant from Human Rights Watch. From 2008 to 2012, Kakabadze was based in Ithaca, NY, where he developed a new method of integrating performing arts and social sciences, called "Rethinking Tragedy" or "Transformative Performance." Kakabadze has also pioneered a multi-lingual and multi-narrative performing style, called Polyphonic Discourse. Irakli Kakabadze's work as an artist-activist is subject of a verite documentary At the Top of My Voice.
Protest songs in the United States are a tradition that dates back to the early 18th century and have persisted and evolved as an aspect of American culture through the present day. Many American social movements have inspired protest songs spanning a variety of musical genres including but not limited to rap, folk, rock, and pop music. Though early 18th century songs stemmed from the American colonial period as well as in response to the Revolutionary war, protest songs have and continue to cover a wide variety of subjects. Protest songs typically serve to address some social, political, or economic concern through the means of musical composition. In the 19th century, American protest songs focused heavily on topics including slavery, poverty, and the Civil War while the 20th century saw an increased popularity in songs pertaining to women's rights, economic injustice, and politics/ war. In the 21st century, popular protest songs address police brutality, racism, and more.
Music and Black liberation refers to music associated with Black political movements for emancipation, civil rights, or self-determination. The connection between music and politics has been used in many cultures and was utilized by blacks in their struggle for freedom and civil rights. Music has been used by African Americans over the course of United States history to express feelings of struggle and hope, as well as to foster a sense of solidarity to aid their fight for liberation and justice. African Americans have used music as a way to express their struggle for freedom and equality which has spanned the history of the United States which has resulted in the creation and popularization of many music genres including, jazz, funk, disco, rap, and hip hop. Many of these songs and artists played pivotal roles in generating support for the civil rights movement.
Bev Grant is an American musician, photographer, filmmaker, and activist based in New York City.
Stonewall is an American opera about the 1969 Stonewall riots, the spark of the modern LGBTQ rights movement, which received its world premiere June 2019 in conjunction with Stonewall 50 – WorldPride NYC 2019, projected to be the world's largest LGBTQ event. Stonewall was commissioned by New York City Opera (NYCO), and features music by Iain Bell, libretto by Pulitzer Prize-winning Mark Campbell, and direction by Leonard Foglia. The production is a 2019 Pride Initiative of the NYCO, an annual production of an LGBT-focused work each June in commemoration of Gay Pride Month. The opera premiered in June 2019 at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center. The opera was produced to honor both the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, and the 75th anniversary of the NYCO. Stonewall is the first opera to feature a transgender character written for an openly transgender singer, mezzo-soprano Liz Bouk.