Young Voices and the Struggle for Civil Rights

Freedom Song

Mary C. Turck

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C h a p t e r 1

Sunday of Song 2

C h a p t e r 2

Rooted in Africa 12

C h a p t e r 3

The Civil Rights Movement: The Early

Days 26

C h a p t e r 4

Singing in the Churches 44

C h a p t e r 5

The Civil Rights Movement:The 1960s 62

C h a p t e r 6

Jazzing Up the Melody of a Movement 86

C h a p t e r 7

South Africa 102

C h a p t e r 8

The Movement Continues 116

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii

INTRODUCTION: The Movement, the Music, and the Chicago Children’s Choir ix

RESOURCES 133 | SONG APPENDIX 137 | INDEX 141 | SONGS ON THE ROAD TO FREEDOM CD 143

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Freedom Song

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During the early years of the civil rights move-

ment, black churches were much more than reli-

gious buildings. Because of segregation, they also

served their communities as cultural and political centers.

Churches were where civil rights activists would come

together to plan their demonstrations. In Birmingham,

Alabama, these meetings took place every Monday night,

moving from church to church. If too many meetings

were held in one church, it would become known as the

“civil rights church.” It would become a target for racists,

who might bomb or burn it. By moving around, people

hoped to keep their churches safe.

On a September Sunday in 1963, the basement of the

16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham echoed with

chatter and laughter. Teenagers combed their hair and

checked themselves in the mirrors. That Sunday, on

Youth Day, they would lead the services. They were ready

to stand in front of everyone, ready to lead, ready for life.

And then life ended. A bomb blast shook the church,

tumbled the walls, and killed four young girls. Their

church was bombed, their lives were ended, by racists

attacking black people and the civil rights movement.

Nearly 45 years later, another group of young people

assembled in the same church basement. Once again,

young people combed their hair and checked themselves

in the mirrors. On the first day of their Freedom Tour, the

Chicago Children’s Choir got ready to sing in the 16th

Street Baptist Church.

At this concert, the pews of the church were filled

with a mostly black audience. The people listening to the

choir carried the history of their church in their hearts.

Many had lived through the civil rights movement. Oth-

ers had parents and grandparents who had been in the

movement.

They listened as the choir sang “Murder on the Road

in Alabama” and cried “Deep within the sovereign state

of Alabama / There’s a poison pit of hate.” They listened

to “Strange Fruit,” the song made famous by Billie Holi-

day that mourned murdered black men hanging from

southern trees. “Birmingham Sunday,” a ballad of grief,

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You are important to me, I need you to survive

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recalled the events of that 1963 Sunday when four

schoolgirls were killed and one maimed. (All of these

songs are on the Chicago Children’s Choir CD that

accompanies this book, Songs on the Road to Freedom.)

The songs struck home. Sixteenth Street Baptist will

forever be the church of four young girls killed by a Sun-

day morning bomb blast. In this very church, Dr. Martin

Luther King Jr. preached. In this very church, Monday

night meetings of civil rights activists filled the air with

song. Across the street, in the park, police set dogs on

civil rights demonstrators, and powerful fire hoses

knocked the demonstrators over like bowling pins.

On the July afternoon in 2007, music flowed through

the 16th Street Baptist Church. The music wove a power-

ful connection between singers and audience, between

past and present. As people listened, their hands reached

up in the air, swaying in time to the songs. Then the audi-

ence rose, singing with the Chicago

teens, “I need you. You need me. . . .

You are important to me. . . . I love

you, I need you to survive.” They

continued, closing the powerful

afternoon arm in arm, singing “We

Shall Overcome.” In an electric

moment, voices and hearts con-

nected across the years, across the

generations.

Then and Now: McComb,MississippiThe U.S. civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s

won huge victories. Despite those victories, racism con-

tinues. McComb, Mississippi, shows both the victories of

the movement and the continuing struggle for civil

rights.

In 1961, a teenager named Jackie Byrd knelt on the

steps of the McComb courthouse. Young people in

McComb had seized the civil rights movement as their

own. The protests in McComb included attempts to inte-

grate the public library, the Woolworth’s lunch counter,

and the Greyhound bus station. The movement in

McComb included a Freedom School (in 1961 and again in

1964), and voter registration attempts at the nearby

4

Today the four young girls who died in the Birmingham church bombing are commemorated in amemorial that bears their photos. From left, Denise McNair, 11, Carole Robertson, 14, Addie MaeCollins, 14, and Cynthia Wesley, 14, are shown in these 1963 photos. Associated Press

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county seat of Magnolia. Freedom

Schools taught adults to read and write,

and to understand their rights under the

Constitution.

The students who protested against

segregation and prayed at the courthouse

were jailed. More than 100 students

were sent to jail. Then they were

expelled from their high school for

protesting. Jackie Byrd was among those

who were expelled. They went to a

black junior college in Jackson, Missis-

sippi, for the rest of the school year.

Today Jackie Byrd Martin sits at a

desk inside the same courthouse. She is

the city’s personnel director. The win-

dow of her office overlooks the steps

where she and other young protesters

prayed and were arrested over 45 years

ago. The “whites only” sign is long gone

from the water fountain across the hall. McComb’s first

black mayor was inaugurated in 2007. He held the cere-

mony on the courthouse steps.

McComb’s population, about 12,000 in 1961, has

grown little over the decades. The 2000 census showed

13,337 residents, about 58 percent of whom are black.

Legal segregation has ended. That is a victory of the civil

rights movement. Today black people hold positions in

city government. That is a victory of the civil rights

movement. McComb has come a long way since 1961.

But not everything has changed. In 2007, the schools in

McComb and in nearby South Pike are at least 80 percent

black. The schools in nearby North Pike are 80 percent

white. A local Christian school is virtually all white.

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The Chicago Children’s Choir sang in the historic 16th Street Baptist Church, which wasdeeply involved in the civil rights movement in Birmingham. The church was bombed in 1963,killing four young girls. Mary C. Turck

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Voices of the ChoirVoices of the Choir

“When I try and think about my life if I hadn’t joined choir, it is impossible because it has made me so much of who I am.”

I Need You to Survive

I need you, you need me

We’re all a part of God’s body . . .

You are important to me, I need you to survive . . .

I love you, I need you to survive . . .

This gospel song has become a signature for the Chicago

Children’s Choir. They perform it often, and it has become

part of their identity. The CCC is more than a singing group. For

many people it is family and love and support. Robert Raymond,

17, describes the meaning that the song has for him:

“This song does the best job out of all describing the choir.

When I try and think about my life if I hadn’t joined choir, it is

impossible because it has made me so much of who I am. I have

become worldly conscious and problem-questioning, and the

relationships that I have made here are stronger than any others.

This song illustrates our unity while we sing in unison and then

shows our differences that make the choir so rich when it splits

off into different parts. I really do need my family—the members

of the choir past and present—to survive. The relationships will

not die with distance because who I am depends on my family to

live on.”

(To hear the Chicago Children’s Choir sing this song, visit

www.rhapsody.com/chicagochildrenschoir/openupyourheart/

ineedyoutosurvive.)

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