Black Gospel Music and the Civil Rights Movement

Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University History Theses Department of History Summer 8-12-2013 Sit In, Stand Up and Sing Out!: Black Gospel Music and the Civil Rights Movement Michael Castellini Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_theses Recommended Citation Castellini, Michael, "Sit In, Stand Up and Sing Out!: Black Gospel Music and the Civil Rights Movement." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2013. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_theses/76 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SIT IN, STAND UP AND SING OUT!: BLACK GOSPEL MUSIC AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT by MICHAEL CASTELLINI Under the Direction of Dr. John McMillian ABSTRACT This thesis explores the relationship between black gospel music and the African American freedom struggle of the post-WWII era. More specifically, it addresses the paradoxical suggestion that black gospel artists themselves were typically escapist, apathetic, and politically uninvolved—like the black church and black masses in general—despite the “classical” Southern movement music being largely gospel-based. This thesis argues that gospel was in fact a critical component of the civil rights movement. In ways open and veiled, black gospel music always spoke to the issue of freedom. Topics include: grassroots gospel communities; African American sacred song and coded resistance; black church culture and social action; freedom songs and local movements; socially conscious or activist gospel figures; gospel records with civil rights themes. INDEX WORDS: African American history, African American music, Gospel music, Civil rights movement SIT IN, STAND UP AND SING OUT!: BLACK GOSPEL MUSIC AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT by MICHAEL CASTELLINI A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2013 Copyright by Michael Leo Castellini 2013 SIT IN, STAND UP AND SING OUT!: BLACK GOSPEL MUSIC AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT by MICHAEL CASTELLINI Committee Chair: Dr. John McMillian Committee: Dr. Jacqueline Rouse Electronic Version Approved Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University August 2013 iv DEDICATION This work is dedicated to all the gospel soldiers in the long struggle for human freedom. Their example proves the miraculous depth, strength, and creativity of the human spirit. The world really needs “good news” these days. Let us all pray, believers and nonbelievers together, that we get some soon. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to collectively acknowledge the Georgia State University Department of History. Extra thanks to my thesis advisor Dr. John McMillian. Much gratitude to Dr. Jacqueline Rouse for her important seminar in African American history, which generated the present thesis; in short, this would not have been without her. Heartfelt appreciation goes to Dr. Joseph B. Perry III. And the deepest debt is owed to Dr. Isa Blumi. Enormous thanks to Baylor University journalism professor and black gospel music historian Robert Darden, as well as Denyse Rodgers of the Black Gospel Music Restoration Program at Baylor. Of course, this project would be nowhere if not for the dedicated, perhaps obsessive legion of gospel collectors, compilers, and scholars that have documented and propounded this most profoundly influential and disgracefully underappreciated of American musics. Most of all I thank my parents, Robert and Dianne, and my wife Amie. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………………………………………… v INTRODUCTION ………………………………..……………………………………………………… 1 CHAPTER ONE: BLACK GOSPEL POLITICS AND COMMUNITY ACTION ……...……… 11 The Grassroots Gospel Community …………………………………….…………………… 11 The Gospel Paradox of Otherworldly Politics ….…………………….……………………... 20 Gospel Music as Cultural Tool of Resistance …………….…………………………………. 31 CHAPTER TWO: BLACK GOSPEL IN THE MOVEMENT …………………………………...… 40 Gospel Culture and the American Protest Song Tradition ……………………………….. 40 Freedom Songs and the Gospelization of Local Movements …………………………….... 43 CHAPTER THREE: THE MOVEMENT IN BLACK GOSPEL ...……………………………...…. 73 Black Gospel Icons and Movement Consciousness …………………..……………………... 73 Black Gospel Records and the Postwar Freedom Struggle ……..………………………….. 90 CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………………………………… 103 BIBLIOGRAPHY AND DISCOGRAPHY………………………………………………………….. 106 1 INTRODUCTION Following is an exploration of the relationship between black gospel music and the civil rights movement. The latter played out during the vintage years of the former: that is, black gospel and the African American freedom struggle both peaked in the same period after World War II. By unpacking the fundamental, if sometimes obscured connections between music and movement, this thesis holds that gospel was a critical component of the postwar freedom struggle. The more direct connections concern the familiarity, flexibility, and popularity of the music itself. Gospel music was used throughout the civil rights movement to attract the masses, encourage youth participation, invigorate meetings, and instill confidence. The “freedom songs” were based on familiar spirituals and gospel songs, typically performed in a gospel style. From local elders to student organizers, movement songleaders were immersed in the musical traditions of the black church, as well as the black- oriented radio and commercial gospel of the time. Likewise, the rank-and-file foot soldiers came from the same grassroots “gospel community” of church goers, choir members, radio listeners, and record buyers. Beyond these concrete examples there are less tangible, though no less meaningful connections. As a devoted writer, record producer, and longtime fan, Anthony Heilbut gained the confidence of many prominent gospel veterans. In his 1971 book The Gospel Sound, the first (and best) full-length work on the subject, Heilbut remarked that gospel “reflects the conditions and the consciousness of its audience, no more, no less.” Even after the tumultuous 1960s had effectively politicized American popular culture, he maintained that gospel’s mass black audience “can still turn nowhere else for such free and passionate expression of their deepest needs, fears, and resentments.”1 Activist minister Wyatt Tee Walker lauded Heilbut’s in-depth study as “a book of considerable import in the field of music, secular or sacred.” A key official in the organization of Martin Luther King, Jr., Reverend Walker wrote his own book tracing the history of black sacred music and social change. Noting that black gospel was a huge field with “more devotees than any other music form in America,” 1 Anthony Heilbut, The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times (Updated and Revised 25th Anniversary Ed.) (New York: Limelight Editions, [1971] 1997), 298. 2 Walker concurred with Heilbut on its meaning to the African American masses: “Gospel music, at bottom, is religious folk music that is clearly identifiable with the social circumstances of the Black community in America.” And like Heilbut, who profiled a number of the music’s foremost figures, Walker believed that the gospel worldview “is best traced through its exponents and their experiences, hardships, and tribulations.”2 Not unlike the civil rights movement, or African American history in general, the so-called “gospel life” was filled with hopeful faith as well as bitter disappointment. Some gospel publishers and promoters made fortunes off the ignorance or relative powerlessness of singers, who usually had to peddle records and pictures at programs to supplement their incomes. Travel requirements forced upon gospel artists even greater exposure to the racism, segregation, and physical dangers facing blacks in America. And of course there were the innumerable nonprofessional, noncommercial gospel performers in churches and local venues across the country singing for little or no remuneration whatsoever. These main points form the crux of this thesis: gospel music was an organic part of the black community that gained widespread popularity during the postwar period; gospel closely reflected the African American condition, as well as the consciousness of its mass fan base; and thus black gospel performers, a largely poor and exploited class of artists, embodied the African American experience while being its most natural cultural interpreters. Gospel communicated black cultural values, reinforced black identity, and shaped the sociopolitically conscious “soul” phenomenon that promoted black pride. The sacred family tree of gospel, spirituals, soul, and freedom songs together formed the soundtrack of the civil rights movement. As the common thread in civil rights music, and as an invaluable organizational and motivational tool, black gospel unquestionably played a leading role in the movement story. Black music has always been in ongoing interplay with black church culture. The black church has been the most vital institution in African American history, and the major source of black protest up to the modern civil rights movement. Though the African American population atomized and secularized 2 Wyatt Tee Walker, “Somebody’s Calling My Name”: Black Sacred Music and Social Change (Valley

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