Black Protest Music

This courses surveys African American protest music through research and performance. At every point in American history, African Americans have crafted music to speak out against racial injustices. This course highlights the music of three specific moments in African American history: 1) spirituals of the enslaved; 2) music of the classical phase of the Civil Rights movement; and 3) burgeoning protest music of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Students study the sociocultural contexts informing the performances of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone, Kendrick Lamar, and Beyoncé, among others. Students gain critical analytical skills for engaging music as cultural production, commodity, and vehicle of activism. Ultimately, this course equips students to situate BLM music within the longer history of African American musical activism, and it provides space for students to perform and compose black protest music.