Vol. 24, No. 3: Music & Protest

Vol. 24, No. 3: Music & Protest

Jackie Shane in her own words. Holed up with country outlaws. Anne Romaine’s folk utopia. The air horn orchestra blasts HB2. Ornette Coleman in Copenhagen. Beyond Charlotte’s “Latin Night.” Soul Clap as protest and percussion. The Rime of Nina Simone. The Long History of “Birmingham Sunday.” And more.

Front Porch: Music & Protest

by Marcie Cohen Ferris

“Be prepared to stop and listen.”

Protest and the Southern Imaginary

by Brendan Greaves

“I first learned about . . . one of the most notorious instances of white supremacist violence in the post–Civil Rights era South from the B-side of an obscure 45rpm record recorded in Queens, New York.”

Jackie Shane

by Douglas Mcgowan

“I am what I am. I don’t have to add or subtract anything . . . You would know if you met me. I’m not like anyone else.”

Nostalgic for Utopia

by Joseph M. Thompson

“Romaine’s vision of the South’s radical past, present, and future did exist, if only for as long as each concert.”

“Sing It So Loudly”

by Julia Cox

“‘The problem right now is we have no anthem.’”

Soliloquy of Chaos

by William Pym

“He broke the rules. He was making a new kind of music. You could call it punk, or call it art . . . but his playing is not about attitude or aesthetics.”

Down in the Hole

by Max Fraser

And loud they sang, and long they sang, / For they sang to wake the dead. / —Oscar Wilde, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”

“What Music Does”

by Si Kahn, Brendan Greaves

“I’m in my fifty-second year as an organizer—civil rights, environment, labor, community. You know, if it moves, I try to organize it.”

Sound Politics

by Tina Haver Currin

“Fifty air horns could help change the course of an election.”

Beyond Latin Night

by Samuel K. Byrd

“‘We rock whatever hats we want.’”

Soul Clap

by Michelle Lanier

“‘Rhythm is who we are—if we didn’t have that, how could we make it?’”

The Rime of Nina Simone

by Tiana Clark

"I need to tell you something about yourself."

They’ll Never Keep Us Down

by Aaron Smithers

“Oh yes we can, I know we can can, yes we can can, why can’t we? If we wanna, yes we can can.”