BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY Forty-six songs associated with the Civil Rights movement in the US during the 1960s. From Introduction: "On February 1, 1960, four Negro college students sat at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina and asked for service. Their single act has grown into a great historic movement that has stirred the conscience of the South and of the nation. This collection of songs is meant to help document that growth and give support to the testimony of those who have seen the movement in action - that it has developed a singing spirit that moves the hearts of all who hear. But to really convey this takes more than the printed page. It must be experienced. It will help then, when going through this book to at least try to imagine what is at stake for some of the singers and what some of the situations are in which the songs are sung. It is hoped that the supplementary notes and photographs will help. Freedom songs today are sung in many kinds of situations: at mass meetings, prayer vigils, demonstrations, before Freedom Rides and Sit-Ins, in paddy wagons and jails, at conferences, work-shops and informal gatherings; They are sung to bolster spirits, to gain new courage and to increase the sense of unity. The singing sometimes disarms jail guards, policemen, bystanders and mob participants of their hostilities...." From the Preface: "...The song versions given in this book should not be taken as absolutely definitive. It should be realized that these words and tunes are sung with some variation from area to area and person to person. Words are often adapted to new situtaions and new verses ad-libbed on the spot. Also the improvisational style in which they are sung cannot be completely captured by orthodox musical notation. Anyone familiar with the musical characteristics of Negro folk style in spiritual and gospel singing, in blues and rock 'n roll, will know that these transcriptions represent only a bare skeleton of what is actually being sung...
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