-the song i chose was "Mississippi Goddam". when i read the lyrics to this song it felt like it was talking about slavery. the african americans are so fed up with the crualty and the lies that they get everyday. they want there freedom but the white americans refuse to give it to them because they are scared that if they give them some freedom they will abuse it and want more and more and it will end bad for them. for example in the song she says " picket lines/school boycotts/they try to say its a communist plot/all i want is equality/ for my sister my brother and me." during that time african americans were trying to fight for there rights by doing boycotts and picket lines and if they refused to stop they would be abused and beaten and even arrested, the government and the white americans were all afraid that the african americans would try to take over and have power but she says that not what we want we just want to have equal rights just like you.
-"How can you and i be looked upon as men, with black women being beaten, and nothing being done about it?...and nothing can be done about it except we sit around singing "we shall overcome"'
this quote was taken from malcom x speech at the freedom democratic national convention.
i felt like the relationship between mississippi and harlem is that when the whites were in the "white" poll they sent the blacks to swim in the mississppi river and that was the only place they felt free even though they were still segregated, and the same with harlem when african americans started relocating to the northern part of the united states harlem was the only place where they felt like they had some freedom.....to be continued
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Good start - look forward to the rest. It's interesting that Mississippi Goddam describes events specific to the 20th century, boycotts, the use of the communist issue against civil rights, and so forth, yet it resonates so much with the history of slavery.
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