Nina Simone's Mississippi Goddam
Jan. 18th, 2021 08:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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vintageadsNina Simone wrote this song in less than an hour. She considered it her first civil rights song. It was captures her response to the murders in Mississippi of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers, and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama that killed 4 African American children.
The song was banned in several Southern states. Boxes of promotional singles sent to radio stations around the country were returned with each record broken neatly in half.
Simone performed the song in front of 10,000 people at the end of the Selma to Montgomery marches when she and other black activists, including Sammy Davis Jr., James Baldwin and Harry Belafonte crossed police lines.
This video, which includes images of police attacks on African American protesters, police and others with confederate flags, etc, was fan made and is well done. This version of the song was recorded live at Carnegie Hall. Listen to the audience laugh in response at first to her statements about it. Then when she says "I bet you thought I was kidding didn't you?" No more laughter.
The song was banned in several Southern states. Boxes of promotional singles sent to radio stations around the country were returned with each record broken neatly in half.
Simone performed the song in front of 10,000 people at the end of the Selma to Montgomery marches when she and other black activists, including Sammy Davis Jr., James Baldwin and Harry Belafonte crossed police lines.
This video, which includes images of police attacks on African American protesters, police and others with confederate flags, etc, was fan made and is well done. This version of the song was recorded live at Carnegie Hall. Listen to the audience laugh in response at first to her statements about it. Then when she says "I bet you thought I was kidding didn't you?" No more laughter.
