The black experience in America has long been immortalized in music, spanning genres and centuries. This playlist is an aural walk through black American history from slavery to the present day.
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Note: Given the vast amount of music this post covers, this list is in no way complete or cohesive. Is your favorite missing? Add it in the comments!
Religion and song worked hand in hand to fortify American slaves through years of dire conditions. The will to continue on, whether working on a plantation or running away from one, was found in songs like "This Little Light of Mine" and "Go Down, Moses."
Emancipation was merely the first chapter in the struggle for black equality. Spirituals were replaced with the blues — songs that dealt often with poverty, racism, and domestic violence.
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• Various, "Go Down, Moses" (1872)
• John & James Johnson, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" (1900)
• Various, "Wade in the Water" (1901)
• Various, "This Little Light of Mine" (1920)
• Bessie Smith, "Poor Man's Blues" (1928)
• Fats Waller, "(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue" (1929)
• Various, "Oh, Freedom" (1931)
• Various, "Eyes on the Prize" (1937)
• Lead Belly, "The Bourgeois Blues" (1939)
• Billie Holiday, "Strange Fruit" (1939)
• Josh White and his Caroliners, "Trouble" (1940)
• Louis Jordan, "Saturday Night Fish Fry" (1949)
• Paul Robeson, "No More Auction Block for Me" (1947)
• Chuck Berry, "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" (1956)
