music

Songs of the Civil Rights
2-22-26
Rev Douglas Taylor and Dr. Sarah Gerk
Sermon video: https://youtu.be/tkNKonpW4yk

Sermon part I

Sarah

We are here today to consider how musical practices supported the Civil Rights movement. I am a musicology professor at BU. I study how music works within communities, primarily considering immigration, diaspora, and race in the United States during the 1800s.

When many of us hear “music of the Civil Rights movement,” we think about the music of protest actions. But it is a small part of the wide body of music that we professionals consider significant to the work of the Civil Rights movement. Music helps us in so many ways to regulate or foment emotional experiences, to form communities, and to broadcast information across a large community. In the 1960s, the popular music industry and recorded sound were relatively new, incredibly powerful tools for disseminating historical, emotional, and social information across the world, and we call your attention to this.

Today, Doug and I wish to explore how Black communities used jazz and popular music styles to create and assert their narratives.  One of the most celebrated examples from the 1960s is John Coltrane’s Love Supreme, a jazz album that takes no received forms (so, it doesn’t adhere to the verses and choruses or blues chord progressions that are more familiar) to communicate Coltrane’s spiritual awakening to Islam in the early 1960s, finding his peace and sobriety in a violent and loss-filled moment.

My piece in this is to help you to understand the sound world of Black American music—how music that is not organized like our hymns and choir songs, which are typically conceived through music notation by thinking about melody, harmony, steady tempos, and song form, but instead on practices that stem from Africa and have developed in the New World, that come to us through Black churches and that place a lot of value on individual testimonies of spiritual experiences and personal narratives that would not survive or be understood in any other way. As we go along, I will help you to hear the ways that the music itself—the sound and not just the words—is working on us as it did in the 1960s to advance empathy, to help us process difficult information, and to find resilience.

Douglas

Dr. King once said,

It may be true that the law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless. The law cannot make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important also (Ware Lecture, 1966)

There were clear goals during the Civil Rights movement. People wanted desegregation, equality, real access to voting, access to education and jobs – they also wanted to put a stop to lynching. One goal we don’t talk about a lot was to have white people stop murdering black people with impunity. Which is still a conversation through the Black Lives Matter movement in our current time.

The song Strange Fruit is from 1939. It is based on a poem by Abel Meeropol, child of Russian Jewish immigrants, and it is a shocking song about the racial terrorism of lynching. Some say Holiday’s version marks the beginning of the civil rights movement. It is an unsettling and profound witness that can move you if you’ll let it. Consider that the trigger warning.

Sarah

Billie Holiday, one of jazz’s most celebrated vocalists, had an incredibly powerful voice. The grit of her voice itself, shaped by her strength to perform across Jim Crow’s America as well as adverse childhood experiences and substance abuse, contains a powerful message about who she is and how she feels. Billie’s expressivity comes in the ways in which she treats what would be a musical score—the map of the song—quite freely. Billie hardly ever stays on pitch, or in tempo. She scoops and slides her way around what would be a notated pitch. With the difficult material of “Strange Fruit,” she is often sagging below the scalar pitch, and lagging behind the tempo. 

The first words of this song are “southern trees bear strange fruit.” The fruit are the corpses of lynched people. Listen to the words “bear strange fruit” and how they sag below the Western pitch. You may not be able to hear with your ear the gradations of microtone, and that’s ok. You can also feel it. It sounds off. Distressing. Clashing. Also hear or feel how she takes her time with those words, emphasizing them and slowing down a little, while the orchestra maintains a steady tempo. That is Holiday’s musical testimony to her own grief.

Video           Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday                  

Douglas

One list I found, ranking the important songs of the Civil Rights Movement puts Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come as the number one, most enduring song of the movement. https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/music/2025/01/28/best-civil-rights-protest-songs/77978742007/

Sam Cooke was certainly among the most influential soul singers of all time. His murder in 1964 was tragic, and the conclusions of the investigation are questionable. His death is sadly one of many Black murders during the movement.

A Change Is Gonna Come talks about Cooke’s experiences with segregation and racism. He performed the song on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in February is 1964, but the network did not keep a copy of the tape from that night. And when the Beatles played at the Ed Sullivan theater two days later – Sam Cooke’s performance was overshadowed.

The song was in the album he released that spring, but it was not released as a single until after his death in December of ’64. And yet, despite the many ways the release missed the audiences – this song ranks among the most influential songs of all time. The song is both anguished and hopeful, a remarkable blend of despair and defiant resilience.

Choir            A Change Is Gonna Come            by Sam Cooke

Sermon part II

Sarah

Part of the work of Black musicians in the 1960s was to assert Black identities and Black power in a musical world that had been heavily shaped by white commercial interests. Rock ‘n’ roll of the 1950s was an incredible moment in which Black music got lots of attention and some people made a lot of money. But we can also name it as a historical moment of white appropriation of a powerful tool for Black communities. 

Funk represents a backlash to this. Structured around an interlocking rhythmic pattern in the electric bass [MAYBE DO A LITTLE BOOTSY COLLINS IMITATION] and the drum set, the remaining instruments and vocalists layer their own patterns on top. Repetition is the structure, and that allows for individual and group emotional expressions or testimonies on top of that structure. Again, pitches and melodies are significantly less important than much of the music we practice here on Sundays.

Significantly for this particular song, James Brown invites Black communities to say repeatedly together “I’m Black and I’m Proud.” Musicologists have a term “unisonance” that describes the ways in which creating sound together can be a powerful tool for fostering a feeling of connectedness. Here, James Brown uses the tools of the American music industry—recording technology and widespread touring–to disseminate that feeling of “unisonance” ubiquitously across Black America.

Douglas

The songs of the civil rights range from hopeful to grief-soaked, triumphant to profound. And all of them helped lift the message and galvanize the people, and keep the movement moving forward! Music carries a message and brings it into a part of the brain that responds differently to speeches and text. Music can get in, where other forms of communication cannot.

James Brown’s style of funk was powerful, there was so much joy and pride flowing from his music. Black pride was an essential component of the Civil Rights movement. It helped people remember that the movement was not just about injustices and harm and what’s wrong with society. James Brown was celebrating what’s good, about Black beauty and Black joy, Black pride.

There is a lot of great music from the Civil Rights movement that will sting the conscience, that will being hope and unity, that will reveal the harm and lament the injustice. But if you are looking for unapologetic Black joy, you’re going to love James Brown.

Video           Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud by James Brown       

Douglas

We had a hard time limiting ourselves to the songs we are featuring this morning. Many songs were given a featured place by many people in the movement. There are numerous ‘unofficial anthems’ of the movement. It’s heartening, I think, to have so many songs lifted up as important. It is a testament to the importance of music to the Civil Rights movement.

The Staple Singers’ Freedom Highway, Gil Scott-Heron’s The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Nina Simone’s Mississippi Goddam, and Marvin Gaye’s Inner City Blues are songs for the playlist I’m going to put out tomorrow – but regrettably did not make the cut for our brief hour together this morning. And white artists like Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger are important. But I want to be sure we keep our attention on the black artists this morning.

What music do you think is the music of today’s movements? Even if it is not music you regularly listen to – do you know about the artists? Have you heard, for example, Childish Gambino’s This is America? Or Shea Diamond’s Don’t Shoot? Are you aware of Kendrick Lamar’s Alright? Aware of the story behind it, the context of it, the message offered? 

Pay attention to the music around you, notice how it serves beyond mere entertainment. Music has a way of getting into our brains in a way regular speech or text cannot. Music connects us, uplifts us, unifies us, and moves us forward. What are you listen to these days?

May the music be strong and may the movement be strong. May we be strong together.

In a world without end, may it be so.

—

Postlude       All You Fascists Bound to Lose   sung by Resistance Revival

The Substance of Things Hoped For

Rev. Douglas Taylor

2-23-25

“I believe in the sun even when it is not shining,” our choir sings. “I believe in love even when I don’t feel it.” This phrase, repeats over and over. And “I believe in God,” they offer at the end, “even when God is silent.” This piece was composed roughly 10 years ago by Mark Miller, and was added to the Whitbourne choral work about Anne Frank life as an uplifting coda to the emotional performance.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT-VdH2lwZk&ab_channel=maestroz25

The text which serves as the basis for the lyrics of this choral work comes from an inscription on the wall of a cellar in Cologne, Germany where a number of Jews hid themselves during World War II.  Composer Mark Miller said he wrote the musical arrangement during a troubling time in his life.

“I was feeling down about a few things in my life and in the country [… the] government, being black, being gay…when I discovered the words again. […] And I decided, I’m still going to believe in love. I sat down at the piano, and five minutes later, it just came.” https://morristowngreen.com/2014/03/02/bold-choices-define-harmoniums-anne-frank-tribute-in-morristown/

My sermon title is from that well-known passage in scripture from Hebrews, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining. There is a lot going on in our world and in our hearts that is not good. And faith calls us to believe in love, even when we do not feel it.

I want to pause and step back from the poetry and dig into what this means. First, I’ll remind us that faith and belief are two different things. Poetry is important and we all understand what the line is saying. But I’m parsing it out to lift up a point about how we can understand faith in a Unitarian Universalism perspective.

Faith is a form of trusting, a confidence in life or in God or in yourself. Saying ‘I believe in God’ can translate as ‘I have faith in, trust in, a reliance upon, God.’ And saying “I believe in God’ can translate as ‘I believe God exists.’ And the second interpretation is more etymologically accurate, while the first interpretation is more common in our vernacular use – certainly in the way the song is offering.

Christian theologian and ethicist H. Richard Niebuhr put it this way: “The belief that something exists is an experience of a wholly different order from the experience of reliance on it.” This song is about the reliance upon the sun, love, and God. It is a song about faith.

In his classic book Stages of Faith, James Fowler writes about the human development of faith as something separate from beliefs and a person’s religious tradition. Fowler writes about faith as an ongoing journey of deepening and maturing. The opening pages of his book ask questions like:

What commands and receives your best time, your best energy?  What power or powers do you rely on and trust?  To what or whom are you committed in life?

From this perspective we can talk about faith not as a set of beliefs but as the way we live a life. We can talk about faith as what we trust, what we rely upon. And it is important to notice the context of how faith shows up. It is not when the sun is shining, but when it is not shining. Faith shows up when we have trouble and pain, when things are broken or messy or in chaos.

I remember watching my mom while I was growing up in the church. Churches are always messy, busy, slightly chaotic places when things are going well. Some people would respond with much anxiety and running around. There would be always several things up in the air and none of them were going as planned, or at least they were demanding the full attention of several people who could not give their full attention. I’m sure many of you know what that can be like because that happens here in our congregation as well. 

Anyway, while I was a youth, my mother, who was the Director of Religious Education for many years and then Minister of Religious Education for a few more years, she would remain calm in midst of all this and just continue to do the next thing that needed to be done. She was a walking example of the axiom: this too shall pass. I’m not sure I would have used these words then to describe what I was seeing; but now I can tell you, I learned a great deal about faith watching my mother move through church chaos with such calm. She trusted that we would get done those things that needed to get done; and whatever we didn’t get done, well, we would figure that out when we got there.

In the face of recurring struggle and trouble, my mother’s leadership style did not rely on frantic panic or reactive posturing. She kept calm, did the next right thing, and trusted that we would get where we needed to be in good time. Even when it was hard.

Buddhist writer Sharon Salzberg says “Faith is about opening up and making room for even the most painful experiences.” She says one of the meanings of the Pali word translated as ‘faith’ is hospitality. And Lea Morris sings: You gotta keep your heart wide open. Though these wave wanna push you around.

The part where your heart stays open is faith. Finding your way back to solid ground will come, but first, be open.

If I could be willing to make room (Salzberg continues) for my aching numbness, and the river of grief it covered, allowing it, even trusting it, I would be acting in faith. Perhaps this is how suffering leads to faith. – Sharon Salzberg

Til your faith brings you back to solid ground. Faith is not the solid ground. Faith is the openness while you are out in the storm. Faith is not the solid ground, but it will travel with you back to the solid ground.

Brene Brown said it like this:

I thought faith would say, “I will take away the pain and the discomfort.” But what it ended up saying is “I will sit with you in it.”

When you turn and face the struggle with an open heart, it is an act of faith. Admittedly, this is not a guarantee. That’s part of how it is an act of faith. But remember what James Baldwin once wrote:

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

Keep you heart wide open. Even when the sun is not shining. Even when the evidence to date does not support your conclusion that something good can still come. Even when the God you love has been silent. Even when the struggle is all you can experience at the moment: the struggle and the suffering and the cruelty and the hate. Even when, even when you don’t feel it, you can still believe in love.

I uncovered a powerful story about the lyrics of the choir piece we had this morning; about that inscription found on the wall of a cellar in Cologne. “I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining.”

The small poem has a complicated history and has been at the center of many stories. Sometimes the story says it was scrawled on the wall of a cave outside the Warsaw ghetto, or in a prison at Auschwitz, or at a shelter where some Jews were harbored by Catholics. Sometimes the poet is unknown, sometimes the poet is part of a collection of Jews who survived in hiding, sometimes the poet is a dead girl. Each version of the story adjusts the details a little bit in the telling.

My colleague Everett Howe had a blog “The Humanist Seminarian” which he kept while studying to become a Unitarian Universalist minister. Back in 2017 he wrote a four-part series about this poem – he did a remarkable amount of research. Interestingly, it was a fifth post he made four years later in which he wrote about finally finding the original source of the poem. https://humanistseminarian.com/2021/04/04/i-believe-in-the-sun-part-v-the-source/

Rev. Howe found a 1946 Swiss newspaper which contained the story and the poem in its earliest form. In the article, the reporter talks about visiting an old underground shelter where nine Jewish fugitives had lived for several month.

When I visited the shelter, I had the opportunity to see the emergency housing, fully equipped with a kitchen, bedroom, living room, radio, a small library, and oil lamps — evidence of a stunning experience. Meals could only be prepared at night so as not to attract the Gestapo’s attention, who would have noticed the smoke during the day. Food had to be supplied by friends who willingly gave up a portion of their rations to help those unfortunate people living for weeks in utter darkness.

The following inscription is written on the wall of one of these underground rooms […] “I believe in the sun, though it be dark; I believe in God, though He be silent; I believe in neighborly love, though it be unable to reveal itself.”

This version of the story is more human, I think; more relatable. I believe in the sun even when I must hide. The fugitives had to stay underground to remain safe. The darkness was protection. The darkness was not the problem. In fact, the darkness is part of the action they had taken to be safe. Their faith is not a crying out in powerlessness. It is trusting that they are doing the next right thing to get through the struggle.

Analogously, the line about believing in God even when God is silent can be heard not as an indictment against God’s silence, but as recognition that perhaps God is with them in hiding. That is a stretch, I’m just saying it is possible.

World War II certainly produced many indictments against God from Jewish people – so that line could easily be that. But I note that the line doesn’t say God is absent, or that God has abandoned us; only that God is silent. The atrocity is ongoing around them. The injustice has not been answered yet. The war continues. And God is silent.

And finally, in the third line – the climax of the poem rather than stuck in the middle, our author writes: I believe in Love. And translating from the German, it might be charity or compassion or neighborly love, Rev. Howe points out. Much like the Greek word Agape getting translated as ‘love’ but is best understood to mean a particular form of love.

The fugitives did experience charity or neighborly love from those who helped them remain hidden. I believe in love even when it “must remain hidden,” even when it is “unable to reveal itself.”  Rev. Howe suggested a few possible translations to amplify the more likely intention of the original scribe.

Perhaps faith is not asking us to believe in love when there is zero evidence for it. Perhaps faith is asking us to believe in love even when it is hidden or masked, even when the injustice has not yet been answered. And we decide to believe in love anyway.

Yes, the storms are raging, chaos is erupting around us and we struggle to maintain our balance. Yes, evil does prosper. Truth be on ‘the scaffold and upon the thrown be wrong’ But that is not the whole story.

What do you rely upon? Keep faith that you can do the next good thing; that we can keep our hearts wide open through any struggle. Trust that our faith will bring us back to solid ground. And perhaps you also will discover that even in hard times, you still believe in love.

In a world without end,

May it be so.