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Teaching Freedom Song as Antiracist Praxis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2021

Stephen Stacks
Stephen Stacks*
Affiliation:
Department of Music, North Carolina Central University, Durham, NC, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
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Extract

In the teaching of history, oversimplification is, perhaps, unavoidable. In certain cases, however, that oversimplification can be deadly. There are some lessons that are too complex, some stories that are too nuanced, to be reduced in such a way. By their contours and particularities, they resist easy digestion. In the spirit of this particularity, my contribution to the colloquy is specific, but hopefully applicable to contexts beyond its specificity: I argue that the US Black Freedom Movement (or civil rights movement) and its music is a story that must be taught in all its complexity, for oversimplifying it does concrete harm to the ongoing struggle against white supremacy in the present. Teaching the US Black Freedom Movement and its music is also vital if we hope to enable our students to be forces of understanding, healing, and justice in the world, and should be an integral component of any undergraduate music curriculum that hopes to be antiracist.

Type
Essay
Information
Journal of the Society for American Music , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , November 2021 , pp. 461 - 465
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for American Music

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