Nina Simone's Anthem Song 'Mississippi Goddam'

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Singer and songwriter Nina Simone became an activist through her music when she created a poignant song that became an anthem for the oppressed African American’s of the 1960’s. With the outpouring of violence toward black Americans one specific bombing in Alabama causing the murder of four female black children run true for the anger of Nina Simone. Simone discusses in her autobiography “All the truths that I denied to myself for so long rose up and slapped my face…I suddenly realized what it was to be black in America in 1963, but it wasn’t an intellectual connection of the type Lorraine has been repeating to me over and over – it cam as a rush of fury, hatred and determination” (92). Simone wrote her anthem song ‘Mississippi Goddam’ in response to the lack of Americans states taking…show more content…
Cooke’ approach was of thee ideology of Martin Luther King and of peaceful and equal respect and Simone has the angered perspective of Malcolm X’s fight. Nina’s fight for equality stretched throughout her personal history when she applied for Julliard and did not get accepted because of her race. Both Cooke and Simone had family history in the Baptist Church with gospel musical exposure that influenced the music that defined a generation. Many musicians feared to speak out and say anything about civil rights. Lynskey positions, “That degree of vocal anger was thus far con- fined to the jazz world” (95). During the exposure of new music Freedom Rights rang true in Washington with Martin Luther Kings Civil Rights Speech that dawned a new understanding of equaity. The reading gives a detailed account of the events that shaped the creation of the two anthem songs for Cooke and Simone. “Shortly after Christmas he invited Alexander over to his house to hear a new song, one which united for the first time the pain and loneliness of blues with the redemptive promise of gospel” (Lynskey,
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