"I don't trust you anymore": Nina Simone, culture, and black activism in the 1960s

Journal of American History

Volumn 91, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 1349-1379

  Feldstein, Ruth ^a  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33845889268     PISSN: 00218723     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3660176     Document Type: Review

References (279)

1. Nina Simone, "Mississippi Goddam," performed by Nina Simone, [1964], In Concert-I Put a Spell on You (compact disk; Polygram Records 846543; 1990);
2. Simone referred to Alabama in the first line but emphasized with the song's title the state known for the most violence against African Americans. Nina Simone with Stephen Cleary, I Put a Spell on You: The Autobiography of Nina Simone (New York, 1992), 89-90.
3. Phyl Garland, The Sound of Soul (Chicago, 1969), 176.
4. A rich body of scholarship that takes up these various political perspectives includes Martha Biondi, To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City (Cambridge, Mass., 2003);
5. Bill V. Mullen and James Smethurst, eds., Left of the Color Line: Race, Radicalism, and Twentieth-Century Literature of the United States (Chapel Hill, 2003);
6. Nikhil Pal Singh, Black Is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy (Cambridge, Mass., 2004);
7. and Timothy Tyson, Radio Free Dixie: Robert W. Williams and the Roots of Black Power (Chapel Hill, 1999).
8. In addition to work cited, scholarship attending to the cultural dimensions of African American activism that has shaped my thinking includes Hazel Carby, Race Men (Cambridge, Mass., 1998);
9. Vincent Harding, Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement (New York, 1990);
10. Robin D. G. Kelley, Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class (New York, 1996);
11. and Barbara Savage, Broadcasting Freedom: Radio, War, and the Politics of Race, 1938-1948 (Chapel Hill, 1999).
12. Robin D. G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (Boston, 2002), 62.
13. See also Brian Ward, "Introduction: Forgotten Wails and Master Narratives: Media, Culture, and Memories of the Modern African American Freedom Struggle," in Media, Culture, and the Modern African American Freedom Struggle, ed. Brian Ward (Gainesville, 2001), 3.
14. For efforts to complicate this dominant narrative, see, for example, Charles Payne, moderator, "Teaching the Civil Rights Movement" online forum, History Matters 〈http://historymatters.gmu.edu〉, search: Payne, Charles (Nov. 1, 2003).
15. "Best singer": "la meilleure chanteuse de jazz de ces dernières années" in Maurice Cullaz, "Une Divine Nina," Jazz Hot (May 1969), 7;
16. "extraordinaire présence" in F. Hofstein, "Nina: Back to Black," Jazz Magazine (May 1969), 13;
17. quotations from French sources were translated into English by Eren Murat Tasar. For her powerful effects on crowds, see, for example, John S. Wilson, "Recital Victory for Nina Simone," New York Times, Dec. 30, 1968, clipping, Nina Simone file, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Clipping File, 1925-1974 (Widener Library, Cambridge, Mass.).
18. For a more critical assessment, see Alan Walsh and Jack Hutton, "Antibes Jazz Festival Report: Miles, Peterson, and Nina on Form," Melody Maker, Aug. 2, 1969, p. 6.
19. In addition to the songs discussed in this essay, see Jackie Alper, Ron Vander Groef, and Nina Simone, "Old Jim Crow," performed by Nina Simone, [1964], In Concert-I Put a Spell on You;
20. Nina Simone, "Four Women," performed by Nina Simone, [1966], Wild Is the Wind-High Priestess of Soul (compact disk; Polygram Records 846892-2; 1990);
21. Abbey Lincoln and Nina Simone, "Blues for Mama," performed by Nina Simone, [1967], Nina Simone Sings the Blues (compact disk; BMG International B0001ZXMB8; 2004);
22. Langston Hughes and Nina Simone, "Backlash Blues," performed by Nina Simone, ibid.;
23. and Gene Taylor, "Why (the King of Love Is Dead)," performed by Nina Simone, [1968], The Very Best of Nina Simone, 1967-1972: Sugar in My Bowl (compact disk; RCA 67635; 1998).
24. See accounts that Nat Cole, in contrast to Simone, was initially a "nonparticipant" in black activism and his subsequent financial pledge: "Singers Pledge Money for Civil-Rights Struggle," Down Beat, Aug. 15, 1963, p. 11.
25. Scholarly references to Simone include Reebee Garofalo, "The Impact of the Civil Rights Movement on Popular Music," Radical America, 21 (1987), 14-22;
26. Arnold Shaw, Black Popular Music (New York, 1986);
27. and especially the valuable discussion in Brian Ward, Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations (Berkeley, 1998), 289-93.
28. For jazz studies, see, for example, Krin Gabbard, ed., Jazz among the Discourses (Durham, 1995).
29. Ken Burns's PBS documentary Jazz (2000) is a particularly influential example of how a dominant jazz narrative mostly excludes women. For the gendered dimensions of jazz, see Ingrid Monson, "The Problem with White Hipness: Race, Gender, and Cultural Conceptions in Jazz Historical Discourse," Journal of American Musicological Society, 48 (Fall 1995), 396-422.
30. Increased attention to Fannie Lou Hamer speaks to a more general interest in the grass-roots dimensions of women's activism; see, for example, Chana Kai Lee, For Freedom's Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer (Urbana, 1999).
31. For the response to "Four Women," see, for example, Earl Calwell, "Nina Simone's Lyrics Stir Storm of Protest," New York Post, Sept. 2, 1966, p. 10, clipping, Simone file, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Clipping File, 1925-1974.
32. Simone, "Four Women," performed by Simone, [1966].
33. For this subculture, see especially Robin D. G. Kelley, "Nap Time: Historicizing the Afro," Fashion Theory, 1 (Dec. 1997), 330-51;
34. Simone with Cleary, I Put a Spell on You, 66-72;
35. and Judith Smith, Visions of Belonging: Ordinary Families, Popular Culture, and Postwar Democracy, 1940-1960 (New York, 2004).
36. For civil rights activism in New York City, see Biondi, To Stand and Fight.
37. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, "Foreword," in Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles outside the South, 1940-1980, ed. Jeanne F. Theoharis and Komozi Woodard (New York, 2003), xiii.
38. In addition to work cited, for gender and civil rights, see Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (Chapel Hill, 2003);
39. for culture and civil rights, see Adolph Reed Jr., ed., Race, Politics, and Culture: Critical Essays on the Radicalism of the 1960s (New York, 1986);
40. for domestic civil rights in an international perspective, see Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War, Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton, 2000).
41. For discussions of gender, culture, and the transnational dimensions of civil rights in relation to each other, see Mary L. Dudziak, "Josephine Baker, Racial Protest, and the Cold War," Journal of American History, 81 (Sept. 1994), 543-70;
42. Kevin Gaines, "From Center to Margin: Internationalism and the Origins of Black Feminism," in Materializing Democracy: Toward a Revitalized Cultural Politics, ed. Russ Castronovo and Dana D. Nelson (Durham, 2002), 294-313;
43. Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, Mass., 1993);
44. Ingrid Monson, Freedom Sounds: Jazz, Civil Rights, and Africa, 1950-1967 (New York, forthcoming);
45. and Penny M. Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War (Cambridge, Mass., 2004).
46. According to Simone she was rejected because she was black, but she noted that "the wonderful thing about this type of discrimination is that you can never know for sure if it is true": Simone with Cleary, I Put a Spell on You, 42.
47. Simone did not apparently feel connected to a long history of classically trained black women. See, for example, Kathryn Talalay, Composition in Black and White: The Life of Philippa Schuyler (New York, 1995);
48. and Allan Keiler, Marian Anderson: A Singer's Journey (Champaign, 2002).
49. Ira Gershwin, DuBose Heyward, and George Gershwin, "I Loves You, Porgy," [1935], performed by Nina Simone, [1957], Little Girl Blue (compact disk; Neon B000055Y5G; 1994).
50. See Joel Whitburn, Top R&B Singles, 1942-1995 (Menomonee Falls, Wisc., 1996), 402;
51. and David Nathan, liner notes, Very Best of Nina Simone, 1967-1972.
52. The critic Sidney Lazard, Chicago Sun-Times,
53. quoted in Garland, Sound of Soul, 175.
54. Simone with Cleary, I Put a Spell on You, 66-67.
55. Biographical information is based on consistent accounts in memoirs, secondary sources, and sources from the 1960s, including, for example, Simone with Cleary, I Put a Spell on You;
56. David Nathan, The Soulful Divas: Personal Portraits of over a Dozen Divas from Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, and Diana Ross to Patti Labelle, Whitney Houston, and Janet Jackson (New York, 1999), 42-65;
57. Philippe Carles, &Antibes 65: Entretien avec Nina Simone,& Jazz Magazine (Sept. 1965), 46-48;
58. and Jennifer Gilmore, &Nina Simone,& Salon.com, June 20, 2000 〈http://www.salon.com/people/bc/2000/06/20/simone/index.html〉 (Nov. 8, 2001).
59. "I Loves You, Porgy" was one of several songs associated with Billie Holiday that Simone recorded. For Holiday's complex legacy, see especially Farah Jasmine Griffin, If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (New York, 2001).
60. John S. Wilson, "Newport, the Music," Down Beat, Aug. 18, 1960, p. 18.
61. "The Rareness of Nina Simone," Metronome (June 1960), 30.
62. Simone with Cleary, I Put a Spell on You, 65.
63. For gender, women, and jazz, see especially Sherrie Tucker, Swing Shift: "All-Girl" Bands of the 1940s (Durham, 2000);
64. Sherrie Tucker, "Improvising Womanhood, or a Conundrum Is a Woman: Race, Gender, and Representation in Black Women's Jazz," in Black Culture, Industry, and Everyday Life, ed. S. Craig Watkins (New York, forthcoming);
65. and Monson, "Problem with White Hipness."
66. For an influential articulation of blues as the authentic black culture, see Leroi Jones, Blues People (New York, 1963);
67. for debates about jazz and race, see Ira Gitler et al., "Racial Prejudice in Jazz, Part I," Down Beat, March 20, 1962, pp. 20-26;
68. and Ira Gitler et al., "Racial Prejudice in Jazz, Part II," Down Beat, ibid., March 29, 1962, pp. 22-25.
69. For a rich intellectual and cultural history of African American jazz musicians, see Eric Porter, What Is This Thing Called Jazz? African American Musicians as Artists, Critics, and Activists (Berkeley, 2002);
70. see also Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr., Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop (Berkeley, 2003);
71. Nichole Rustin, "Mingus Fingers: Charles Mingus, Black Masculinity, and Postwar Jazz Culture" (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1999);
72. and Scott Saul, Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties (Cambridge, Mass., 2003). Other African CherbourgAmerican musicians who blended jazz and classical music included Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, and Mary Lou Williams.
73. For women singers having their "jazz credentials called into question," see Porter, What Is This Thing Called Jazz?, 155;
74. for women blues singers, see Angela Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday (New York, 1998);
75. and Hazel Carby, "'It Jus Be's Dat Way Sometime': The Sexual Politics of Women's Blues," in Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History, ed. Vicki Ruiz and Ellen Dubois (1986; New York, 1994), 330-42.
76. Griffin, If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery, 15.
77. Monson, "Problem with White Hipness," 402.
78. Joan Crosby, "As the Lyrics Go, So Go the Songs," Nashville Tennessean, Feb. 15, 1965, clipping, Simone file, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Clipping File, 1925-1974;
79. "Annual Nina Simone Concert Due at Carnegie Hall," News Release from Anne Fulchino, Nashville Tennessean, ibid. 17-year-old quoted in David Nathan interview by Ruth Feldstein, Nov. 2001, audiotape (in Feldsteins possession).
80. "Nina Simone: Angry Woman of Jazz," Sepia, 16 (March 1967), 64.
81. See also Maurice Cullaz, "Nina Simone," Jazz Hot (Sept. 1965), 27-31;
82. and Maurice Cullaz, "Antibes," Jazz Hot (ibid. (Sept. 1969), 41.
83. For the rural South and the church as repositories for African American music, see Marybeth Hamilton, "Sexuality, Authenticity, and the Making of the Blues Tradition," Past and Present (no. 169, Nov. 2000), 132-60.
84. Langston Hughes, "Nina Simone," New York Post, June 29, 1962, clipping, Simone file, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Clipping File, 1925-1974, emphasis in original.
85. For this description by Hughes as a way to promote Simone, see Chicago Defender, March 21, 1964, clipping, ibid.;
86. and the compilation of reviews that the International Talent Associates, Inc., assembled to represent Simone, Chicago Defender, 1964, ibid.
87. "French chanteuse" in Nathan interview. "The shame": "qui évoque la honte" in Jean-Pierre Binchet, "Antibes 65: Soirées des 24 et 25 juillet (Nina Simone)," Jazz Magazine (Sept. 1965), 22;
88. "burning political discourse": "brûlant discours politique" in Hofstein, "Nina," 13.
89. Michael Smith, "The Other (More Serious) Side of Nina," Melody Maker, Dec. 7, 1968, p. 7.
90. "Nina Simone Pregnant: Settles Suit Secretly," New York Amsterdam News, March 17, 1962, p. 1;
91. Smith, "Other (More Serious) Side of Nina," 7.
92. Simone with Cleary, I Put a Spell on You, 74.
93. "Nina Simone Pregnant," 1.
94. Robert Lucas, "Nina Simone: A Girl with Guts," Negro Digest (Feb. 1962), 23-24;
95. "Nina Simone Pregnant";
96. final three quotations in Lucas, "Nina Simone," 23-24.
97. For a similar emphasis on Simone's hostility to fans and to mass culture in accounts of her opposition to bootlegging, see "Trend May Be Set by Nina's Suit," New York Amsterdam News, Feb. 20, 1965, p. 13.
98. Scott DeVeaux, The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History (Berkeley, 1997), 8.
99. Bernard Gendron, "A Short Stay in the Sun: The Reception of Bebop (1944-1950)," Library Chronicle, 24 (1994), 136-39.
100. Ralph Ellison, "On Bird, Bird-Watching, and Jazz" (1962), in Shadow and Act, ed. Ralph Ellison (1964; New York, 1995), 225.
101. Nat Shapiro, liner notes, In Concert-I Put a Spell on You. "Simmering Down," Sept. 30, 1963, p. 82, clipping, Simone file, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Clipping File, 1925-1974.
102. "Mean" in "Simmering Down";
103. "angry" in "Nina Simone: Angry Woman of Jazz";
104. "unstable" in Raymond Robinson, "Nina Simone Thrills, Oscar Brown Chills," New York Amsterdam News, Dec. 3, 1966, p. 10;
105. "inner fires" in John S. Wilson, "Nina Simone Sings Stirring Program," New York Times, April 17, 1965, clipping, Simone file, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Clipping File, 1925-1974.
106. See also "Snarls at Apollo Audience," New York Citizen-Call, Feb. 18, 1961, p. 15.
107. Monson, "Problem with White Hipness," 410.
108. For the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), see "SNCC Backers," New York Amsterdam News, July 6, 1963, p. 5;
109. and "Sponsors of Carnegie Hall, February 1st [1963] Benefit for SNCC," n.d., microfilm reel 45: B-I-13, #1094, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Papers, 1959-1972 (Widener Library).
110. For the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), see Jesse H. Walker, "Theatricals," New York Amsterdam News, July 20, 1963, p. 15.
111. For the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), see "Mammoth Benefit to Fight Segregation and Brutality: New York State Conference of NAACP Presents the Amazing Nina Simone," advertisement, New York Amsterdam News, May 25, 1963, p. 14.
112. For the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), see "Nina Sings for YMCA on Sunday," New York Amsterdam News, ibid., Feb. 27, 1965, p. 16.
113. Simone with Cleary, I Put a Spell on You, 90-91.
114. For Carnegie Hall, see Julia Prettyman to Nina Simone, May 5, 1964, microfilm reel 45: B-I-12, #1053, SNCC Papers, 1959-1972;
115. Prettyman to Andrew Stroud, June 17, 1964, microfilm reel 45: B-I-12, #1058, SNCC Papers, ibid.
116. For CORE, see Stroud to Jim McDonald, April 26, 1965, microfilm reel 12: E-II-44, #0892, Papers of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE)-Addendum, 1944-1968 (Widener Library);
117. Alan Gartner to Stroud, Aug. 20, 1965, microfilm reel 12: E-II-44, #0892, Papers of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE)-Addendum, ibid.;
118. Jesse Smallwood to Allen Gardner [sic], telegram, Aug. 23, 1965, microfilm reel 12: E-II-44, #0895, Papers of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE)-Addendum, ibid.;
119. and Simone with Cleary, I Put a Spell on You, 108.
120. For $2,000, see "Fund Raising Department Report," Oct. 1965, microfilm reel 8: B-I-13, #0735, CORE Papers-Addendum, 1944-1968.
121. Other concerts at which jazz musicians played in 1963 and 1964 to support the civil rights movement raised $984.10 and $1,354.65: see "Caught in the Act," Down Beat. Aug. 1, 1963, p. 37;
122. and "Hollywood Benefit Raises $1,354 for Civil-Rights Campaign," Down Beat. ibid., Nov. 5, 1964, p. 9.
123. For the relationship between jazz and benefit concerts for civil rights organizations, see Ingrid Monson, "Monk Meets SNCC," Black Music Research Journal, 19 (Autumn 1999), 187-200.
124. New York Amsterdam News, Aug. 10, 1963, p. 42;
125. "Fund Raisers for Freedom: Celebrities Rally to Civil Rights Call by Helping to Raise Thousands in Cash," Ebony (Oct. 1963), 120-26.
126. $9,000 estimate in Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 302.
127. See also Simone with Cleary, I Put a Spell on You, 101-3;
128. and Bob Hunter, "Singer Gloria Lynne in Her Glory," Chicago Defender, Feb. 16-22, 1963, p. 22.
129. Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 289-93.
130. For the willingness of deejays to boycott controversial songs, see Variety, Oct. 3, 1965, p. 63.
131. For efforts SNCC organizers made, see, for example, "Sponsors of Carnegie Hall, February 1st [1963] Benefit for SNCC"; Charles McDew to Mr. Max Roach and Miss Abby [sic] Lincoln, Dec. 22, 1962, microfilm reel 27: #40-0816, SNCC Papers, 1959-1972;
132. see also Monson, "Monk Meets SNCC."
133. Simone with Cleary, I Put a Spell on You, 67.
134. Abbey Lincoln, Straight Ahead, performed by Abbey Lincoln, [1961] (compact disk; Candid CCD 79015: 1989).
135. Ira Gitler, "Review: Abbey Lincoln, Straight Ahead," Down Beat, Nov. 9, 1961, pp. 35-36;
136. see also Gitler et al., "Racial Prejudice in Jazz, Part I";
137. and Gitler et al., "Racial Prejudice in Jazz, Part II."
138. For Lincoln as for Simone, gendered racial politics that emphasized female power developed alongside sometimes repressive personal relationships in which men dominated; for more on Max Roach and Lincoln, and the controversy over Down Beat in particular, see Porter, What Is This Thing Called Jazz?, 149-90;
139. Griffin, If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery, 163-91;
140. and Ingrid Monson, "Abbey Lincoln's Straight Ahead: Jazz in the Era of the Civil Rights Movement," in Between Resistance and Revolution: Cultural Politics and Social Protest, ed. Richard G. Fox and Orin Starn (New Brunswick, 1997), 171-94.
141. For Simone's stormy relationship with her husband and manager Andrew Stroud, see esp. Simone with Cleary, I Put a Spell on You.
142. For examples of such courtship and flattery, see McDew to Roach and Lincoln, Dec. 22, 1962, microfilm reel 27: #40-0816, SNCC Papers, 1949-1972;
143. and Jimmy [Forman] to Betty Carman, Dec. 10, 1964, microfilm reel 27: 40, #0823, SNCC Papers, ibid.
144. Prettyman to Simone, May 5, 1964, microfilm reel 45: B-I-12, #1053, SNCC Papers, ibid.
145. Bill Mclarney, "Caught in the Act," Down Beat, Jan. 23, 1969, p. 34.
146. For the reluctance of other musicians, see Ward, Just My Soul Responding.
147. Lincoln's Straight Ahead is one exception in its mix of culture and politics, as is Max Roach and Oscar Brown, We Insist! The Freedom Now Suite, performed by Max Roach, Oscar Brown, et al., [1960] (compact disk; Candid CCD 9002; 1987).
148. Both of those albums are solidly entrenched in a postwar jazz canon in ways that Simone's music is not. See Saul, Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't;
149. and Porter, What Is This Thing Called Jazz?
150. For more coded references to racial politics in popular music, see Suzanne Smith, Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit (Cambridge, Mass., 1999).
151. Due to constraints of space, I focus on three songs in which the relevance of gender to racial politics is particularly apparent, but, as noted, Simone made related moves in other songs and on other albums. The focus is lyrics more than music because it was Simone's style of lyrics that changed on this album.
152. Kurt Weill and Bertholt Brecht, "Pirate Jenny," performed by Nina Simone, [1964], In Concert-I Put a Spell on You; Kurt Weill and Bertholt Brecht, The Threepenny Opera, [1928], English adaptation by Marc Blitzstein, [1954] (compact disk; Decca B00004X09T; 2000).
153. Michael Denning, The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1996), 324.
154. For the relationship between German left-wing modernism and American protest music, see Russell Berman, "Sounds Familiar? Nina Simone's Performances of Brecht/Weill Songs," in Sound Matters: Essays on the Acoustics of German Culture, ed. Nora M. Alter and Lutz Koepnick (New York, 2004).
155. Shapiro, liner notes, In Concert-I Put a Spell on You.
156. Simone did hold one long high note for her final reference to the "ship, the black freighter"; see Berman, "Sounds Familiar?"
157. Alex Comfort and Nina Simone, "Go Limp," performed by Nina Simone, [1964], In Concert-I Put a Spell on You.
158. On folk songs, see Robert Cantwell, When We Were Good: The Folk Revival (Cambridge, Mass., 1996);
159. and Kerran L. Sanger, "When the Spirit Says Sing!" The Role of Freedom Songs in the Civil Rights Movement (New York, 1995).
160. Simone does not name the race of the woman or of the man with whom she becomes involved. As will become clear, this ambiguity is productive.
161. For gender and the politics of respectability, see Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Woman's Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920 (Cambridge, Mass., 1993).
162. For respectability and the civil rights movement, see William Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York, 1980);
163. and Marisa Chappell, Jenny Hutchinson, and Brian Ward, "'Dress modestly, neatly. . . as if you were going to church': Respectability, Class, and Gender in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Early Civil Rights Movement," in Gender in the Civil Rights Movement, ed. Peter J. Ling (New York, 1999), 69-100.
164. For Abbey Lincoln's musical expressions of rage, see Porter, What Is This Thing Called Jazz?;
165. and Griffin, If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery.
166. For diverse arenas in which black power and black cultural nationalism took shape, see, for example, Manning Marable, Black American Politics: From the Washington Marches to Jesse Jackson (New York, 1985);
167. Nikhil Pal Singh, "The Black Panthers and the 'Undeveloped Country' of the Left," in The Black Panther Party Reconsidered, ed. Charles Jones (Baltimore, 1998), 63;
168. William Van Deburg, ed., Modern Black Nationalism: From Marcus Garvey to Louis Farrakhan (New York, 1997);
169. Tyson, Radio Free Dixie;
170. James Smethurst, "Poetry and Sympathy: New York, the Left, and the Rise of Black Arts," in Left of the Color Line, ed. Mullen and Smethurst, 259-78;
171. and Leroi Jones and Larry Neal, eds., Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing (1965; New York, 1968), 303.
172. James Brown, "Say It Loud-I'm Black and I'm Proud," performed by James Brown, [1968], Say It Live and Loud: Live in Dallas 08.26.68 (compact disk; Polydor 31455-7668-2; 1998).
173. See Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer, Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s (New York, 1990), 276, 291;
174. and Robert Weisbrot, Freedom Bound: A History of America's Civil Rights Movement (New York, 1990), 195.
175. For memoirs, poetry, and scholarship documenting women's participation in black power and black cultural nationalism, see, for example, Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story (New York, 1992);
176. Nikki Giovanni, The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni (New York, 1995);
177. Sharon Harley, "'Chronicle of a Death Foretold': Gloria Richardson, the Cambridge Movement, and the Radical Black Activist Tradition," in Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement, ed. Bettye Collier-Thomas and V. P. Franklin (New York, 2001), 174-96;
178. Regina Jennings, "Why I Joined the Party: An African Womanist Reflection," in Black Panther Party Reconsidered, ed. Jones, 257-65;
179. Angela D. LeBlanc-Ernest, "'The Most Qualified Person to Handle the Job': Black Panther Party Women, 1966-1982," Black Panther Party Reconsidered, ibid., 305-34;
180. and Sonia Sanchez, We a BadddDD People (Detroit, 1970).
181. For how masculinity constituted expressions of black power and black cultural nationalism, see, for example, Phillip Brian Harper, Are We Not Men? Masculine Anxiety and the Problem of African-American Identity (New York, 1996);
182. Kelley, Freedom Dreams;
183. Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 388-415;
184. and Jerry Gafio Watts, Amiri Baraka: The Politics and Art of a Black Intellectual (New York, 2001), 325-47.
185. "Nina Simone: Angry Woman of Jazz," 60.
186. Lee Dembart, "Nina Simone: Soul on Voice," New York Post, March 15, 1969, sec. 3, p. 1, clipping, Simone file, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Clipping File, 1925-1974;
187. Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice (New York, 1968).
188. "Nina Simone: Angry Woman of Jazz," 61-62;
189. for Simone and censorship, see also, for example, Cordell Thompson, "Young, Gifted, and Black Tune May Have Nixed Nina's TV Showing," Jet, May 14, 1970, pp. 60-61.
190. For more on the impact of "Mississippi Goddam," see Wilson, "Recital Victory for Nina Simone."
191. See Simone with Cleary, I Put a Spell on You, 87, 98.
192. For an early example of black male sexual aggression as related to liberatory black politics, see Leroi Jones, "Dutchman" (1964), in The Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader, ed. William J. Harris (New York, 1991), 76-99;
193. for later examples, see Amiri Baraka, "T. T. Jackson Sings" (1969), The Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader, ibid., 216;
194. and Larry Neal, "The Baroness and the Black Musician," in Black Fire, ed. Jones and Neal, 309.
195. For black male sexuality in early R&B music, see Mark Anthony Neal, "'Another Man Is Beating My Time': Gender and Sexuality in Rhythm and Blues," in American Popular Music: New Approaches to the Twentieth Century, ed. Rachel Rubin and Jeffrey Melnick (Amherst, 2001), 127-39.
196. Clearly, "Go Limp" could be interpreted in various ways, at the time and subsequently. I am not suggesting that there is or was one singular meaning or message in the song; rather, the multiplicity of meanings is itself significant.
197. Simone with Cleary, I Put a Spell on You, 89-90.
198. Amiri Baraka, "Black Art" (1969), in Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader, ed. Harris, 219.
199. Mary Helen Washington, "Alice Childress, Lorraine Hansberry, and Claudia Jones: Black Women Write the Popular Front," in Left of the Color Line, ed. Mullen and Smethurst, 185.
200. For women in SNCC, see Frances Beale, "Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female," in The Black Woman: An Anthology, ed. Toni Cade Bambara (New York, 1970), 95-98.
201. Third World Women's Alliance, "Statement" (1968), in Dear Sisters: Dispatches from the Women's Liberation Movement, ed. Rosalyn Fraad Baxandall and Linda Gordon (New York, 2000), 65.
202. For black women and feminism, see also Rosalyn Baxandall, "Re-Visioning the Women's Liberation Movement's Narrative: Early Second Wave African American Feminists," Feminist Studies, 27 (Spring 2001), 225-45.
203. See "33 Americans Going to Negro Art Fete," New York Times, Dec. 3, 1961, clipping, American Society of African Culture (AMSAC) file, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Clipping File, 1925-1974;
204. and Morris Kaplan, "U.S. Negro Artists Go to Africa to Join in Cultural Exchange," New York Times, Dec. 14, 1961, clipping, ibid.
205. For more on AMSAC, see "AMSAC Annual Report, 1960-61," pp. 1-7, ibid.;
206. and James Meriwether, Proudly We Can Be Africans: Black Americans and Africa, 1935-1961 (Chapel Hill, 2002), 171-72.
207. Simone with Cleary, I Put a Spell on You, 80-81, emphasis in original.
208. For a tradition of African American internationalism, see especially Penny M. Von Eschen, Race against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937-1957 (Ithaca, 1997).
209. See "Mammoth Benefit to Fight Segregation and Brutality," 14;
210. and "Rareness of Nina Simone," 30.
211. Robinson, "Nina Simone Thrills, Oscar Brown Chills," 10.
212. See also Philharmonic Hall Concert Program, Nov. 22, 1966, Simone file, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Clipping File, 1925-1974.
213. "Why am I": "Pourquoi je suis si bouleversée par les différentes musiques, les différents folklores d'Afrique?. . . Or les 'gut bucket blues'. . . et la musique religieuse de notre peuple se rattachent évidemment a une tradition africaine. . . . Ce que nous sommes de plus en plus (mais que nous n'avons jamais cessé d'être, en réalité. . . malgré les apparences) c'est quelque chose de très près de l'Afrique" in Cullaz, "Antibes," 41.
214. For Josephine Baker, see, for example, Sieglinde Lemke, Primitivist Modernism: Black Culture and the Origins of Transatlantic Modernism (New York, 1998), 103;
215. for Holiday, see Griffin, If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery, 99-103.
216. Walsh and Hutton, "Antibes Jazz Festival Report," p. 6.
217. "'Mississippi' is": "'Mississipi' est une des choses les plus émouvantes qu'il m'ait été donné d'écouter" in Cullaz, "Nina Simone," 28;
218. "attaque 'Strange fruit'" in Jacques Creuzevault, "Antibes," Jazz Hot (Sept. 1965), 16-27, esp. 18;
219. "a perfect world": "l'appel vers un monde parfait, celui où un Blanc vaut un Noir" in Binchet, "Antibes 65," 22;
220. "du grand public" in Cullaz, "Divine Nina," 7.
221. British teenager quoted in Nathan interview; see also Nathan, Soulful Divas, 53.
222. "Because of": "A cause de ce manque de respect qui dure depuis des centaines d'années, chaque fois que je vais dans un nouveau pays, je me sens obligée d'inclure dans mon répertoire des chants qui affirment orgueilleusement ma race" in Michel Delorme and Maurice Cullaz, "Nina Simone: Affirmer orgueilleusement ma race," Jazz Hot (Sept. 1965), 7.
223. In this regard, she was quite different from Josephine Baker and others whose offstage critiques of American race relations were not as central to onstage performances; see Dudziak, "Josephine Baker, Racial Protest, and the Cold War."
224. Smith, "Other (More Serious) Side of Nina," 7.
225. On the "ever-increasing number of jazzmen making their homes in Europe," see "Americans in Europe, a Discussion," Down Beat, July 2, 1964, pp. 64-73, esp. 64;
226. Joachim Berendt, "Americans in Europe, a Dissident View," Down Beat, ibid., Sept. 10, 1965, p. 19;
227. and Tyler Stovall, Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light (Boston, 1996).
228. See Griffin, If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery, 106. Nathan interview.
229. Smith, "Other (More Serious) Side of Nina," 7.
230. Royston Eldridge, "Nina's the Medium for the Message," Melody Maker, April 19, 1969, p. 5;
231. to Eldridge, Simone offered more positive assessments of race relations in Europe. Nina Simone, "Revolution," performed by Nina Simone, [1969], To Love Somebody-Here Comes the Sun (compact disk; BMG Entertainment 74321 924792; 2002).
232. See Miriam Makeba with James Hall, Miriam Makeba: My Story (New York, 1987), 111-16;
233. Helen A. Neville and Jennifer Hamer, "'We Make Freedom': An Exploration of Revolutionary Black Feminism," Journal of 'Black Studies, 31 (March 2001), 451-52;
234. Becky Thompson, "Multiracial Feminism: Recasting the Chronology of Second Wave Feminism," Feminist Studies, 28 (Summer 2002), 337-55;
235. and Gaines, "From Center to Margin," 305.
236. Kelley, "Nap Time," 344;
237. for other women and for the role of the fashion industry in this process, see Kelley, "Nap Time," ibid., 330-51;
238. see also Smith, Visions of Belonging.
239. Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun (1959; New York, 1961);
240. For an emphasis on the late 1960s, see, for example, William Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965-1975 (Chicago, 1992), esp. 192-204.
241. For the dominance of white male new leftists in scholarship on the 1960s, see Alice Echols, "'We Gotta Get Out of This Place': Notes toward a Remapping of the Sixties," Socialist Review, 92 (no. 2, 1992), 9-33.
242. In addition to works cited, for reperiodizing the sixties, see also, for example, James C. Hall, Mercy, Mercy Me: African American Culture and the American Sixties (New York, 2001);
243. for the centrality of African American women to such a reperiodization, see Gaines, "From Center to Margin";
244. and E. Frances White, "Africa on My Mind: Gender, Counterdiscourse, and African American Nationalism," in Dark Continent of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and the Politics of Respectability, ed. E. Frances White (1990; Philadelphia, 2001), 117-50.
245. For examples of black feminist critiques, see Bambara, ed., Black Woman;
246. and "Combahee River Collective, a Black Feminist Statement" (1977), in The Black Feminist Reader, ed. Joy James and T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting (Maiden, 2000), 261-70.
247. While many of the ideas in the anthology Black Woman took shape earlier in the 1960s, other selections were reactions to events in the mid- to late 1960s-to the (in)famous Moynihan report (Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action," 1965), among others.
248. Tucker, "Improvising Womanhood, or a Conundrum Is a Woman."
249. Simone with Cleary, I Put a Spell on You, 86-87.
250. Nina Simone and Weldon Irvine Jr., "To Be Young, Gifted, and Black," performed by Nina Simone, [1969], Nina Simone, Platinum Series;
251. Nathan, liner notes, Very Best of Nina Simone, 1967-1972.
252. Simone with Cleary, I Put a Spell on You, 86-87.
253. For a now-classic analysis of feminism developing out of and after a commitment to civil rights, see Sara Evans, Personal Politics: The Roots of Women's Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left (New York, 1979).
254. For sexuality and women blues singers, see Carby, "'It Jus Be's Dat Way Sometime'";
255. for sexuality and second-wave feminism, see Jane Gerhard, Desiring Revolution: Second-Wave Feminism and the Rewriting of American Sexual Thought (New York, 2001).
256. Gaines, "From Center to Margin," 20.
257. The AMSAC trip to Nigeria in 1961 received widespread coverage in the black and white press and across a political spectrum of liberal and radical publications; see, for example, "African-American Cultural Exchange: Nigerian and U.S. Negro Artists Blend Talents at AMSAC Festival in Lagos," Ebony (March 1962), 87-94;
258. for critical accounts from Africa, see Francesca Pereira, "AMSAC Festival Was a Pleasure," Lagos Daily Times, Dec. 30, 1961, clipping, AMSAC file, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Clipping File, 1925-1974.
259. For SNCC fund-raising efforts and the Freedom Singers, see, for example, the brochure Freedom Gifts: Posters, Books, Holiday Seals, Calendar, n.d., microfilm reel 27, #39: 0748-50, SNCC Papers, 1959-1972;
260. and Dinky Romilly to Irwin Silver, Feb. 25, 1964, microfilm reel 27, #34:-0122, Freedom Gifts: Posters, Books, Holiday Seals, Calendar, ibid.
261. Guy Carawan and Candie Carawan, eds., Sing for Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement through Its Songs (1963, 1968; Bethlehem, Penn., 1990);
262. "Mississippi Goddam" was included in the second volume of this anthology. Guy Carawan and Candie Carawan, "Introduction," Sing for Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement through Its Songs (ibid., 12.
263. C. T. Vivian quoted Sing for Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement through Its Songs (ibid., 4;
264. Black Music Research Journal (1987) quoted ibid., 5.
265. For the Highander Folk School and folk music, see Benjamin Filene, Romancing the Folk: Public Memory and American Roots Music (Chapel Hill, 2000), 3;
266. and Miles Horton with Judith Kohl and Herbert Kohl, The Long Haul: An Autobiography (New York, 1990).
267. For freedom songs in contrast to "entertainment," see R. Serge Denisoff, "Protest Songs: Those on the Top Forty and Those of the Streets," American Quarterly, 22 (Winter 1970), 807-23;
268. for blues collectors and scholars in the 1930s who "expurgated" the sexual songs of blues, see Hamilton, "Sexuality, Authenticity, and the Making of the Blues Tradition," 146.
269. Bernice Johnson Reagon, "The Song Culture of the Civil Rights Movement," liner notes, Voices of the Civil Rights Movement: Black American Freedom Songs, 1960-1966 [1980] (compact disk; Smithsonian Folkways Recordings 40084; 1997).
270. Reagon's contributions to the movement and to scholarship on black activism have been invaluable. See, for example, Bernice Johnson Reagon, ed., Black American Culture and Scholarship: Contemporary Issues (Washington, 1985);
271. The Songs Are Free, Bernice Johnson Reagon with Bill Moyers, dir. Gail Pellett (Public Affairs Television, 1991) (one videotape; Mystic Fire Video, 2001);
272. and Bernice Johnson Reagon, If You Don't Go, Don't Hinder Me: The African American Sacred Song Tradition (Lincoln, 2001). Copyright issues may have been one among many variables that played a part in assembling the wonderful Voices of the Civil Rights Movement collection; I raise this example simply as a way to consider what is absent as well as what is present and to see how narratives about culture and civil rights assume authority and get perpetuated.
273. See Nathan, Soulful Divas, 60-63;
274. and "Nina Simone Ends Voluntary Exile from U.S.," Jet, April 22, 1985, pp. 54-55.
275. See, for example, Richard Harrington, "Nina Simone, a Voice to Be Reckoned With," Washington Post, April 22, 2003, sec. C, p. 1;
276. and John Fordham, "Nina Simone: Soul-Jazz Diva Whose Music Spoke of Love, Respect, and Their Opposites-Particularly in Relation to Race," Guardian Review, April 22, 2003, p. 23.
277. Miriam Makeba quoted in Susan Bell, "Friends and Family Pay Their Tributes to Jazz Legend's Political Courage at Packed Funeral," Scotsman, April 26, 2003, p. 17.
278. Exceptions include Craig Seymour, "An Appreciation: Nina Simone's Voice Fused Art, Politics," Atlanta Journal and Constitution, April 23, 2003, p. 1E.
279. "More than an Entertainer," Time, Feb. 21, 1969, clipping, Simone file, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Clipping File, 1925-1974.