What is it about?
The Freedom Songs of the classic civil rights movement were derived from older spirituals but they were also collated and disseminated by white folk singer Guy Carawan. As a result they became "lieux de memoire" sites of memory that symbolize the tradition of protest within African American culture but also indicating that they are not products of a "milieu de memoire" the oral culture of folk communities that operate via direct oral communication within local communities. The article shows how the concept of the folk is a product of modernity and serves to validate modernism rather than describe the experience of other communities.
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Why is it important?
There is a tendency to conflate musical evolution and over-emphasize the continuities within particular traditions. Folk music privileges authenticity and is valued as a definitive expression of ethnic identity. In reality, it is an evolving form that exists because of modern practices.
Perspectives
Guy Carawan was a valuable mediator who helped the movement develop a repertoire of songs for the protest movement. As a white performer, he then stepped back and subsequently his mediating role was largely ignored. This allowed the Freedom Songs to be venerated in the same ways as spirituals and for the same reasons .
Emeritus Professor Peter John Ling
University of Nottingham
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Spirituals, Freedom Songs, and Lieux de Mémoire: African-American Music and the Routes of Memory, Prospects, October 1999, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s036123330000034x.
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