ontinue the idea of values. What ideas are being presented in these protest songs that echo back to the older works we’ve looked at?

The protest songs that we looked at for today are all chalked full of ideals from the slavery period. They take feelings and sentiments from the pre-civil war era and make them into songs about overcoming segregation and inequality. This is shown strongly in Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round one of the lines is even; Ain’t Gonna let segregation turn me round. This shows a boldness that was found while slavery was still a problem and motivator for songs such as this and adapted into a song of protest against inequality. Strange Fruit is another protest song that does its job by reminding people of what used to happen in the south. The vivid imagery in this song Is so shocking that it can do nothing but remind people what African Americans have been through and show the very basis for the protests. This is important in that it shows the values present in slavery times and brings them into the civil rights movement. The last song We Shall Overcome is a hymnal that was adapted in the 1950’s for the civil rights movement and became its unofficial theme. This song displays the ideals and values of the slavery period through perseverance. This theme is present throughout the slavery time period in many ways such as The Ballad of John Henry. This ties into the song of the day that protested inequality as opposed to slavery. The shocking thing to me is that the same values that came from when African Americans were literally someone else’s property was able to shine through in getting them to be equal with those who had them enslaved in the first place. The values got them through the slavery period and in the end got the support needed to make the Civil Rights movement successful and create the much more but not perfectly equal world that we live in today.

Look Closely at John Henry...

The Ballad of John Henry is a ballad that can be seen through its influence even in some of the songs of today. The story starts out with him being born to be a steel hammering man and that is what he becomes. He grew up to be exactly what he was born to be just like some of the songs of today such as New York State of Mind. He is trapped by what he has to do and it ends up being the death of him. He is unable to break free from being a steel hammering man and like the old adage says if you live by the sword you will die by the sword, except in this case it is a twelve-pound hammer. This is a significant assessment because it is what many of the songs of today talk about. Growing up in circumstances that one cannot control and trying to fight one’s way through them. The Message is another song of today that can be seen as influenced by songs such as this ballad. It talks all about ones environment and how even though it makes him sick he cant do anything but keep on trying. John Henry for most of the ballad is close to the edge just like the song. He is eager to prove his worth and what finally pushes him over the edge is a sickness. He cannot control this but is eager to die just as he lived. Another aspect where all of these songs are very similar is in their content. None of these songs are “g” rated. They all talk about tough situations and a tough life that everyone is trying to escape from. In the case of the Ballad of John Henry it even goes as far as to describe John Henry getting his entrails spilt by his own Twelve-pound hammer. This relates to the graphic nature of the other two songs in that they contain a lot of cursing and a general show that it is more important to convey what is really happening rather than to be polite and acceptable.