Protest Songs

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

These three protest songs all deal with the reoccurring themes of freedom and racism. In the protest song, “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round” the reoccurring themes are bravery and freedom. This song shows that those who sang this song were not scared of jail, “Ain’t gonna let no sheriff turn me ‘round” (Line 13) as well as a variety of other things. The song shows different examples of the different things people did to the slaves to try and make them give up hope of freedom. Freedom presents itself in that the words “turn around” mean that the slaves thought they could changes minds that they can be free. The slaves were very set on freedom; nothing was in their way. In this song all the whites are trying to get the African Americans to stop fighting racism. The song, “Strange Fruit” is a song about having a vision of hanging black men in the south; those are what the slaves were referring to each time they sang this song. This protest song dealt with racism directly. To me, this song stood out the most. It was as though it was different from the two others but in a way the same. In the song, “We Shall Overcome”, the main themes are believing and hope. The slaves believed that racism will be overcome in the future, they won’t give up and that they will win. “We’ll walk hand in hand someday.” (Line 6) All of these songs have the theme of anti-slavery and mention the horrible things that have happened to the slaves and the fact that they will never give up, which is how they are similar to the others we have read.