Freedom songs and Fannie Lou Hamer's singing

Why did the movement sing?

Mass meetings in Delta churches opened and closed with singing, and the songs carried people through the fear of what might happen next. Many were old hymns and spirituals that people already knew from church, with new words that named the struggle: "freedom" in place of "Jesus," or the name of a sheriff in place of a Bible villain. Others were adapted from gospel and rhythm and blues. Because everyone knew the tunes, anyone could join in.

Organizers learned that singing also worked in jails, where it kept prisoners' spirits up and let people in separate cells know they were not alone.

How did Fannie Lou Hamer become a song leader?

Her singing first drew attention on August 31, 1962, when police stopped the bus carrying the Ruleville group home from the Indianola courthouse, and she began singing hymns to calm the others. The SNCC Digital Gateway reports that SNCC first noticed her because of her voice. From then on she led singing at meetings across Mississippi and the North, and at the 1964 Atlantic City convention.

"This Little Light of Mine" became so closely tied to her that people still sing it at events in her memory. In the small church settings where she grew up, the person who "raised" a hymn set the key and the pace, and she was very good at it.

Who were the SNCC Freedom Singers?

SNCC organized a touring vocal group in 1962 to raise money and carry the movement's message to colleges and churches. Its first members included Cordell Reagon, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Rutha Harris and Charles Neblett. Bernice Johnson Reagon later founded the group Sweet Honey in the Rock and became a curator and historian of African American music at the Smithsonian. The New Georgia Encyclopedia has a history of the group, which grew out of the Albany movement in Georgia.

Where can I hear freedom songs today?

Smithsonian Folkways publishes recordings of freedom songs from 1960 to 1966, including tracks by Fannie Lou Hamer herself, and the Library of Congress holds oral histories in which movement veterans sing and talk about the songs. We do not reprint lyrics on this site; the recordings linked below are better than any transcription. For classroom use, our lesson plan suggests pairing a recording with Hamer's 1964 testimony.

Why is this page at uhuruI.html?

The address comes from an earlier site on this domain that used Uhuru, the Swahili word for freedom, in several page names. We kept it so links still work. The word itself is explained on our Uhuru page.