How Did Nina Simone Influence The Civil Rights Movement

Nina Simone was a famous blues and folk singer from the late 1950’s up until 1999 during that time she used her music to address the inequality that African Americans were facing at the time. Many of her songs in the mid-1960’s was addressing the attacks and inequalities that African Americans were facing giving her the title voice of the Civil Rights Movement. After having enough of this countries racial politics she ended up moving to the south of France, but not before making a lasting impact on blues and folk music. Three top songs that represent Simone’s views on civil rights would be Mississippi Goddam, Backlash Blues, and Got no, I got life. Mississippi Goddam is a song by Nina Simone that is heavily influenced by the race based crimes that the KKK was committing during the Civil Rights Era and also the police brutality that the protesters were facing. It was a major response to the bombing of the Birmingham church that left 4 young girls dead, and also the assassination of Medgar Evans. In this song she discussed segregation, how school children are in jail, and how she herself fears for her life every …show more content…
In one part of the song she even discusses lashing back at the white culture for the way that her race was being treated by giving them the backlash blues. Simone in the song is referring to the us government as Mr. Backlash and asks “Do you think all black folks are just second class fools.” (Simone, 1967, track 6) This song pointed out in the flaws in the separate but equal philosophy by discussing how everything that the African American race was given was just second class to what the white people were getting. She then goes on to discuss how the world is filled with different races and different colors and that white people will have to get used to that, which was very rebellious for her time