Track Listing

1. We Are Soldiers in the Army Now - Gladys Burnette Carter, Mary Ethel Dozier, Minnie Hendrick
2. Keep Your Hands on the Plow - Gladys Burnette Carter, Mary Ethel Dozier, Minnie Hendrick
3. This Little Light - Gladys Burnette Carter, Mary Ethel Dozier, Minnie Hendrick
4. You Better Leave Segregation Alone - James Bevel, Joesph Carter, Samuel Collier, Bernard Lafayette, Nashville Quartet From American Baptist Theological Seminary
5. Your Dog Loves My Dog - James Bevel, Joesph Carter, Samuel Collier, Bernard Lafayette, Nashville Quartet From American Baptist Theological Seminary
6. Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around - Rutha Harris, Charles Nevlett, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Cordell Hull Reagon, SNCC Freedom Singers
7. I Woke Up This Morning With My Mind on Freedom - Rev. Ben Gay, SNCC Freedom Singers
8. Keep Your Eyes on the Prize - Charles Jones, Cordell Hull Reagon, SNCC Freedom Singers
9. Oh Pritchett, Oh Kelly - Jamie Culbreath, Berha Gober, Rutha Harris, SNCC Freedom Singers, Charles Sherrod
10. Up Above My Head - Betty Fikes
11. This Little Light - Betty Fikes, , Rutha Mae Fikes, Rutha Harris
12. Brown Baby - Cordell Hull Reagon
13. Which Side Are You On? - Rutha Harris, Charles Neblitt, Cordell Hull Reagon
14. I'm Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table - Rutha Harris, Charles Neblitt, Cordell Hull Reagon, Hollis Watkins
15. Mass Meeting and Prayer - Rutha Harris, Charles Neblitt, Cordell Hull Reagon, Hollis Watkins
16. Guide My Feet - Doc Reese & Congregation
17. I'm on My Way - Birmingham Movment Choir, Mamie Brown, , Carlton Reece
18. Rev. Ralph Abernathy Speaking - Ralph Abernathy
19. Yes, We Want Our Freedom - Cleo Kennedy, Carlton Reece
20. Rev. Martin Luther King Speaking - Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr.,
21. Ninety-Nine-And-A-Half Won't Do - Carlton Reece
22. Get on Board - Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses
23. No Danger in the Water - Bob Moses
24. Medgar Evers Speaking - Medgar Evers
25. Keep Your Eyes on the Prize - Bob Moses
26. We Shall Overcome - Dorothy Cotton, Rutha Harris, Charles Neblitt, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Cordell Hull Reagon, , Pete Seeger

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #54324 in Music
• Released on: 1992-07-13
• Number of discs: 1

Album Description
Hymns, speeches, spirituals, gospel songs, and prayers...a moving civil rights collection drawn from 1960s field recordings in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee. The compilation captures the irrepressible spirit of that era and reveals a determined and triumphant African American culture. A collection of glorious songs and heartstopping selections by The SNCC Freedom Singers, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and others. "...there is wonderful singing here, great conviction, and the immediacy of living truth...powerful documentation of the most important social movement of our time." -- Sing Out!

Customer Reviews

Songs and Speeches of hope and Inspiration
If you ever need an emotional and spiritual pick-up, then this CD is for you. So much unknownn talent here. The Birmingham Freedom Choir would certainly give Kirk Franklin and Walter Hawkins a run for the money and the Montgomery Movement Singers have a singing style that's haunting in its simplicity. Like Brother Stack (BTW, I'm also a native of Spartanburg, SC, let's hang out and chat about this CD when I'm in town again), I've used this CD in my classes and my students have been moved by MLK's brief address ("If you can't run-WALK, and if you can't run-CRAWL, just KEEP MOVING ON!"). Raplh Abernathy's address is also surprisingly good and while the martyred legend Medgar Evers was not a spellbinding speaker, his sincerity comes through. The beauty of this CD is the courage the speakers and singers had in the danger of what they faced. This will inspire listeners to similar courage in the problems they may face today.

Sing For Freedom
I simple love this CD and all of the 26 songs. There is not one throw away song or segment on the CD recording. The CD chronicles the modern day civil rights movement through song from 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, to 1960 and the student lead demonstrations in Nashville, Tenn. to the 1963 Birmingham Mass Meetings. The artist are regional and have a wonderful quality to the singing. A must have...... I play this CD to my high school students every year and they are mesmerized. I play the CD in the teacher's lounge and they all want copies. I used some of the songs on the CD in a talk at my local Unitarian Universalist Church and got a standing ovation. I never tire of listening to the richness of the songs.

Yes, They Were Soldiers Of Freedom
Every social movement, and the Southern black civil rights movement of the 1950's and early 1960's was no exception, not only has to have its slogans, its placards and its orators but also its anthems. For those unfamiliar with its history this little CD will, in song and speech, give the highlights of the movement as it pressed on from Montgomery, Alabama in the mid-1950's to Albany, Georgia, Greenwood, Mississippi, Birmingham, Alabama and many, many other smaller but no less important ports of call in the struggle for first- class citizenship for blacks in the Jim Crow South. For those familiar with the story of the struggle down South you will get a full storehouse of memories of the songs that became part of the greater culture and still sent a chill of excitement and expectation through this reviewer' s body when he listened to them. As we are painfully aware of today, that civil rights movement fell far short of creating that racial equality we were after but certainly not for lack of inspiring music.

As mentioned above, an added attraction here is some of the oration of the time by the black leadership. Obviously that meant Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference but also Bob Moses from the voter-registration drives led by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). And the NAACP's Medgar Evers before his assassination. And the star of the piece- the heroic leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Fannie Lou Hamer who calmly set about turning the tables on the establishment. Two things should be remembered from that time. One is Nina Simone's "Mississippi Goddamn" (not included here) for that says in song what the struggle was all about and what civil rights workers were up against. The other, for all those who want to praise the Democratic Party's role in civil rights history just remember that when there was choice between Ms. Hamer's Freedom Democrats and the Jim Crow Democrats in the 1964 Democratic Convention they seated the Jim Crow delegation.

That said , musically the selections here reflect the central importance, good or bad, of the black church in this democratic fight with some "fighting" songs, some of `redemption' and some as fuel to keep the struggle going, especially when the Southern white establishment and their assorted henchmen counter-attacked. The songs that most reflect these themes are " We Are Soldiers In The Army", "This Little Light", "Which Side Are You On?", "Keep Your Eyes On The Prize" and the movement anthem "We Shall Overcome".