hennyproud: Nina Simone performing “Mississippi Goddam”, c....

hennyproud:

Nina Simone performing “Mississippi Goddam”, c. 1965 [x]

Nina Simone wrote “Mississippi Goddam” in 1964 as a response to the death of Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers in Mississippi and the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church which killed four African American girls in Alabama. Both events took place in 1963.

“Mississippi Goddam” would go on to cement Simone’s place in the Civil Right’s Movement of the 1960s and the song itself would go on to become one of the most well-known protest songs of the 1960s as well.

Fifty years later, the song is still relevant, especially with the recent massacre at the historical AME church in Charleston, South Carolina and the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray and countless other African Americans. All you have to do is change “Mississippi” to “South Carolina”, “Charleston”, “Ferguson”, “Florida”, “Cleveland”, “Baltimore”, or “New York City” and you have a song that fits the frustration among African Americans today.

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