We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue Analysis

1768 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Music in african american culture essay

How Music Helped Form the Black Identity

Music has had an overwhelming influence on the African American community, as well as American society as a whole. To African Americans, music is expressed as more than just lyrics and instrumentals; it is a culture. Since their arrival to the United States, music has helped influence and uplift the black community by speaking up for centuries of exploitation and providing a voice to a marginalized community. Music has provided a platform for artists to express their opinions about society, the government, and the treatment of African Americans by people in power. Through music, African Americans have redefined what it means to be black. To combat the racism and the stereotypes given to African Americans …show more content…

This song is a call to action for people of color to realize that they are more than the characteristics given to them by the oppressing group. “We people who are darker than blue, are we gonna stand around this town and let what others say come true? We’re just good for nothing, they all figure. A boyish, grown-up, shiftless jigger. Now we can’t hardly stand for that…” In this song, Mayfield is addressing the poor race relations in the United States and he is implying that African Americans need to take a stand or else things will not change. This song was released in the 1970s, two years after the end of the civil rights movement. As blackness slowly began to integrate into “white society” there continued to be backlash. We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue was created as a form of encouragement. For people of color to realize that they truly are worth more than what they have been made out to be. This song compliments the self-love movement that arose within the African American community during the civil rights movement. Songs such as this helped more African Americans to start to love the person that they saw in the mirror. Instead of altering their natural image to better assimilate into society, this song helped African Americans embrace the skin that they were born in. Mayfield ends the song by saying “[but] let us not be so satisfied for tomorrow can be an even brighter day.” This signifies that African Americans can never be content with their treatment in society until the day comes where all races are truly

Show More
Related

  • Racism In Anne Moody's 'We Shall Overcome'

    1709 Words  | 4 Pages

    “We Shall Overcome” was a popular song of comfort and strength during the civil rights movement; it was a rallying cry for many black people who had experienced the racial injustices of the south. The song instilled hope that one day they would “overcome” the overt and institutional racism preventing them from possessing the same rights as white citizens. Anne Moody describes several instances when this song helped uplift her through the low points of her life as a black woman growing up in Mississippi in the 1950s and early 1960s. By the end of her autobiography “Coming Of Age In Mississippi” (1968), she saw a stream of excessive and unending violence perpetrated by white people and the crippling effects of poverty on the black people of

    Read More

  • Summary: All That Jazz

    551 Words  | 2 Pages

    Musically and culturally, the black community impacted America. Musicians, like Duke Ellington, King Oliver, and Louis Armstrong, spiced up the

    Read More

  • In the 1960's, People Turned to Music for Hope, Peace, and Happiness

    1224 Words  | 3 Pages

    The African-American civil rights movement was a cruel time for the African American race to endure due to the harsh discrimination and segregation that they faced. This movement fought for the rights and the equality of African Americans in the United States. With all that was going on, African Americans turned to music for motivation, courage, inspiration and strength to overcome the difficult obstacles that they would soon face. “Non-violence marchers faced beating, hosing, burning, shooting, or jail with no defense other than their courage and songs” (Hast 45). “It's been a long, a long time coming/ But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will” (Cooke, Sam. A Change Is Gonna Come). Music was their greatest hope for change in the near future and is the thing that kept them fighting for what they deserved. They came together with each other due to the lyrics of many different songs that kept the civil rights movement alive and known. Music painted a vision that they could picture and look forward to; it was a dream that they could fight for. “Music empowered African Americans to hold tight to their dream of racial equality” (Jeske). A genre of music that bought society together during this movement was folk.

    Read More

  • Music Influence on the Civil Rights Movement

    1034 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the Civil Rights era, African Americans changed the way people looked at music by ending the segregation in the music world and by making a well-known “soundtrack” and influence during the Civil Rights Movement.

    Read More

  • The Song 'When Will We Be Paid For The Work We Ve Done?'

    1170 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the song “When Will We Be Paid for the Work We’ve Done?” by the Staple Singers, they use pop music and culture to spread their message. The song talks about how African Americans have done all this work for the white men but they don’t receive any repayment for it. The Staples Singers focus on many different aspects of African American history throughout the song. They used this song to reflect on African American history during the times of slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. They also used the catchy tune to engage people and unite them by singing along in protest. The catchy tune that made the song easy to sing along irritated the officers that had to control the protests. This song was an easy way to express the thoughts of unequal

    Read More

  • (What Did I Do To Be So Black And Blue, By Louis Armstrong

    1221 Words  | 3 Pages

    When the piece was originally written for the Hot Chocolates, it was considered to be “America’s first `racial protest song`… [and] certainly Razaf’s lyric stripped bare essences of racial discontent that had very rarely if ever been addressed by any African American musically” (Singer 219). The music was created to express the hardships of the black community and the intra-racial discrimination, evident by the line: Browns and yellers all have fellers, gentlemen prefer them right. This illustrates that within the black community, those of fairer complexion were preferred. In Armstrong’s performance, the piece was removed from its original context of a Broadway show and placed as a stand-alone piece. In doing this, the emotion created by the Broadway performance and the stage scene were lost and “Black and Blue” became just another bluesy piece. Further, his “recitativo vocal style underscore[d] the song’s plaintive quality, while his exuberant embellished trumpet solos at the beginning and the end … counteract[ed] despair” (Meckna 38). However, Armstrong dropped the verse about intra-racial prejudice and made the chorus a “threnody for blacks of every shade” (Teachout 139). In doing this, he altered the music from being just about intra-racial issues to a global of scale of the battle between black and whites and the prejudices.

    Read More

  • America, by Claude McKay

    1105 Words  | 3 Pages

    This poem is written from the perspective of an African-American from a foreign country, who has come to America for the promise of equality, only to find out that at this time equality for blacks does not exist. It is written for fellow black men, in an effort to make them understand that the American dream is not something to abandon hope in, but something to fight for. The struggle of putting up with the racist mistreatment is evident even in the first four lines:

    Read More

  • The Harlem Renaissance Essay

    1255 Words  | 3 Pages

    African-American culture was spread through several artistic forms and mediums through the decades that the Harlem Renaissance took place in. One of the biggest and arguably the most important forms that Black culture was spread in was the form of music. During this era, music was an indispensable form of artistic expression that conveyed the thought and feeling of the Black people occupying Harlem and the surrounding areas. Music was an important art form at the time as “No aspect of the Harlem Renaissance shaped America and the entire world as much as jazz. Jazz flouted many musical conventions with its syncopated rhythms and improvised instrumental solos. Thousands of city dwellers flocked night after night to see the same performers”. This music created by the African-Americans in Harlem transformed the negative outlook of many into a positive one or one of some understanding toward the Black populus. This introduction of Jazz and Blues into the society of the era gave birth to several influential and pivotal artists such as Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. This popularized the Jazz and Blues music genres and brought major notoriety to African-American bringing much needed change in the perceptions of Black

    Read More

  • Cultural Appropriation Essay

    1126 Words  | 3 Pages

    Being that African Americans were if not just getting their foot in the door as being looked at as human and beginning to be accepted in U.S. society at that time. Executives in the recording industry encouraged white artists attempt to replicate the sound of popular black musicians for profit. This resulted in music like rock-n-roll that is largely associated with whites and the African American pioneers who laid down the foundation for the music are forgotten or better yet not even heard of. Cultural appropriation is still remains a concern even

    Read More

  • The Effect Of Slave Music On African American Culture

    1289 Words  | 3 Pages

    African-American music is a vibrant art form that describes the difficult lives of African American people. This can be proven by examining slave music, which shows its listeners how the slaves felt when they were working, and gives us insight into the problems of slavery; the blues, which expresses the significant connection with American history, discusses what the American spirit looks like and teaches a great deal from the stories it tells; and hip-hop, which started on the streets and includes topics such as misogyny, sex, and black-on-black violence to reveal the reactions to the circumstances faced by modern African Americans.

    Read More

  • Equality, a Theme Mentioned in the Song Black or White by Michael Jackson and Same Love by Macklemore and Lewis

    543 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout his song “Black or White,” he brings up the issue of racial discrimination. In the song he repeats in the refrain, “It don't matter if you're black or white” (Jackson). He wanted to create a song that would leave an impact and this line definitely met that goal. Not only did he meet a goal, but he brought to realization that it didn’t matter who you were, whether you were crippled, gay, atheist, anything, it was all in the eyes of the beholder.

    Read More

  • The Piano Lesson Play Analysis

    932 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ncestors and why things are different now. People can learn a lot about their ancestors and things of the past through music. Music tells the stories of what happened in the past. It exposes what people have gone through to get to where things are now. Understanding the culture and history allows the people of today to become more appreciative of the things that the past generations have done to make things better. African Americans have endured a lot of hardships throughout history and it is important to know that and realize that people today do not have it as hard as they did. African Americans no longer have to experience things such as slavery and segregation because some of the black people of past generations were courageous enough to fight for equality. Although hatred and racism still exists, it is not as prevalent and boldly shown as it was in their time.

    Read More

  • Reflective Essay On African American Culture

    1128 Words  | 3 Pages

    Music is very important for Black Americans as it has always been a form of expression that may have otherwise not been available. First, the African slaves brought the drums from Africa and to make a long story short, we still feel the beat! Hip- Hop, Pop, Rock, Jazz, Salsa, Merengue, Bachata, Rap, soca, dance hall and many, many more genres of music derived from the influence directly or indirectly from the complex beat(s) of the African drum. The dances related to hip hop and rap are also rooted in African

    Read More

  • Becoming Homeless In The Monkey's Paw

    1014 Words  | 3 Pages

    The first time I heard this song, I was walking down the pier in bright Santa Monica. The sky was cloudless and the seagulls were flying above my head, the sun’s rays were bouncing off my sunglasses. These lyrics struck a chord with me, I had seen an ice cream man give the little boy his double chocolate fudge sundae, he looked at it like it was the only thing that had ever mattered. He was having the time of his life, right until that perfectly fine ice cream sundae had landed its way onto the grimy, dusty sidewalk. At that point all that little boy wanted to do was “fade into the blackness”.

    Read More

  • Folk Music Synthesis

    523 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Civil Rights Anthem We Shall Overcome eludes to the racial and socioeconomic divides in society that has been present since the founding of the country. The lyrics state, “We will walk hand in hand, someday” describes a society that has destroyed racial segregation and the present longing for unity as a society. The altruistic idea of helping everyone is a distinct characteristic of folk music compared to Rock N’ Roll being about romantic love and the desire of a relationship. In the lyrics of Can’t Buy Me Love, the song conveys the positivity money can bring to a relationship, as well as the importance of a relationship for this generation.

    Read More

More about We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue Analysis

Open Document