Roy Reds, Whites, and Blues

Social Movements, Folk Music, and Race in the United States
Course Book
ISBN: 978-1-4008-3516-4
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 312 Seiten

Reihe: Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology

Music, and folk music in particular, is often embraced as a form of political expression, a vehicle for bridging or reinforcing social boundaries, and a valuable tool for movements reconfiguring the social landscape. Reds, Whites, and Blues examines the political force of folk music, not through the meaning of its lyrics, but through the concrete social activities that make up movements. Drawing from rich archival material, William Roy shows that the People's Songs movement of the 1930s and 40s, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s implemented folk music's social relationships--specifically between those who sang and those who listened--in different ways, achieving different outcomes.

Roy explores how the People's Songsters envisioned uniting people in song, but made little headway beyond leftist activists. In contrast, the Civil Rights Movement successfully integrated music into collective action, and used music on the picket lines, at sit-ins, on freedom rides, and in jails. Roy considers how the movement's Freedom Songs never gained commercial success, yet contributed to the wider achievements of the Civil Rights struggle. Roy also traces the history of folk music, revealing the complex debates surrounding who or what qualified as "folk" and how the music's status as racially inclusive was not always a given.

Examining folk music's galvanizing and unifying power, Reds, Whites, and Blues casts new light on the relationship between cultural forms and social activity.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Roy, William G.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Kultur Interessengruppen, Lobbyismus und Protestbewegungen
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikgattungen Volksmusik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface ix

Chapter One: Social Movements, Music, and Race 1

Chapter Two: Music and Boundaries: Race and Folk 28

Chapter Three: The Original Folk Project 49

Chapter Four: White and Black Reds: Building an Infrastructure 79

Chapter Five: Movement Entrepreneurs and Activists 100

Chapter Six: Organizing Music: The Fruits of Entrepreneurship 126

Chapter Seven: The Highlander School 155

Chapter Eight: Music at the Heart of the Quintessential Social Movement 181

Chapter Nine: A Movement Splintered 213

Chapter Ten: How Social Movements Do Culture 234

Appendix: Coding of Songbooks and Song Anthologies 251

Notes 253

References 263

Index 277

Über Autor(innen)

William G. Roy is professor and chair of the sociology department at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of Socializing Capital (Princeton) and Making Societies.