In early 2020, I was asked to teach the history of rock and roll curriculum to elementary students. The material I was given briefly mentioned pre-1951 influences, but I went back to 1619, when the first black slaves were brought to America. Black music history in America traces its influences even father back, to the beautiful and complex music of Africa itself.

I told the students that slaves were not allowed to talk while working in the fields, but they could sing. “Field hollers” were in call-and-response style. Twelve-bar blues would describe a difficult situation, repeat the description, and offer some sort of resolution. Slave owners did not like preachers who would tell the story of Moses leading the Hebrew slaves from bondage in Egypt to the Promised Land. Spirituals such as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” offered hope in the next life. “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” and others were used as signals that Harriet Tubman or other liberators were about to make their appearance. “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” energized the Union troops.

At the end of the Civil War, former slaves took instruments that had been abandoned by army bands of the Union and the Confederacy, and basically created blues and jazz in the clubs and gospel in the churches. Ethel Waters was born in difficult circumstances (rape by a family acquaintance when her mother was probably 12 or 13); achieved fame with “Stormy Weather,” “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” and more, and became the first African-American woman to receive a daytime Emmy for her role in a “Route 66” television episode. Mahalia Jackson, “the Queen of Gospel,” was called by fellow civil rights activist Harry Belafonte “the single most powerful black woman in the United States.” Also according to Wikipedia, "I sing God's music because it makes me feel free", Jackson once said about her choice of gospel, adding, "It gives me hope. With the blues, when you finish, you still have the blues."[5] Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong used his musical talent and fame to work for civil rights for his fellow African-Americans. Stars such as Aretha Franklin and Whitney Houston learned to sing in church.

Music producers were looking for a white man to sing the black songs. They found him in Elvis Presley. Charley Pride was a black country music star who used his musical talent to advocate for family farmers (see his song “Down on the Farm”), and helped young musicians get their start. Similarly, Bob Dylan, performing in the Live Aid musical charity fundraiser, made a comment that led Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and John Cougar Mellencamp to start Farm Aid, a series of musical performances designed to benefit distressed farmers.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, in his earthshaking speech “I Have a Dream,” referenced the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, the patriotic song “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” and the African-American spiritual “Free at Last.” Other black civil rights activists adopted a more aggressive stance, but Dr. King made a statement that, I believe, has a bearing on the rioting, looting, and destruction in Minneapolis and elsewhere in response to the killings of George Floyd and others:

“But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”

We can purge American history, including musical history, of its religious components, positive and negative, and we can sanitize rock and roll and elevate it to the status of a religion in itself, but we cannot do so and call ourselves educators worthy of the public trust.