To Kill A Mockingbird Reflected By Music As A Weapon

Music as a Weapon In the story, To Kill A Mockingbird, racist residents inhabit the town of Maycomb. Though the book is fictional, the discrimination against African Americans is parallel to the real world. In the mid-1950s and 1960s, African Americans in the United States protested for equal rights, music and religion was a major part of their protest. Religious music in the civil rights movement strengthened the protesters. Christianity promoted non-violence, resulting in empowering the African Americans. During the movement, black priests became some of the most important leaders in the protest. For the protesters, churches were places to meet and discuss issues and recent events(Uschan 10). With the major influence of Christianity, the
The African Americans were an oppressed minority fighting against a seemingly undefeatable majority, but religious music brought them closer together. One of the protesters, “Phyllis Martin, explained it this way to a Newsweek reporter: The fear down here is tremendous. I didn’t know whether I’d be shot at, or stoned, or what. But when the singing started, I forgot all that. I felt good within myself” (Spener “Union” 71). The singing was in a way, a weapon. It brought African Americans together and encouraged them to keep fighting for what they believed in. Music was used as their major way of protest, they sang “on picket lines; during sit-ins; at mass meetings[]; on buses by Freedom Riders; by the marchers from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama; and in the jails of Albany, Georgia, and Hinds County, Mississippi” (Spener “Union” 71). The singing was a way of communication and celebration, it told others what a group of protesters had accomplished, therefore encouraging another group to fight. Not only was religious music an effective weapon, it was also a way to bring both blacks and whites together, thus empowering
For example, after the murder of Herbert Lee, a song was created:
“We have walked through the shadows of death,
We’ve had to walk all by ourselves.
We have hung our head and cried
For those like Lee who died,
Died for you and died for me,
Died for the cause of equality.”(Uschan 57).
This spiritual blamed whites for killing “those like Lee” because whites were the cause of inequality. This song added on to the guilt and doubt the opposing side felt, thus weakening them while giving the protesters a want to redeem those who have died. The African Americans’ spirituals “built new structures for existence in an alien land”(Spener ‘Moved’ 30). Their songs gave them a sense of identity and created a sharp contrast in culture between the blacks and whites. The African Americans took pride in their history, for it showed in their spirituals. Religious music empowered African Americans in the civil rights movement. They were brought together through religion, culture, and song. Music united and strengthened African Americans, proving music was the most effective and strongest way of protest in the