Few weeks ago Peter Seeger the American icon passed away and many people do not know how much he impacted the country. I and my Sociology Movement class saw the documentary of his life; Peter Seeger; The Power of Song and it taught me tremendously on the power of songs, injustices in America, and the tactics of a successful movement. We saw how Peter Seeger stood for what he believed, oftentimes his purposes or resources seemed dubious because of his relationship with the Communists, but his purpose of doing things was just to tell the truth and to make changes for what it was right and to change the injustice. He was stripped from the public life, from the media, music records and from many other places, but he found different kinds of audiences because he believed that there is an injustice that is taught and is believed by the American audience. He never gave up, and used his music skills to create movements from the civil rights, to schools and to environment movements. Many of the songs that we know come from him, “We Shall Overcome” the lyrics were created by him and MLK JR used them for his famous speech.
Recently I read an article called Where Are They Now?: 7 Protest Songs With Legs
And I checked the lyrics of all of those songs and every song is so powerful in many ways. Specially the songs like Solidarity Forever, We Shall Overcome, We Shall Not Be Moved and those songs have been used in different kinds of movements. They give a tremendous fortitude when one feels like giving up on something. There is so much power in the songs because it relates to our own lives and the injustice we face everyday. It is comparable when you visit other countries and you hear the Star Spangled Banner, such strength and inspiration one can feel just with those songs because many things have been conquered with the power behind social movements.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2011/10/14/141316750/where-are-they-now-7-protest-songs-with-legs
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