Nina Simone - “Mississippi Goddamn” (1964)

Nina Simone (born Eunice Kathleen Waymon; February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003) was an African-American singer, songwriter and activist in the Civil Rights Movement. Nina Simone was raised as a classically trained child prodigy pianist in the Jim Crow South. She started protesting inequality at the age of 12, when she refused to perform at her concert debut, because her parents were forced to move to the back of the hall to free up the seats for white people, she did not start until her parents were moved back to the front. This incident among others such as the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia rejecting her application because of racial prejudice, contributed to her later involvement in the civil rights movement. Almost all her songs reference her African-American origins and as she was always frank about racial inequality in the United States. (Garbus, 2015). The song "Mississippi Goddam" was the first of many other protest songs written by Simone. This single was her response to the June 12, 1963, murder of Medgar Evers and the September 15, 1963, bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. This song was banned in several states. Some of the promotional copies were destroyed by a Carolina radio station and returned to Simone.( Neal,2003)Simone later said how "Mississippi Goddam" was her "first civil rights song" and that the song came to her "in a rush of fury, hatred and determination". (Feldstein, 2005) Simone performed the song in front of 10,000 people at the end of the Selma to Montgomery marches when she and other black activists crossed police lines. (May, 2015)
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