Freedom Summer

One of the voter registration activists in Mississippi during Freedom Summer was Hollis Watkins, freedom singer and native Mississippian. He explained, "If you sang with people, then you could talk about voter registrations." Music was a way of life for the people he was trying to reach, a "natural entrée into the hearts, souls, and minds of black people in presenting and offering something that was not foreign to them."

"Mass meetings would generally start... with people singing songs -- spiritual songs, singing freedom songs -- and it was really kind of a warm-up thing to get people involved, to get people to relax." In a recording of a "Mass Meeting and Prayer" Watkins demonstrates the power of song.

For more on music and the movement, read comments by Bernice Johnson Reagon.

Music courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, www.si.edu/ folkways.