Day 7 – The Power and Legacy of Music

The importance and role of music has been one of the themes throughout this bus tour. Today we visited the recently opened National Museum of African American Music in Nashville, Tennessee. It is worth a trip to visit Nashville even if this is all you decide to experience! The exhibits were fun, engaging, informative, and aesthetically brilliant. There are touchscreens where you can download playlists of music from 1619 to the present. There are also different interactive rooms where you can put on a robe and sing with a gospel choir, follow along with a dance instructor as you dance to different eras of music, etc. All of this is recorded and then emailed to you. As a public historian, I loved all of this.

As I toured the museum, I reflected on the history of music, including the beauty and culture enslaved Africans and black Americans brought to what is currently the U.S.

There are songs to express resilience and solidarity – “We Shall Overcome” or Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.” Music to worship and express joy – “Oh Happy Day.” Songs of resistance during slavery and the Civil Rights Movement, i.e. “Wade in the Water.” Songs of lament, grief, and protest like Abel Meeropol’s “Strange Fruit” (famously performed by Billie Holiday which led to her arrest numerous times). Music that empowered and celebrated black pride including James Brown’s “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.” Powerful lyrical words of protest and political struggle like Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” and Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar’s “Freedom.”

Our world is a better place because of this art.

Sarah P. Myers

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