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INTERNATIONAL
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SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION
SYNOPSIS
MUSICAL PERFORMANCES BY
SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION tells the story
of the American civil rights movement through its
powerful music - the freedom songs protesters sang
on picket lines, in mass meetings, in paddy wagons,
and in jail cells as they fought for justice and equality.
Anthony Hamilton and the Blind Boys of Alabama
Angie Stone
Joss Stone
The Carlton Reese Memorial Unity Choir
Mary Mary
Wyclef Jean
Richie Havens
The Roots
John Legend
The film features new performances of the freedom
songs by top artists, including John Legend, Joss
Stone, Wyclef Jean, and The Roots; riveting archival
footage; and interviews with civil rights foot soldiers
and leaders, including Congressman John Lewis,
Harry Belafonte, Julian Bond, and Ambassador
Andrew Young.
FILMMAKERS
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY
The freedom songs evolved from slave chants, from
the labor movement, and especially from the black
church. The music enabled blacks to sing words
they could not say, and it was crucial in helping the
protesters as they faced down brutal aggression with
dignity and non-violence. The infectious energy of
the songs swept people up and empowered them to
fight for their rights.
SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION celebrates the
vitality of this music. Directed by Bill Guttentag and Dan
Sturman (NANKING), and executive produced by Danny
Glover, SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION is a vibrant
blend of heart-wrenching interviews, dramatic images,
and thrilling contemporary performances - a film of
significance, energy, and power.
Bill Guttentag
Dan Sturman
DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Buddy Squires
Jon Else
Stephen Kazmierski
EDITOR
Jeffrey Doe
MUSIC PRODUCER
Corey Smyth
EXECUTIVE PRODUCED BY
Danny Glover
PRODUCERS
Joslyn Barnes
Jim Czarnecki
Bill Guttentag
Dylan Nelson
Dan Sturman
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
Jarrett Lilien
Gina Harrell
Mark E. Downie
Marc Henry Johnson
ORIGINAL MUSIC
Philip Marshall
CO-PRODUCER
Beverly Oden
ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS
Agnes Varis
William Douglass
Peter Buffett
Jennifer Buffett
Mihal Arguetty
Julia Mintz
Lindsay Gillette
Lauren McCauley
HONORS
ACADEMY AWARD® SHORTLIST
INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY ASSOCIATION AWARDS FINALIST:
IDA Music Documentary Award
IDA Pare Lorentz Award
IDA ABC/VideoSource Award
WINNER, Vancouver International Film Festival ROGERS PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD
WINNER, Chicago International Film Festival GOLD PLAQUE FOR DIRECTION
WINNER, Morelia International Film Festival AUDIENCE AWARD
NOMINEE, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam DOC U! AWARD
FESTIVALS AND SCREENINGS
Tribeca International Film Festival
Festival de Cannes
International Documentary Association’s DocuWeeks
Traverse City Film Festival
Vancouver International Film Festival
Chicago International Film Festival
Morelia International Film Festival
Mill Valley Film Festival
Reykjavik International Film Festival
Heartland Film Festival
Oakland Film Festival
Mumbai International Film Festival
In-Edit Barcelona
Sheffield DocFest
International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam
Festival Dei Popoli
Stockholm Film Festival
Jakarta International Film Festival
Palm Beach International Film Festival
MUSIC ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
WYCLEF JEAN
ANTHONY HAMILTON
Wyclef Jean – solo artist, producer, and founding
member of the Fugees – effortlessly crosses genres,
generations and geographic boundaries as a musical
goodwill ambassador. Wyclef exploded into a cultural
phenomenon when The Fugees’ 1996 album,
THE SCORE, reached the #1 slot on Billboard's Top
200 and Top R&B/Hip-Hop albums charts and
earned two Grammys. THE SCORE went on to
become the world's #1 top-selling hip-hop album of
all time, selling more than 19 million copies globally.
In 2007, Wyclef struck a major chord in mass pop
consciousness with HIPS DON'T LIE, the charttopping Grammy-nominated international smash hit
duet with Shakira. SWEETEST GIRL (DOLLAR BILL),
the lead-in single off his album CARNIVAL VOL. II:
MEMOIRS OF AN IMMIGRANT, charted in Austria,
Canada, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Poland,
Sweden, Switzerland, India, Hong Kong, and the UK,
as well as the United World Chart, and has sold more
than two million digital copies worldwide.
Anthony Hamilton is known throughout the R&B
world for his rich, soul-steeped vocals. Hamilton’s
career-molding break arrived when he sang the
infectious hook on Nappy Roots’ PO’ FOLKS.
That performance netted the singer his first of six
Grammys. A year later his platinum-selling debut,
COMIN' FROM WHERE I'M FROM, was released,
followed by the gold-certified AIN'T NOBODY
WORRYIN'. He is currently working on THE POINT
OF IT ALL, to be released in December 2008.
Hamilton made a recent cameo appearance in the
Oscar®-nominated AMERICAN GANGSTER starring
Denzel Washington and performed the soundtrack’s
lead song, DO YOU FEEL ME. In addition to giving
back through music, Hamilton participates in various
national and local outreach initiatives including his
own TASTE Foundation (Take a Step to Elevate).
JOSS STONE
From the moment Joss Stone emerged on the music
scene at age 16, she has displayed a unique strength
and intensity. Critics took immediate notice: Interview
heralded her “gutsy voice, which can sting like aged
bourbon or melt like strap molasses,” and the New
York Post proclaimed Stone “unlike any singer of her
generation.” Since her 2003 debut, THE SOUL
SESSIONS, Joss Stone has sold more than ten
million albums worldwide, won two BRIT Awards,
and has been nominated for four Grammys, winning
in 2007 for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group
with Vocals. Stone’s latest album, INTRODUCING
JOSS STONE, released in March 2007, has achieved
gold status by the RIAA. Stone made her acting
debut in late 2006 in the fantasy adventure film
ERAGON, and will make her television debut in the
Showtime series THE TUDORS in 2009.
THE BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA
The Blind Boys of Alabama are recognized worldwide
as living legends of gospel music. Celebrated by
The National Endowment for the Arts with a Lifetime
Achievement Award, inducted into the Gospel Music
Hall of Fame, and winners of four consecutive
Grammy Awards, they have attained the highest
levels of achievement in a career that spans over
60 years and shows no signs of diminishing. Formed
at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind in 1939,
in the 1960s the group joined the Civil Rights
Movement, performing at benefits for Dr. Martin
Luther King. Their performances have been
experienced by millions on The Tonight Show, Late
Night with David Letterman, the Grammy Awards
telecast, 60 Minutes, and on their own holiday PBS
special. The Blind Boys’ performances are roofraising
musical events that appeal to audiences of all
cultures, as evidenced by an international itinerary
that has taken them to virtually every continent.
THE ROOTS
The Roots are as fluid and amorphous as the hip-hop
culture that spawned them, ever-shifting and everchanging. The Philadelphia-based band continually
stakes out new territory in the precarious
postmillennial environment of popular music. In the
years since their debut album ORGANIX, the Roots
have scored several Grammy nominations, including
win in 1999 for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or
Group for YOU GOT ME, as well as a 2007 NAACP
Image Award for Outstanding Duo or Group. Group
members appearing in SOUNDTRACK FOR A
REVOLUTION include MC Black Thought, Damon
"Tuba Gooding Jr." Bryson (sousaphone) and
drummer and bandleader ?uestlove. They are joined
by members of the Brooklyn group TV on the Radio.
The Roots rock the house with their famous live
performances and released their eighth studio album,
RISING DOWN, in 2008.
THE CARLTON REESE MEMORIAL
UNITY CHOIR
The Carlton Reese Memorial Unity Choir was
organized in Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1950s in
order to support civil rights standard-bearer
Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth’s Alabama Christian
Movement for Human Rights. The choir provided
inspiration, sustenance, and courage for civil rights
protesters and leaders at countless mass meetings
during the tumultuous Birmingham Movement, which
ultimately led to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights
Act, one of the greatest victories of the American
Civil Rights Movement. Nowadays, the choir –
including a number of its original members – is still
singing freedom songs from the 16th Street Baptist
Church, where they also performed for
SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION.
MARY MARY
ANGIE STONE
Angie Stone is a certified-gold CD artist and a
national and international star. A South Carolina
native, Angie’s musical chops evolved from the
gospel church into funk, rap, and hip-hop before her
much-heralded 1999 solo debut album, BLACK
DIAMOND, provided an exuberant return to classic
soul. She brought a whole new energy and sensibility
to the material, and a whole new spectrum of fans
joined the Angie fan club when they heard her top
10 R&B hit NO MORE RAIN. BLACK DIAMOND was
followed by BLACK DIAMOND MAHOGANY SOUL,
STONE LOVE, and STONE HITS: THE VERY BEST
OF ANGIE STONE. Her latest album, 2007'sTHE ART
OF LOVE AND WAR- released on the newly
reactivated Stax Records label - soared to number
one on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart. Angie herself wrote
most of the tracks, which showcase every nuance of
her vocal range. Angie Stone is an artist in turn
playful, powerful, and coy, and her voice permeates
every corner of every note.
Urban gospel superstars Mary Mary (sisters
Erica and Tina Campbell) are often credited with
broadening the fan base of urban contemporary
gospel by introducing elements of soul music, hiphop, funk and jazz. The sisters have won a Grammy
for Best Contemporary Gospel Album, two American
Music Awards, and numerous Dove and Stellar
Awards. Each of their studio albums - 2000's
THANKFUL, 2002's INCREDIBLE, and 2005's
MARY MARY - are either platinum or gold-certified.
All of Mary Mary’s pursuits - musical, spiritual, or
otherwise - are larger-than-life. “Our aim is to make
music that the entire world, every age and nationality
can relate to. We want people to be encouraged and
uplifted when they listen to our music.”
RICHIE HAVENS
JOHN LEGEND
Richie Havens has used his music to convey
messages of brotherhood and personal freedom for
over three decades. Gifted with one of the most
recognizable voices in popular music, Havens’ soulful
singing style remains as unique and ageless as when
he first emerged from the Greenwich Village folk
scene in the early 1960s. He has inspired his
audiences with more than 25 albums and has
performed everywhere from Woodstock in 1969 to
the Clinton Presidential Inauguration in 1993, as well
as on non-stop worldwide tours. For Havens, making
music is a continuous journey, one that advances a
step further with each album. “My albums are meant
to be a chronological view of the times we've come
through, what we've thought about, and what we've
done to grow and change.” In 2003, The National
Music Council awarded Richie Havens the American
Eagle Award for his place as part of America's
musical heritage.
John Legend is known as one of the most compelling
and important singer/songwriters of this generation,
an elegant ambassador of soul. He began playing
piano at the age of 4 and made a dramatic transition
into solo artist fame with his debut album, GET
LIFTED, which turned the singer into an overnight
sensation. It sold more than three million copies and
earned Legend a slew of awards including Grammys
for Best New Artist, Best Male R&B Vocal
Performance and Best R&B album. His critically
acclaimed 2006 follow-up, ONCE AGAIN, not only
cemented his status as a true artist's artist, but also
secured his place in the soul music pantheon.
Entering the Billboard Top 200 at #3, the album
quickly went platinum and won Legend several more
awards, including a Grammy Award. In 2007, John
and his team launched the Show Me Campaign,
whose mission is to fight poverty through fostering
sustainable development. Legend has recently been
honored with the 2008 Humanitarian Award from
CARE and the 2008 Difference Award from
OneXOne.
FILMMAKER BIOGRAPHIES
BILL GUTTENTAG (DIRECTOR/WRITER/PRODUCER)
Bill Guttentag is a two-time Oscar-winning
documentary and feature film writer-producerdirector. LIVE!, a dramatic feature he wrote and
directed starring Eva Mendes, Andre Braugher, and
David Krumholtz, was produced by Chuck
Roven/Mosaic Media Group. The Weinstein
Company is distributing the film domestically this
year, and its international distribution includes
Lionsgate. Along with Dan Sturman, Bill Guttentag
also wrote and directed NANKING, a documentary
which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.
The film includes a stage reading they wrote that
features Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemingway, and
Jürgen Prochnow. NANKING was released
theatrically by THINKFilm.
In 2003 Bill Guttentag won an Oscar® for the
documentary TWIN TOWERS (Universal). It was his
second Academy Award; the first was for YOU
DON’T HAVE TO DIE, a film he made for HBO.
He has also received three additional Oscar®
nominations, and three Emmy Awards. His films have
been selected for the Sundance Film Festival three
times and have played and won awards at numerous
American and international film festivals. His films
have received a number of special screenings
internationally and in the US, including at the White
House.
Bill Guttentag created and executive produced the
NBC series CRIME & PUNISHMENT, which ran for
three seasons (2002-2004). The series was part of the
LAW & ORDER family of shows, and was created
with Dick Wolf, who was also an executive producer.
Over the series’ run, nearly every show was in the
Nielsen top 20.
His recent film NANKING won awards at a number of
US and international film festivals (including
Sundance). Guttentag and Sturman were nominated
for a Writers Guild of America award for Nanking, and
the film was short-listed for an Academy Award®.
Nanking also won Peabody and Emmy Awards. It
was released in China and became the highest
grossing theatrical documentary in Chinese history.
Guttentag has directed films for HBO, ABC, CBS and
others. His films include MEMPHIS PD: WAR ON THE
STREETS (HBO), Robert F. Kennedy Journalism
Award) and ASSASSINATED: THE LAST DAYS OF
KENNEDY AND KING (TNT/CNN) on the final year in
the lives of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
He also directed THE COCAINE WAR, an ABC
News/Peter Jennings Reporting special on the drug
war in South America.
He has recently completed his first novel,
BOULEVARD, which will be published by Pegasus
Books/W.W. Norton later this year.
Since 2001 he has been teaching a class on the film
and television business at the Graduate School of
Business at Stanford University.
DAN STURMAN (DIRECTOR/WRITER/PRODUCER)
Together with Bill Guttentag, DAN STURMAN wrote
and directed the Sundance, Emmy, and Peabody
award-winning documentary film NANKING, and
produced the Academy Award®- winning
documentary TWIN TOWERS. Between 2001 and
2003, Sturman produced three seasons of the NBC
primetime series CRIME & PUNISHMENT.
In addition to his documentary work, Sturman has
worked extensively as a broadcast journalist,
reporting and producing for ABC News, CBS News,
and the BBC while based in Los Angeles; for Reuters
and NBC News while based in London; and for ABC
News 20/20 in New York.
Sturman is currently in production on a feature
documentary about aspiring child actors in
Hollywood.
DANNY GLOVER (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER)
JOSLYN BARNES (PRODUCER)
In addition to being one of the most acclaimed actors
of our time, with a career spanning 30 years and
including such films as PLACES IN THE HEART,
THE COLOR PURPLE, the LETHAL WEAPON series
and the award-winning TO SLEEP WITH ANGER,
Danny Glover has also produced, executive
produced and financed numerous projects for film,
television and theatre. Among these are GOOD
FENCES, 3 AM, FREEDOM SONG, GET ON THE
BUS, DEADLY VOYAGE, BUFFALO SOLDIERS, THE
SAINT OF FORT WASHINGTON and TO SLEEP
WITH ANGER, as well as the series COURAGE and
AMERICA'S DREAM.
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Since co-founding Louverture Films, Glover has
executive produced BAMAKO, AFRICA UNITE,
TROUBLE THE WATER, SALT OF THIS SEA and
SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION, and recently
associate produced the forthcoming THE TIME THAT
REMAINS. The recipient of countless awards for his
humanitarian and advocacy efforts on behalf of
economic and social justice causes, Glover is a
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and a recipient of the
Lifetime Achievement Award from Amnesty
International.
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JIM CZARNECKI (PRODUCER)
COREY SMYTH (MUSIC PRODUCER)
Jim Czarnecki produced the groundbreaking
documentary feature FAHRENHEIT 9/11, directed by
Michael Moore, which won the Palme D’or at the
Cannes Film Festival in 2004. He won the
International Documentary Association (IDA) Award
and received a nomination for a NAACP Award for
FAHRENHEIT 9/11 the same year.
Smyth founded Blacksmith Management in 1991
during his years at Morehouse College. In 1996, he
began managing De La Soul, and this opportunity led
to the management of a young Brooklyn rapper
named Mos Def.
In 2006, the Czarnecki-produced TRUTH antismoking television commercial campaign won Best
Campaign of the Year at the AICP Award Show at the
Museum of Modern Art. He also produced BOWLING
FOR COLUMBINE, which won the Oscar® for Best
Documentary Feature, and produced the twice
Emmy-nominated TV NATION.
Czarnecki has produced music videos for U2, The
Strokes, Lou Reed, Janet Jackson, Rage Against the
Machine, Bruce Springsteen, Talking Heads, and
Seal, among others. He recently consulted on the
feature documentary THE DIXIE CHICKS: SHUT UP
AND SING.
DYLAN NELSON (PRODUCER)
In addition to producing SOUNDTRACK FOR A
REVOLUTION, Dylan Nelson associate- and lineproduced the acclaimed feature documentary
NANKING. She was nominated for an Emmy for her
work on that film, which won Peabody and Emmy
Awards and was short-listed for the Academy
Award® for Best Documentary Feature. NANKING
premiered in competition at the 2007 Sundance Film
Festival and was released theatrically by ThinkFilm.
Nelson’s narrative screenplays include THE WRONG
BROTHERS, a finalist for the Chesterfield Writer’s
Film Project in development with Pink Slip Pictures.
Nelson is currently co-directing a documentary
feature about child actors in Los Angeles, as well as
a documentary about civil rights icon and iconoclast
James Meredith. She lives in Los Angeles and
teaches screenwriting, directing, and film studies at
Colorado College.
In 2003, Smyth co-founded Spitkicker, Inc., a social
activist and artist collaborative that has since
expanded into a website, newsletter, and syndicated
radio show on XM Satellite Radio. That same year, he
began work as the music director and talent booker
for comedian Dave Chappelle’s new comedy series,
CHAPPELLE’S SHOW, where he brought in musical
acts including Common, John Legend, Kanye West
and The Roots. His industry relationships and
knowledge of good musical direction led to him and
Chappelle producing the latter’s DAVE
CHAPPELLE'S BLOCK PARTY, a documentary film
of musical collaborations and performances released
in March of 2006.
In January of 2006, Smyth and Talib Kweli inked a
deal with Warner Bros. Records to distribute, market,
and promote for their label Blacksmith Music Corp.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
To understand the Civil Rights Movement, you first
have to understand the injustice and degradation that
blacks in the American South faced daily.
Segregation, humiliation, fear, and racial violence
were the norm for the first half of the twentieth
century.
SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION opens with
rarely seen archival footage from a 1961 promotional
film called THE MESSAGE FROM MISSISSIPPI.
Officially produced for the racist Mississippi state
government, the film seeks to normalize and justify
the state policy of segregation. Featuring cheerful
music and an enthusiastic narrator, THE MESSAGE
FROM MISSISSIPPI set the stage for its audience:
“Today, forty-five percent of the population of
Mississippi is colored. This situation has brought
problems, it has created challenges, but most
important of all, it has inspired a social system to
meet the challenge.” That system was segregation of
the races, and it is graphically illustrated by images of
segregated drinking fountains and “Whites Only”
signs in movie theaters, bathrooms, restaurants, and
other places of public accommodation.
Looking back at his own experience growing up in
Memphis, civil rights activist Samuel Billy Kyles now
marvels at the absurdity of how things used to be:
“I never understood why graveyards had to be
segregated. Dead people get along well. They don’t
bother each other, they don’t bother anybody else.”
Segregation was enforced by brutality and fear, and
any black who tried to challenge the status quo did
so at the risk of jail or physical violence. Between
1882 and 1968, mobs lynched more than 4,000
people; whites who murdered blacks were rarely
prosecuted, let alone convicted.
But in 1955, for the first time, an entire community of
blacks stood up and said, “Enough.”
MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks famously sparked
the Montgomery bus boycott when she refused to
give up her bus seat to a white man. In response, for
more than a year, the entire black population of
Montgomery stayed off segregated city buses.
The task of mobilizing the community and
maintaining cohesion fell to a young and dynamic
preacher - 26-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr. As
fellow preacher Harold Middlebrook recalls: “Dr. King
starts talking about, ‘You don’t need to wait for
somebody else to bring you your blessing. You got to
get off of the shore of comfort, self-satisfaction and
complacency and you got to get out there. Wade in
the water. Come in the water, come, come on, get in,
struggle with the rest of us.”
In nightly mass meetings, King spoke with passion
and power, and the fired-up congregation
punctuated his sermons with song. Lula Joe Williams
remembers: “We’d be singing and clapping and
going on. We were excited. These were people that
were not afraid. They were standing up.”
SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION features
contemporary soul diva Angie Stone performing a
memorable song from those meetings, the soulful,
bluesy WADE IN THE WATER:
Wade in the water,
Wade in the water, children
Wade in the water,
God’s gonna trouble the water
The song has been around since the days of slavery,
and the coded lyrics encouraged the congregation to
take risks - to wade in the water. For the first time,
the entire black community of Montgomery had had
enough; for the first time, the blacks of Montgomery,
led by Martin Luther King, were willing to wade in the
water.
LUNCH COUNTER SIT-INS
While the Montgomery Bus Boycott was led by
preachers like Martin Luther King, it was college
students who initiated lunch counter sit-ins
throughout the South. In the face of brutal violence used freely by the police and segregationist mobs
alike - the students embraced King’s example of nonviolent activism, using music to help bolster their
courage. “The policeman can’t stop you from singing.
He can put you in jail but he can’t stop you,” explains
Samuel Billy Kyles.
The images of this struggle still retain their power the young students and their supporters sitting with
quiet fortitude as bigoted whites taunt them, douse
them with ketchup and sugar, and punch the backs
of their heads. Remembers protester John Lewis:
“Someone would come up, and spit on us, or put a
lighted cigarette out in our hair or down our backs,
pour hot water on us, pull us off the lunch counter
stools or beat us. But we kept coming back over and
over again.”
The music that inspired the students’ courage was
now more upbeat than the typical church spirituals of
their parents’ generation - the 60s had begun, and
many on the front line were still teenagers. And so at
their meetings, the students would create solidarity
with catchy renditions of songs like
WELCOME TABLE:
I’m gonna sit at the Welcome Table
I’m gonna sit at the welcome table one of these
days, hallelujah
I’m gonna sit at the welcome table
Gonna sit at the welcome table one of these days
I’m gonna sit at the Woolworth counter
I’m gonna sit at the Woolworth counter one of these
days, hallelujah
I’m gonna sit at the Woolworth counter - and eat!
Sit at the Woolworth counter one of these days
As John Lewis explains, “It was the music that gave
us the courage, the will, the drive, to go on in spite
of it all. And when there was some concern about
the possibility of violence, someone being beaten,
someone being arrested and jailed - or even after we
were thrown in jail - someone would sing a song.”
FREEDOM RIDES
A year after the sit-ins began, a group of non-violent
activists entered unknown and dangerous territory
with a new strategy to test Federal laws by riding
through the South on two integrated Greyhound
buses. The reaction was brutal - the riders on one
bus were viciously beaten in Birmingham, and then
again in Montgomery. The second bus was firebombed outside Anniston, Alabama. “I heard them
holler, ‘Let’s burn them niggers alive! Let’s burn them
alive!’” recalls Hank Thomas. “I remember coming
out of that bank of smoke and a guy came up to me
and said, ‘Boy, you all right?’ And I’m thinking, ‘Yes,
yes, I’m okay.’ Almost, ‘Thank you for asking.’ And
then he hit me with something.”
In the wake of the violence, the racist governor of
Alabama, John Patterson, gave a press conference to
announce that he wasn’t prepared to protect the
Freedom Riders from the brutality of his citizenry.
“You just can’t guarantee the safety of a fool, and
that’s what these folks are, just fools.”
Finally arriving in Jackson, Mississippi - battered and
bruised - the Freedom Riders were promptly
arrested, convicted, and thrown in Mississippi’s
notorious Parchman State Penitentiary. And even
though the prison officials punished the Freedom
Riders for singing - taking their mattresses and
brutalizing them - the Riders kept singing. As one of
the Freedom Riders, Bernard Lafayette, explains:
“They can take away everything else except our
songs, which meant that we kept our souls.”
Paul and Silas bound in jail
Had no money for to go their bail
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Paul and Silas began to shout
The jail doors opened and they walked right out
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION features multiplatinum artist Joss Stone performing EYES ON THE
PRIZE, a song that was sung thousands of times in
jail cells throughout the American South.
BIRMINGHAM
Two years after the Freedom Rides, Martin Luther
King led the struggle for equality in Birmingham,
Alabama. Newspapers and television stepped up
their coverage of protests, focusing on Bull Connor,
the notorious Birmingham chief of police whose use
of dogs and fire hoses on peaceful black marchers including children - resulted in some of the most
iconic images of the American Civil Rights
Movement. In the words of John Seigenthaler, a
Kennedy administration aide: “He made no bones
about the fact that he’d break bones. When you have
someone in a leadership position like that, it’s
contagious. It’s like a virus that gets in to the
bloodstream of the society, the community, and it
spreads.”
Facing up to Bull Connor’s brutal tactics was an
energized and disciplined community of black
activists who used the 16th Street Baptist Church as
their headquarters. Before going out for daily
demonstrations, protesters rallied around the highoctane music of song leader/organist Carlton Reese,
who sounded like a cross between James Brown and
Little Richard. Together with the sixty- voice
Birmingham Movement Choir, Reese led the activists
in songs like 99-AND-A-HALF WON’T DO:
Oh Lord I’m runnin’
Runnin’ for freedom
Ninety-nine-and-half won’t do
Oh, Lord, I got to make a hundred
I got to make it through
Forty-five years later, the choir - now called the
Carlton Reese Memorial Unity Choir in honor of their
late director - is still singing freedom songs from the
16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.
SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION features song
leader Mamie Brown-Mason leading the choir in a
high- energy rendition of I’M ON MY WAY:
I’m on my way,
To freedom land
Oh Lord, to freedom land
Times have changed in Birmingham, and Bull Connor
is now long gone. These days, the former
Birmingham police chief, Annetta Nunn, actually
sings in the choir.
MARCH ON WASHINGTON
By the end of the summer of 1963, the struggle for
civil rights had gained tremendous momentum and
was dominating America’s front pages. At the March
on Washington, a crowd of 250,000 heard Martin
Luther King, Jr. deliver his extraordinary “I Have a
Dream” speech, which famously cited the words of
“the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last, free at last,
thank God Almighty, I am free at last.’”
Also appearing before the crowd that day was a lineup of committed musical artists, including Bob Dylan,
Mahalia Jackson, and Odetta. The music coming
from the podium was matched by the sound of
250,000 voices joined in song. A favorite of the
moment was WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED, an
uplifting, defiant song that originated in the labor
movements of the 1930s:
We are fighting for our freedom,
we shall not be moved
We are fighting for our freedom,
we shall not be moved
Just like a tree, planted by the water
We shall not be moved
In footage from the time, thousands - both black and
white - can be seen singing this song. As
Andrew Young, a close aide to Martin Luther King,
recalls: “We could not have changed America without
the March on Washington. It took a Southern black
movement and made it a national, multiracial
movement. There were almost as many white people
there as there were black people. The March on
Washington was the thing that defined the movement
for America at large, and defined it for the world.”
SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION features a
contemporary version of WE SHALL NOT BE
MOVED, as sung by the Grammy award-winning act
Mary Mary, one of the most popular gospel groups
performing today.
MARTYRS
A few weeks after the triumph of the March on
Washington, the movement suffered one of its
greatest tragedies. The Ku Klux Klan murdered four
young girls with a bomb planted in the basement of a
Birmingham church. This was but one incident
among many in a tragic pattern of escalating
violence. At moments of greatest discouragement,
the civil rights community often turned to specific
songs. Richie Havens, the legendary folk artist,
performs one of these songs in the film, WILL THE
CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN:
Will the circle be unbroken?
By and by, Lord, by and by
There's a better home a-waiting
In the sky, Lord, in the sky
As Samuel Billy Kyles remembers: “Most of us,
I would think, did not sit down and say, “Oh my
God, I might get killed.” We knew we were in it and
that possibility was always there, but we didn’t dwell
on it. We did not dwell on it.”
MISSISSIPPI FREEDOM SUMMER
The four little girls of Birmingham are among the
most famous martyrs of the struggle. In fact, the
worst violence and the most killings took place in
Mississippi, a state that became notorious for its
culture of brutal repression. As activist Chuck Neblett
recalls: “The dangers of Mississippi was getting shot
on the road, getting blown up in your house. We’ve
found guys beaten half to death and tied to trees left
out to die.”
It was in Mississippi that Andrew Goodman,
James Chaney and Michael Schwerner worked to
help people register to vote in the summer of
1964. The three young men went out to investigate
the burning of a black church. They were arrested
and then released from jail in the middle of the night.
Forty-four days later their bodies were found. The
state refused to press charges, and the federal
government stepped in, charging nineteen local men,
including the sheriff and deputy sheriff.
One hundred FBI agents spent the summer of
1964 searching for the bodies, dredging the swamps
and rivers of Neshoba County, before the three civil
rights workers were finally found. Along the way, the
FBI found the bodies of other, unknown blacks who
had been bound, mutilated, and drowned.
It was the repressive culture of Mississippi that
inspired Phil Ochs to write one of the most biting
songs of the movement, HERE’S TO THE STATE OF
MISSISSIPPI. In his own, equally biting version of the
song the film, multi-platinum singer Wyclef Jean spits
out the ironic lyrics:
Here's to the people of Mississippi
Who say the folks up north
they just don't understand
And they tremble in their shadows
at the thunder of the Klan
The sweating of their souls
can’t wash the blood from off their hands
They smile and shrug their shoulders
at the murder of a man
Oh, here’s to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of
The disappearance of the three civil rights workers
cast a pall over the Mississippi Freedom Summer, a
black voter registration drive that brought a thousand
college students, most of them white, into the state.
By August, 80 people had been beaten, hundreds
had been arrested, and 67 churches, homes, and
businesses had been burned or bombed. Like so
many others, John Lewis says his resolve never
wavered. “We didn’t give up. We didn’t give in.
We didn’t become bitter. We didn’t become hostile.
We kept the faith and we kept pushing.”
BLOODY SUNDAY
One of the seminal moments of the American Civil
Rights Movement occurred in the spring of 1965,
when civil rights workers tried to stage a march from
Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. On the way out of
Selma, in front of network television cameras, state
troopers brutally attacked the peaceful marchers.
Lynda Lowery, who was only 14 years old at the time
and who had to have 35 stitches, breaks down in
tears as she describes being beaten with a billy club:
“I was down on my knees and I felt something grab
me on the back of my collar and they had a hand on
my lapel. And they were pulling me backwards. I bit
the hand that was on my lapel and I heard, ‘Nigger’
and I was hit twice over my eye.” The day became
known as Bloody Sunday, and the national outcry
drew thousands to Alabama to show their support for
the cause of civil rights.
Two weeks after Bloody Sunday, and after President
Lyndon Johnson had to federalize the Alabama
National Guard to protect the marchers, 3,000 people
jubilantly crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on their
way to Montgomery. “Governor George Wallace said
he had enough jails in Alabama to put everybody in
jail,” recalls Chuck Neblett. “And we got on that
bridge and looked back and just people, people,
people. And he couldn’t put all those people in jail.”
For four days and 50 miles, the marchers walked
arm-in-arm and sang freedom songs. Some of the
songs were made up on the spot, including
GOVERNOR WALLACE, a rollicking doo wop song
about Alabama’s famously racist governor:
Don’t you worry
About going to jail
Cause Martin Luther King
Will go your bail
He’ll get you out
Right on time
Put you back
On the picket line
(chorus)
Governor Wallace, you never can jail us all
Governor Wallace, segregation’s bound to fall
Like so many freedom songs, GOVERNOR WALLACE
relies on infectious music and upbeat harmonizing to
turn a deadly serious situation upside down, turning
violence and oppression into a source of positive
inspiration. Arriving in front of the state capitol in
Montgomery, Martin Luther King delivered an
impassioned speech to a wildly cheering crowd of
25,000: “They told us we wouldn’t get here. There
were those who said that we would get here only over
their dead bodies. All the world today knows that we
are here and we are standing before the forces of
power in the state of Alabama saying we ain’t gonna
let nobody turn us around.”
King was referring to one of the most popular
freedom songs of all, AIN’T GONNA LET NOBODY
TURN ME ‘ROUND, which became a rallying cry of
defiance and determination for protesters.
SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION features a
thrilling new performance of this song by the Grammy
Award-winning hip-hop group The Roots.
Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around,
Turn me around,
Turn me around.
Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around.
Gonna keep on a-walkin’,
Keep on a-talkin’,
Marching on to freedom land
The day before King’s triumphant Montgomery
speech, the Justice Department had warned him of a
credible assassination plot against him, but King
refused to back down from his mission. “If a man has
not discovered something that he will die for,” he
would say, “he isn’t fit to live.”
THE ASSASSINATION
Martin Luther King had received countless death
threats in his years of leadership. During the
Montgomery Bus Boycott, he received a bomb
threat, and true to the threat, his house was bombed
- an act that came perilously close to killing his wife
and daughter. Years later, he was attacked by a mob
in Alabama and also stabbed in New York. Despite
the danger to himself, his wife, and his young
children, King clung tenaciously to the philosophy of
non-violence.
Five months after the bloodshed in Selma, King’s
courage and sacrifice would pay off when Lyndon
Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In a speech before a joint session of Congress,
Johnson used the musical language of the civil rights
struggle, quoting from the song WE SHALL
OVERCOME, which had become the anthem of the
movement: “It is not just Negroes, but all of us who
must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and
injustice. And we shall overcome.”
Reverend C.T. Vivian, a deputy of Martin Luther King,
recalls the moment: “And when he said, ‘We shall
overcome,’ he took on our song. Man, that was like
lightning. And there was a silent tear going down
Martin’s cheek. That’s what he’d waited for. That’s
what he’d hoped for. That’s what he’d been fighting
for. To make the government affirm us.”
The Voting Rights Act was a landmark, but the
struggle for equality and justice was far from over.
Dr. King acknowledged this on April 3rd, 1968 when
he delivered his prophetic “Mountaintop” speech.
“We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't
matter with me now. Because I've been to the
mountaintop. Like anybody, I would like to live a long
life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned
about that now. I just want to do God's will. And
I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with
you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a
people, will get to the promised land.”
The following day, King was assassinated while
standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in
Memphis, Tennessee.
More than 60,000 people showed up for King’s
funeral - one of the most emotional days in modern
American history. The footage from that day is
extremely powerful, as are the recollections of those
who knew King. And as King’s body was carried
through the streets of Atlanta on a simple wooden
cart, the mourners following him resolutely sang
WOKE UP THIS MORNING with grim determination:
Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom
Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom
Hal-le-lu, Hal-le-lu, Hal-le-lu-jah!
In tribute to King, SOUNDTRACK FOR A
REVOLUTION features John Legend, the multiplatinum soul superstar, singing his own heartwrenching version of WOKE UP THIS MORNING. The
words speak of pain, but also of hope. Samuel Billy
Kyles explains: “You can kill the dreamer, but you
absolutely cannot kill the dream.”
In fact, the fight for freedom and equality continues to
this day. The film ends with the testimony of veterans
of the Movement, who express pride in how much
has been achieved, but also a conviction that the
struggle is ongoing. In a final end credits medley, the
voices of Joss Stone, John Legend, The Blind
Boys of Alabama, and others combine to sing the
inspirational anthem of the movement...
We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day
Deep in my heart
I do believe
That we shall overcome some day