Civil Rights, Equality and the Music of Nina Simone Essay -- Autobiogr

Nina Simone used music to challenge, provoke, incite, and inform the masses during the period that we know as the Civil Rights Era. In the songs Four Women, Young Gifted and Black, and disseminated multiple sclerosis God Damn, Nina Simone musically maps a personal intersectionality as it consorts to organism a stark American female artist. Kimberly Crenshaw defines intersectionality as an inability for black women to separate race, class and gender. Nina Simones music directly addresses this paradigm. While she is keep as a prolific artist her political and social activism is understate despite her front- line presence in the movement. According to Ruth Feldstein Nina Simone cast black activism in the 1960s. Feldstein goes on to say that Simone was known to have back up the struggle for black freedom in the United States much earlier, and in a more outspoken manner around the world than had many a(prenominal) other African American entertainers. Her family ties to t he south, her unique talent, her ability to travel and assume money are similar to the Blues women movement that preceded her. It can be said that Nina Simone goes a step further the by directly struggle inequities pertaining to race and gender in her music. However, what distinguishes her is her unique musicianship and that is what ultimately garners her massive ikon and experiences than those of her past contemporaries. Like the Blues women Simone expands ideas pertaining to self-expression, identity and beauty as they relate to black women. She does this by embracing what is definitively African American and connecting that to a diachronic context. By doing so she is the embodiment of a political statement. Her journey which began deal many entertaine... ...utobiography Of Nina Simone, Da Capo Press 2003.Additional Sources ConsultedBrooks, Daphne A. . Nina Simones Triple Play. Callaloo. 35.4 (2011) 176-194. Web. 11 Feb. 2013. .Lewis, Andrea. Nina Simone system a powerful inspiration for black women. Progressive. (2003) n. page. Web. 11 Feb. 2013. .Simone, Nina, perf. Mississippi Goddam. 1964. Song.https//www.youtube.com/ observatory?v=fVQjGGJVSXcSimone, Nina, perf. To Be Young, Gifted and Black. 1970. Song.https//www.youtube.com/ scout?v=h3OIfuVpocUSimone, Nina, perf. Four Women, 1966. Song.https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf9Bj1CXPH8Tsuruta, Dorothy Randall. I Aint About To Be Non-Violent, Honey.. Black Scholar 29.2/3 (1999) 54. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 11 Feb. 2013.