Song 1: A Change Is Gonna Come, Sam Cooke

A beautiful anthem for political change, Sam Cooke's knows A Change Is Gonna Come. The song, both hopeful and filled with sorrow, doesn't hit you between the eyes with what's been done wrong - Cooke knows you know things need changing.

A change is gonna come. Oh yes it will.

Song 2: Respect, Aretha Franklin

Otis Redding wrote this song to get a little lovin' and respect. Aretha Franklin turned the table, and turned Respect into a feminist anthem.

Respect was recorded on Valentine's Day in 1967. Producer Jerry Wexler said this about the recording: 

Aretha added another dimension to the song. This was almost a feminist clarion. Whenever women heard the record, it was like a tidal wave of soronal unity. 'A little respect when you come home' doesn't only connote respect in the sense of having concern for another's position; there's also a little lubricity in there - respect aquires the notion of having to perform conjugally in optimum fashion. It was just a very interesting mix: an intuitive feminist outcry, a sexual statement, and an announcement of dignity.

Song 3: Strange Fruit, Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday would close her shows in 1939 and '40 with Strange Fruit. Waiters would stop serving. The bars would shut off the lights. A single light would shine on Holliday. The audience, and Holliday, would often weep after the performance.

Song 4: Fight The Power, Public Enemy

Critics were concerned Spike Lee's movie Do The Right Thing would provoke riots. David Denby said Lee was "playing with dynamite in an urban playground" and Newsweek worried the movie would put "dynamite under every seat." Lee pointed out the critics were implying that black audiences were incapable of understanding they were watching a fictional motion picture.

Public Enemy's song Fight The Power played a critical role in the film. The character Radio Raheem walked around the neighbourhood playing nothing but this tune on his ghettoblaster. At the movie's climax, the local pizza shop owner demands Radio Raheem turn the music down and ends of smashing the ghettoblaster. A fight breaks out and Radio Raheem dies after police put him in a chokehold.

Public Enemy's Brian Hargrove explained:  

Law enforcement is necessary. As a species we haven’t evolved past needing that. Fight the Power is not about fighting authority — it’s not that at all. It’s about fighting abuse of power.

Song 5: The Times They Are a-Changin', Bob Dylan

Come mothers and fathers

Throughout the land

And don't criticize

What you can't understand

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

Your old road is

Rapidly agin'

Please get out of the new one

If you can't lend your hand

For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn

The curse it is cast

The slow one now

Will later be fast

As the present now

Will later be past

The order is

Rapidly fadin'

And the first one now

Will later be last

For the times they are a-changin'. 

Song 6: Ohio, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Jeffrey Glenn Miller, age 20

Allison B. Krause, age 19

William Knox Schroeder, age 19

Sandra Lee Scheuer, age 20

Banned from many AM radio stations in 1971, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's OHIO received steady airplay on illegal underground FM stations in cities and college towns.

Song 7: Mississippi Goddam, Nina Simone

Medgar Evers was a civil rights activist from Mississippi. He worked on a boycott of discriminatory gas stations (Don't Buy Gas Where You Can't Use the Restroom) and other white businesses in an effort to end segregation at the University of Mississippi.

The University of Mississippi was forced to enroll a black student in 1962. A subsequent riot left two people dead and Evers became a target of white supremacists. Evers work researching the murder of Emmitt Till (a 14 year old African American kid who was accused of flirting with a white woman) made him an even larger target. Evers house was fire-bombed, he was nearly the victim of a hit-and-run, and was eventually shot and killed in 1963.

Mississippi Goddam was written by Nina Simone in 1964. It's fantastic. Don't go slow when you're trying to change the world. Run.