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.

Song 34: Ain't Got No - I Got Life, Nina Simone

I've never understood why fans and critics will, on occasion, take offense with a singer's audacity to take a stand. Why should political questions of poverty, justice, equality and elections be left only to politicians and media moguls? The world is wiser for the artists we've listened to so far on this Top 100 Political Music Countdown. The world needs Nina Simone.

Ain't Got No - I Got Life was on an album released three days after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King.

Song 41: Bad Housing Blues, Josh White

Yes, even Presidents listen to music.

Just after Josh White played at Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration, he released Southern Exposure, an album of 6 anti-segragationist songs including Bad Housing Blues.

Roosevelt heard the album after it caused some anger in the American South and he invited White to the White House for a performance. After the show, they spent a few hours talking about White's life, music and the Jim Crow South. At one point, Roosevelt reportedly asked White if the song Uncle Sam Says was about him. White answered:

Yes Mr. President, I wrote that song to you after seeing how my brother was treated in the segregated section of Fort Dix army camp. . . However that wasn't the first song I wrote to you. . . In 1933, I wrote and recorded a song called `Low Cotton,' about the plight of Negro cotton pickers down South, and in the lyrics I made an appeal directly to you to help their situation.

Read more about Josh White in this article from Living Blues Magazine.

Song 47: The Midnight Special, Leadbelly

Midnight Special is believed to have originated from prisoners in the southern US. The first recording was in 1926 but Huddy Leadbetter (Leadbelly) helped to spread the song into the 30's as well. 

The Midnight Special was a train out of Houston. It's lights would momentarily flood the SugarLand prison as it turned down the tracks. Does the narrator see the train as a way out of prison, or is he saying he'd rather be under the train then spend another night in jail?

And another beautiful rendition of this traditional blues song by an artist who deserves to be on this Top 100 Political Music Countdown, but (with apologies) isn't - Odetta.

Song 77: Free and Equal Blues, Josh White

I went down to that St. James Infirmary
I saw some plasma there
I up'd and asked that doctor man
Now was the donor dark or fair?


The doctor laughed a great big laugh
And he puffed it right in my face
He says, "A molecule is a molecule son,
And the darn thing has no race."