Oh, Lord, don’t let ‘em shoot us!
Oh, Lord, don’t let ‘em stab us!
Oh, Lord, don’t let ‘em tar and feath­er us!
Oh, Lord, no more swastikas!
Oh, Lord, no more Ku Klux Klan!

—Charles Min­gus, “Fables of Faubus”

In 1957, Arkansas Gov­er­nor Orval Faubus decid­ed that integration—mandated three years ear­li­er by Brown v. Board of Ed.—constituted such a state of emer­gency that he mobi­lized the Nation­al Guard to pre­vent nine black stu­dents from going to school. An out­raged Charles Min­gus respond­ed with the lyrics to “Fables of Faubus,” a com­po­si­tion that first appeared on his cel­e­brat­ed Min­gus Ah Um in 1959.

Those who know the album may be puzzled—there are no lyrics on that record­ing. Colum­bia Records, notes Michael Ver­i­ty, found them “so incen­di­ary that they refused to allow them to be record­ed.” Min­gus re-record­ed the song the fol­low­ing year for Can­did Records, “lyrics and all, on Charles Min­gus Presents Charles Min­gus.” The iras­ci­ble bassist and bandleader’s words “offer some of the most bla­tant and harsh­est cri­tiques of Jim Crow atti­tudes in all of jazz activism.”

Min­gus’ expe­ri­ence with Colum­bia shows the line most jazz artists had to walk in the ear­ly years of the Civ­il Rights move­ment. Sev­er­al of Min­gus’ elders, like Louis Arm­strong and Duke Elling­ton, refrained from mak­ing pub­lic state­ments about racial injus­tice, for which they were lat­er harsh­ly crit­i­cized.

But between Min­gus’ two ver­sions of “Fables of Faubus,” jazz rad­i­cal­ly broke with old­er tra­di­tions that catered to and depend­ed on white audi­ences. “’If you don’t like it, don’t lis­ten,’ was the atti­tude,” as Amiri Bara­ka wrote in 1962.

Musi­cians turned inward: they played for each oth­er and for their com­mu­ni­ties, invent­ed new lan­guages to con­found jazz appro­pri­a­tors and car­ry the music for­ward on its own terms. Can­did Records own­er Nat Hentoff, long­time Vil­lage Voice jazz crit­ic and colum­nist, not only issued Min­gus’ vocal Faubus protest, but also that same year Max Roach’s We Insist! Free­dom Now Suite, which fea­tured a cov­er pho­to of a lunch counter protest and per­for­mances from his then-wife, singer and activist Abbey Lin­coln.

Roach record­ed two oth­er albums with promi­nent Civ­il Rights themes, Speak Broth­er Speak in 1962 and Lift Every Voice and Sing in 1971. Jazz’s turn toward the move­ment was in full swing as the 60s dawned. “Nina Simone sang the incen­di­ary ‘Mis­sis­sip­pi God­dam,’” writes KCRW’s Tom Schn­abel, “Coltrane per­formed a sad dirge, ‘Alaba­ma’ to mourn the Birm­ing­ham, Alaba­ma church bomb­ing in 1963. Son­ny Rollins record­ed The Free­dom Suite for River­side Records as a dec­la­ra­tion of musi­cal and racial free­dom.”

Every Civ­il Rights gen­er­a­tion up to the present has had its songs of sor­row, anger, and cel­e­bra­tion. Where gospel guid­ed the ear­ly marchers, jazz musi­cians of the 1960s took it upon them­selves to score the move­ment. Though he didn’t much like to talk about it in inter­views, “Coltrane was deeply involved in the civ­il rights move­ment,” writes Blank on Blank, “and shared many of Mal­colm X’s views on black con­scious­ness and Pan-African­ism, which he incor­po­rat­ed into his music.”

Jazz clubs even became spaces for orga­niz­ing:

In 1963, CORE—Congress of Racial Equality—organized two ben­e­fit shows at the Five Spot Café, [fea­tur­ing] a host of promi­nent musi­cians and music jour­nal­ists.

In the wake of Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech at the March on Wash­ing­ton and with the church bomb­ing in Birm­ing­ham that killed 4 lit­tle girls only the month before, the ben­e­fit attract­ed a host of musi­cians like Ben Web­ster, Al Cohn, and Zoot Sims in sup­port of the orga­ni­za­tion, which, along with the NAACP and SNCC, was one of the lead­ing civ­il rights groups at the time.

The new jazz, hot or cool, became more deeply expres­sive of musi­cians’ indi­vid­ual per­son­al­i­ties, and thus of their whole polit­i­cal, social, and spir­i­tu­al selves. This was no small thing; jazz may have been an Amer­i­can inven­tion, but it was an inter­na­tion­al phe­nom­e­non. Artists in the 60s car­ried the strug­gle abroad with music and activism. After a wave of bru­tal bomb­ings, mur­ders, and beat­ings, “there were no more side­lines,” writes Ashawn­ta Jack­son at JSTOR Dai­ly. “Jazz musi­cians, like any oth­er Amer­i­can, had the duty to speak to the world around them.” And the world lis­tened.

The first Berlin Jazz Fes­ti­val, held in 1964, was intro­duced with an address by Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. (who did not attend in per­son). “Jazz is export­ed to the world,” King wrote, and “much of the pow­er of our Free­dom Move­ment in the Unit­ed States has come from this music. It has strength­ened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich har­monies when spir­its were down.” Music still plays the same role in today’s strug­gles. It’s a dif­fer­ent sound now, but you’ll still hear Min­gus’ vers­es in the streets, against more waves of hatred and brute force:

Boo! Nazi Fas­cist suprema­cists
Boo! Ku Klux Klan (with your Jim Crow plan)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Coltrane Talks About the Sacred Mean­ing of Music in the Human Expe­ri­ence: Lis­ten to One of His Final Inter­views (1966)

Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Explains the Impor­tance of Jazz: Hear the Speech He Gave at the First Berlin Jazz Fes­ti­val (1964)

Nina Simone’s Live Per­for­mances of Her Poignant Civ­il Rights Protest Songs

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness