For as long as we can remember African American musicians and music lovers exercised personal agency and asserted their identities in the face of daily oppression in American society. Musical activism and political mobilization played a central role in the African American civil rights struggles of the 20th century, the roles the music and musicians played in the movements helped propel the fight for equality and justice. A ticket to a 1963 concert of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (S.N.C.C.) Freedom Singers for example, lifted the spirits of activists during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

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