Protest Music

Since those defining years of desegregation, a new generation of Americans—both blacks and whites—have grown up with little or no personal experience of the Civil Rights Era. For many of them, it is abstract ancient history. But the Gen Xers, Millennials, and those younger are painfully learning what our generation learned: while you can and should pass legislation against discrimination, you cannot legislate a change of heart.

It was one thing for America to pass legislation abolishing the Jim Crow laws that had mandated racial segregation in all public facilities. It was another issue to eradicate Jim Crow sentiments from the heart.

During the Civil Rights Movement, music was used to fan the flames of social change. The protest music of folk singers and rock musicians became the prophetic voice to many in that genera

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tion that radical change had to take place. As Bob Dylan sang, “The times they are a-changin’.”

However, millions found that while the answer was “blowing in the wind,” those winds did not always change people’s hearts. During those earlier days of ministry when I spoke on reconciliation, I would often quote the rather humorous words of a popular folk song by the Kingston Trio:

The whole world is festering With unhappy souls The French hate the Germans, The Germans hate the Poles Italians hate Yugoslavs South Africans hate the Dutch And I don’t like Anybody very much

The chorus concluded:

They’re rioting in Africa There’s strife in Iran What nature doesn’t do to us Will be done by our fellow man

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It’s amazing how relevant those words are almost a half century later! It seems that reconciliation, like many other things, seldom lasts more than one generation.

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