Negro Spirituals played a vital role in inspiring and giving a voice to the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King, Jr explained, “sing the freedom songs today for the same reason the slaves sang them because we too are in bondage and the songs add hope to our determination that ‘We shall overcome, Black and white together, we shall overcome someday.”
During demonstrations, sit-ins, and boycotts, African Americans sang spirituals like “We shall Overcome,” “Wade in the Water,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.”
The lyrics of these songs were powerful. Lyrics like “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child”, spoke to how Black children were disposable. An example would be Emmitt Till. A Black boy who was accused of looking at a white woman. He was beaten, shot, and thrown into a river. These lyrics were real and when sung as a collective gave them morale and power to continue fighting and walking.