How It Feels to Be Free: Black Women Entertainers and the Civil Rights Movement

by Ruth Feldstein

Winner of the Benjamin L. Hooks National Book Award

Winnter of the Michael Nelson Prize of the International Association for Media and History

In 1964, Nina Simone sat at a piano in New York's Carnegie Hall to play what she called a "show tune." Then she began to sing: "Alabama's got me so upset/Tennessee made me lose my rest/And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam!" Simone, and her song, became icons of the civil rights movement. But her confrontational style was not the only path taken by black women entertainers.
br>In How It Feels to Be Free, Ruth Feldstein examines celebrated black women performers, illuminating the risks they took, their roles at home and abroad, and the ways that they raised the issue of gender amid their demands for black liberation. Feldstein focuses on six women who made names for themselves in the music, film, and television industries: Simone, Lena Horne, Miriam Makeba, Abbey Lincoln, Diahann Carroll, and Cicely Tyson. These women did not simply mirror black activism; their performances helped constitute the era's political history. Makeba connected America's struggle for civil rights to the fight against apartheid in South Africa, while Simone sparked high-profile controversy with her incendiary lyrics. Yet Feldstein finds nuance in their careers. In 1968, Hollywood cast the outspoken Lincoln as a maid to a white family in For Love of Ivy, adding a layer of complication to the film. That same year, Diahann Carroll took on the starring role in the television series Julia. Was Julia a landmark for casting a black woman or for treating her race as unimportant? The answer is not clear-cut. Yet audiences gave broader meaning to what sometimes seemed to be apolitical performances.

How It Feels to Be Free demonstrates that entertainment was not always just entertainment and that "We Shall Overcome" was not the only soundtrack to the civil rights movement. By putting black women performances at center stage, Feldstein sheds light on the meanings of black womanhood in a revolutionary time.

Genres: Music, History, Nonfiction, American History, Biography, Womens, College

306 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Kaytlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was honored to receive Ruth Feldstein's book for review on Goodreads giveaway. To me, this book is a must-read for historians and anyone interested in US 20th century cultural history, entertainment history, feminism, or the Civil Rights Movement. It is a work not biographical in nature but a cultural history through which Feldstein argues that popular art has had an important place in the work of social change in the US. Feldstein states that “culture was a key battleground in the civil rights movement” and that Lena Horne, Miriam Makeba, Nina Simone, Abbey Lincoln, Diahann Carroll and Cicely Tyson were the front runners of a theme that would later appear in the militant black power movement and in second-wave feminism. While this book most certainly takes a scholarly approach the topic, readers from all backgrounds will find in this book an accessible narrative that sheds light on a marginalized group of performers and their historical signficance.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really interesting look at performing race--meaning, how race is seen visually (through hair, clothing, accessories), how it is viewed aurally, and how female performers, in particular, had to negotiate all kinds of issues. This focuses on Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Lena Horne, Nina Simone, Abbey Lincoln, and Miriam Makeba, primarily, and the compromises they made--or didn't make--in terms of performance, art, politics, and civil and women's rights. Lots of references to other performers, including Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier, as well as what other Black women were doing.

[May · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would 10/10 recommend adding this to your want to read list!!! This book is educational, interesting, and thorough in its exploration of how identity, culture, politics, and history intersect in this time period. This book is a must-read for those exploring culture or politics in the ‘60s, and I have learned so much. LOVED IT!

[Katherine Lavelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great companion piece to the PBS documentary of the same name. This book is extremely well researched and enjoyable. I would highly recommend it as a great biography of these fantastic women and their experiences fighting racism and sexism in the 1960s and 1970s.

[C.R. Hogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book makes me want to fight the patriarchy.

[Mills College Library]

323.1196 F3129 2013