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The charge, while provocative, offers a framework to reckon with systemic racial injustice — past and present.

U.S. music was shaped to a considerable extent by people the government sought to destroy. Even as it mounted an effective attack on the Communist Party, the government was unable to erase the influence of musicians with which it was associated.

Those who desecrated the Capitol in January called themselves patriots. Millions supported them, including members of both Houses. This again reminded one of Robeson, because seventy-two years earlier, another angry mob might well have lynched him.

The big crowds at Madison Square Garden during wartime and a few years after, the excitement at union halls and summer camps for some of the most interesting musicians and lyricists of the time? Gone — gone, but not entirely forgotten.

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A sampling of the vast repertoire that Black folk musicians have contributed to the folk genre and the struggle for freedom and justice. Leon Bibb, Harry Belafonte, Paul Robeson, Odetta, Eric Bibb, Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, Toshi Reagon, to start..