This mix is a blend of Jazz, Soul and Spoken Word. It was put together to highlight America and the UK’s failed law enforcement, police brutality and institutional racism. We tried to make the music chronological initially highlighting the pain and overall positive outcome of the civil rights movement, followed by more recent institutional racism highlighted by spoken word and onto contemporary jazz, ending on a positive message. The irony being that Sam Cooke released that track in 1964, but it seems that, change hasn’t yet come and we still have a long way to go.
”We hate because we’re taught to hate, we hate because we’re ignorant. We are the product of ignorant people, who have been taught an ignorant thing, which is that there are 4 or 5 races, there are not 4 or 5 races, there is only one race on the face of the earth and we are all members of that race: the human race.
We have separated people into races so that some of us can see themselves as superior to the others, we thought it would work, it hasn’t worked, it has been bad for everyone.
It is time to get over this business, there is no gene for racism, there is no gene for bigotry, you are not born a bigot, you have to learn to be a bigot, anything you learn you can unlearn. It is time time to unlearn our bigotry.
It is time to get over this thing and we best get over it soon, and it is my business as an educator to lead people out of ignorance. The ignorance of thinking that you are better or worse than someone else because of the amount of the pigment in your skin. Pigmentation in your skin has nothing to do with your intelligence or your worth as a human being, it is time to get over that” – Jane Elliot
We Shall Overcome
#BlackLivesMatter
Billie Holiday – Strange Fruit
John Coltrane – Alabama
Max Roach – Driva Man
Nina Simone – I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free
Charles Mingus – Faubus Fables
Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions – People Get Ready
Grover Washington Jr. – Inner City Blues (you make me wanna holler)
The Last Poets – Panther
Gil Scott Heron – Did you hear what they said?
Javon Johnson – ‘Cuz He’s Black’
Theo Croker – We Can’t Breathe
Marquis Hill – Fly Little Bird Fly
Sam Cooke – A Change Is Gonna Come