Kipp Dawson and her collaborators used music as a source of joy, resistance, and community building throughout the long freedom movement. At strikes, protests, and on the picket lines, demonstrators sang songs that connected them with each other and with those around the country. Familiar freedom songs, traditional spirituals, and labor tunes provided a ready-made playbook. During long actions such as sit-ins, the music could keep participants focused and offered courage to those being arrested for civil disobedience. For Dawson and her colleagues, making music together in social spaces and at rallies also offered a sense of power and solidarity. Dawson reflects, “I can’t carry a tune but that didn’t stop me from singing with my sister/brother sit-in-ers, marchers, and in jail. We meshed. And shared the empowerment music brought us.” 

The first playlist below is a compilation of freedom songs mentioned by Dawson in her letters, journals, reports, and other movement documents, now archived in the Kipp M. Dawson Papers at the University of Pittsburgh. The other playlists are inspired by the mixtapes in Dawson’s collection. She and her friends frequently exchanged cassette tapes that they made, curating their selections with great care, introducing each other to new artists and genres, and deepening their friendships through a shared love of music. Dawson explains, “music was essential to each of our souls, work, spirit.” Through singing, she says, we “build the communities of struggle and resistance. And keep the joy flowing.” [1]