Introduction: Racism in the U.S. Music Industry during Cold War and Civil Rights Eras (Part 1 of 8)

What role(s) did the music industry (record labels, for example) play in constructing and enforcing racial division in the United States during the Cold War and Civil Rights eras? How did artists and songwriters use music as a means of participating in political conversations/activism? How did institutions, such as the music industry, react to such political assertions? I know you're curious. You can find out all the answers to these questions, in this eight part blog post series!!!

My first series of posts on “The Rhythm of Race” will be an eight part collection of reworked excerpts from the very history paper that inspired this blog. Each post may stand on its own, but will be best read in full. In this eight part series, I will talk about economic, political, and technological racism in the U.S. music industry during the Cold War and Civil Rights Eras, as well as highlight some musical trailblazers that pushed social and political boundaries in their time periods. I hope you have as much fun reading this as I had writing it. Enjoy!

Image: Rolling Stone

Despite the facade of social uniformity, systemic racism plagued the music and cultural industries of the United States during the Cold War and Civil Rights movement. The evolution of racial segregation in the music business during these eras was influenced by economic, political and technological advances in American society (Garofalo, 318). As the entire nation reaped economic rewards from industrial capitalism and post World War II, fought a fierce political battle against Communism, and intensified racial violence and discrimination, the music industry became a representation, a counterpart, of the social issues of the United States as a whole. Narrowing it down further, individual musicians and their personal activism– plus how the power-holding people in the industry and U.S. government attempted to stifle such activism– exemplified the intense presence of racism (and the desire to cover it up in the name of politics) in America. The economic, political, and technological-oriented goals of the music industry exacerbated institutional racism in the United States during the Cold War; the economic prowess of the industry built a deep-rooted system of segregation that focused on fulfilling the supply and demand of the elite/White consumer population and minority/Black population separately. Musicians such as Sam Cooke, Nina Simone, and Josephine Baker used their artistic platform to challenge the social narrative during the Civil Rights movement, despite often being met with institutional criticism and suppression.

Bibliography

Garofalo, Reebee. "From Music Publishing to MP3: Music and Industry in the Twentieth Century." American Music 17, no. 3 (Fall 1999): 318-54. Accessed May 6, 2021. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3052666.

#intro #economic #political #technological #civilrights #coldwar