Show #15: CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT SONGS
with Tom Murray of SNCC (Show #2 of 2)
Full Audio & Transcript
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The following interview with Tom Murray was broadcast August 24 & 27, 1963 from New York City on worldwide short-wave radio. This historic radio interview was transmitted from the studios of Radio New York Worldwide on the show Folk Music Worldwide hosted by newsman Alan Wasser. This is interview #2 of 2 with Mr. Murray. The first interview can be found here.

Featuring folk song performances: "Dogs"; "We Shall Not be Moved"; "We Shall Overcome"; and "This Little Light of Mine". Transcript includes full song lyrics.

 

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 (24:38)

Transcript:

MEL BERNAM (ANNOUNCER): Here is Radio New York Folk Music Worldwide. A program devoted to the best in folk music throughout the world, showcasing the top performers and authorities in the field. Now your host for Folk Music Worldwide, Alan Wasser.

ALAN WASSER (HOST): Hello again, and welcome to Folk Music Worldwide. Today's show is the second in a series of two shows we're doing on the folk songs that have come out of the Negro Integration Movement.

The first show, if you missed it, featured an interview with Tom Murray, a fieldworker for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [SNCC]. This is one of the organizations, along with the NAACP and CORE [Congress of Racial Equality], which have been running demonstrations, running boycotts, etc., voter registration drives in the South and, to a certain extent, in the North, to help all Americans gain the freedom that most of us believe they should have.

Some of this music, as I've said, is awfully beautiful. We've been playing records from The Freedom Singers, a group of members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who got together to sing songs for their own group, for the movement, and discovered that their songs were popular everywhere and are now singing all across the country to apparently very good response, because in San Francisco, I believe they've just been booked for six weeks at the Ash Grove in San Francisco.

One of their songs that I hadn't heard before that Tom raves about, a song called "Dogs." Tom, can you tell me something about it?

TOM MURRAY (FIELD WORKER OF SNCC, GUEST): Well, I rave about it because I feel rather close to it.

One of the original SNCC groups was in Nashville, Tennessee, where the Sit-in Movement had one of its beginnings. And Bernard Lafayette and a group of the students from Nashville created what I think is a good example of how a freedom song comes about, because it combines several elements.

It takes the context of a rock and roll song. And it takes the words of the feelings of the individuals. And it puts them together and comes up with a song which is uniquely expressive of the movement. And "Dogs" came out of Nashville, and now it's sung by The Freedom Singers.

ALAN: Let's hear The Freedom Singers doing "Dogs."

[Song performance: “Dogs” - Freedom Singers]

Lyrics:

Dog, dog, dog, dog
My dog a-love-a your dog
And your dog a-love-a my dog
And my dog a-love-a your dog
And your dog a-love-a my dog

I'm talking about a black dog
I'm talking about a white dog
I'm talking about a coon dog
I'm talking about a rabbit dog
All them dog, all them dog
All them dog, Lord, Lord, all them dog a-love-a my dog

And then why can't we sit under the apple tree
You won't walk with me
You won't talk with me
Well, why don't you hold my hand
And tell me you understand
Now, can't you see that you and me
We'll be so happy
Sitting under the apple tree

My little doggie was playing one day
Down in the meadow by a bundle of hay
Another little doggie came along
He said let's get together and eat this bone

And then why can't we sit under the apple tree
You won't walk with me
You won't talk with me
Well, why don't you hold my hand
And tell me you understand
Now, can't you see that you and me
We'll be so happy
Sitting under the apple tree

My dog a-love-a your dog
And your dog a-love-a my dog
And my dog a-love-a your dog
Dog
I'm talking about a black dog
I'm talking about a white dog
I'm talking about a coon dog
I'm talking about a rabbit dog
All them dog, all them dog
All them dog, Lord, Lord, all them dog

And then why can't we sit under the apple tree
My dog a-love-a your dog
And your dog a-love-a my dog
I'm talking about a black dog
I'm talking about a white dog

[ end of music ]

ALAN: "Dogs " as done by The Freedom Singers. Interesting to see dogs used as a symbol of friendship and harmony instead of the symbol they so often are in Birmingham, Alabama, and other parts of the South.

I noticed that Freedom Singers always seemed to sing a cappella. Did they always do this?

TOM MURRAY: Well, there's many good reasons why they sing a cappella. The other night, we were taping a television show here in New York, and the producer was asking Cordell Reagon, who was the lead singer in this last song, why it was that they sang a cappella.

And he explained rather caustically that it was difficult to get a bass fiddle and a guitar into a southern jail where most of these songs were born. "Dogs" incidentally came out long before Birmingham.

"Dogs " was written back in, I guess, well, it was '60, in 1960. And at that time, dogs didn't have the connotation that they have after Birmingham.

ALAN: It's interesting. This is a song which has, obviously, a great deal of roots in the rock and roll type of music, which I suppose is something that a folk song needn't be ashamed of, because it can come from anywhere that people really feel or really want.

And yet, I see here "We Shall Not Be Moved," which I know is a song that's been used by movements throughout the history of the United States. The Labor Movement used it. I know the pacifistic movements have used it.

Everybody seems to take this song. It has a certain quality that just seems to lend itself so much to this kind of thing. Perhaps we could hear "We Shall Not be Moved" as done by The Freedom Singers.

[Song performance: "We Shall Not be Moved" - Freedom Singers]

Lyrics:

We shall not, we shall not be moved
We shall not, we shall not be moved
Just like a tree that's planted by the water
We shall not be moved
We shall not be moved

We're on our way to victory
We shall not be moved
We're on our way to victory
We shall not be moved
Just like a tree that's planted by the water
We shall not be moved

Segregation is our enemy
It must be removed
Segregation is our enemy
It must be removed
Just like a pail of garbage in the alley
It must be removed

We shall not, we shall not be moved
We shall not, we shall not be moved
Just like a tree that's planted by the water
Oh, we shall not be moved

[ end of music ]

ALAN: The integration version of "We Shall Not Be Moved" as done by The Freedom Singers. Of course, in the other usage of the song, they've changed the words slightly to fit with whatever they were driving at.

They've usually gotten union verses into the Labor Movement, stanzas against war for ban the bomb movements and this sort of thing.

Tom, I know you will not be moved from your position. But you've seemed to do an awful lot of moving in supporting, pardon the pun. Where are you going now?

TOM MURRAY: That's rather difficult to say. I have been moving.

All my life I've lived veritably out of a suitcase or in a suitcase. I have had three or four things lined up. Immediately, I'm going to be involved with the march on Washington the 28th of August.

After that, I've had one request that I go out to California, another request that I go to Louisville, Kentucky, two requests to stay here in New York, and one request to go to Washington, D.C.

ALAN: What kind of things would you be doing if you took any of these requests?

TOM MURRAY: Well, here in New York, I would either be acting as a field worker for the northern counterpart of the Southern movement, the Northern Student Movement, that is involved in tutorial projects and campus organizations around the question of civil rights and the entire question of the problems of poverty and depressed areas in the North and trying to bring students to an involvement in this.

Or I would possibly be working in one of the depressed areas here in New York City on a community organization level. In Washington, it's another project in a depressed area.

In Louisville, Kentucky, it was an offer to work in a changing neighborhood, a neighborhood whose racial composition is going from white to Negro and trying to create a stable integrated community rather than having the old story of a Negro area rather than a white area.

In California, I was asked to go out and replace one of The Freedom Singers, and I declined, because the one I was asked to replace sings a very, very deep, powerful bass. I can sing, but not a very deep, powerful bass.

So I declined that offer. But I would like to possibly go out with them as a fifth voice for the group. But this is rather nebulous.

ALAN: Well, just before you came back to New York, you were down in Baltimore, weren't you? What were you doing?

I know. But maybe you'd like to tell the listeners what you were doing down there.

TOM MURRAY: Well, Baltimore was a side trip, if you will, sort of a commuting problem.

I had just come back from the South, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Louisiana, and had arrived here in New York and was waiting to begin work on the March on Washington, and one of the groups here in New York asked me if I would like to go to Maryland.

Well, being one who enjoys traveling, I said, "Sure, what are we doing?" We were going down to Baltimore to work on a project, the Gwynn Oaks Amusement Park, which is in the suburbs of Baltimore.

I feel rather close to Baltimore and that area of Maryland as my first project in the movement was in Maryland and in Baltimore and on the eastern shore of Maryland.

ALAN: That was the same ride we were on together? Or had you been down there before I came down with you?

TOM MURRAY: I don't recall, which I had been working on Route 40.

ALAN: Yeah, that's the one.

TOM MURRAY: And then we went down to Annapolis. I think you and I were in Annapolis together.

ALAN: Yeah, we were on the Route 40 Indianapolis projects together. Those were the days.

We'll be back talking to Tom Murray and play some more songs from the Negro Integration Movement just after this message.

(short pause)

Well, this is Alan Wasser again back at Folk Music Worldwide. Let me just take a second out here to ask our listeners to write in.

I've said quite a few times in the past, we're always very anxious to get mail. It's the only way to know how many people are listening, what kind of music you like.

Do you want to hear more of these integration songs? Or is there any other area you want to hear? Let us know if you heard it.

If you haven't got time to write us a full letter, maybe you can write postmark New York and just stick in in a post script about Folk Music Worldwide.

Well, I think before we start finding ourselves tight on time, we better get back to the music. There's a theme song of The Negro Integration Movement that I think can't be left out of a show like this, "We Shall Overcome." Tom, you want to talk about that?

TOM MURRAY: I don't think that I would quite say it was a theme song, but rather an anthem. "We Shall Overcome" has been a part of the movement ever since the movement began.

For me, it's a very powerful song, because I associate with it as does anyone in the movement, such strong memories and recollections and associations. I think that one of the first times that I heard it, probably the time that I feel most strongly about it, it was in Maryland, and it was a small shack church on the end of a dirt road.

And there were about two dozen people standing around in a circle. We had just come back from a project, and we joined hands and began to sing.

[Song performance: “We Shall Overcome” - Freedom Singers]

Lyrics:

We shall overcome (my Lord)
We shall overcome (my Lord)
We shall overcome someday
Oh, deep in my heart
(I know that) I do believe, Lord
We shall overcome someday

We are not alone
We are not alone (my Lord)
We are not alone (my Lord)
We are not alone today
Oh, deep in my heart
(I know that) I do believe
Oh, we shall overcome someday

The truth shall make us free
The truth shall make us free
My Lord, the truth shall make us free
My Lord, the truth shall make us free someday
Oh, deep in my heart
(I know that) I do believe
Oh, we shall overcome someday

We shall overcome
We shall overcome (my Lord)
We shall overcome (my Lord)
We shall overcome someday
Oh, deep in my heart
(I know that) I do believe
Oh, we shall overcome someday

[ end of music ]

ALAN: The anthem of the Negro Integration Movement "We Shall Overcome." Like you, Tom, I also have a memory of when I first heard this song.

In my case, it was probably in the same area that you heard it but of different circumstances. I was about to go into my first Freedom Ride.

I was riding down in a bus, and we were just about to pull into the place where we were going to get started. And I don't mind saying I was scared, and I guess just about everybody else was, because they started singing this song.

And when you hear it in this kind of situation, you understand why such songs are needed in a movement like this.

I think we got time for one more song. What would you recommend?

TOM MURRAY: Well, I'd recommend, I think, probably again The Freedom Singers. But I'm prejudiced. I like them.

A song called, "This Little Light of Mine," which is another powerful song, just as "We Shall Overcome" has carried all of us through many tense situations. The ideal that we're looking for, the thing which carries us through each of these things is an inner light.

It's a light that within us, any of us, gives strength to the others. It's best expressed in the song "This Little Light of Mine."

[Song performance: “This Little Light of Mine” - Freedom Singers]

Lyrics:

This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
Oh, this little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
Let it shine
Let it shine
Let it shine

Oh, I've got the light of freedom
And I'm gonna let it shine
Oh, I've got the light of freedom
And I'm gonna let it shine
I've got the light of freedom
I'm gonne let it shine
Let it shine
Let it shine
Let it shine

Oh, all in the jailhouse
I'm gonna let it shine
Oh, all in the jailhouse
I'm gonna let it shine
All in the jailhouse
I'm gonna let it shine
Let it shine
Let it shine
Let it shine

Oh, Jesus gave it to me now
I'm gonna let it shine
Oh, Jesus gave it to me now
I'm gonna let it shine
Jesus gave it to me now
I'm gonna let it shine
Let it shine
Let it shine
Let it shine

Oh, this little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
Oh, this little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
Let it shine
Let it shine
Let it shine

[ end of music ]

ALAN: "This Little Light of Mine," Yeah!

Tom, we're out of time. We haven't got any more. I really appreciate you doing two shows with us here.

I hope our audience has. I wish they'd let us know. I want to thank you very much for coming in.

TOM MURRAY: Thank you, Alan, it's been a pleasure.

MEL BERNAM (ANNOUNCER): This has been Folk Music Worldwide. Devoted to the best in folk music throughout the world and spotlighting top performers and authorities in the field.

If you have any suggestions, requests, or comments, why not write into Folk Music Worldwide, Radio New York, WRUL, New York City 19 USA. This has been a Music Worldwide presentation of Radio New York Worldwide.

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