BLACK MUSIC IN OUR HANDS
BERNICE REAGON(REVELATIONS 71-74)
PROCESS EXPOSITORY MODE POWER POINT PRESENTATION
BY:DOMINIQUE ALEXIS, ASHLEY WILLIAMS, JAMISON
HARRIS, AND ALBERT ELLIS
WHAT IS EXPOSITORY ?
Expository writing gives information, explains something, clarifies a process or defines a concept. Though objective and not dependent on emotion, expository writing may be lively, engaging, and reflective of the writer's underlying commitment to the topic.
COMPONENTS OF AN EXPOSITORY ESSAY
Development of a main idea
Support the main idea using facts or examples
Presentation of logically organized information
Commitment to the topic
PURPOSE OF EXPOSITORY IS TO:
Inform
Clarify
Explain
Define
Instruct
PROCESS ANALYSISWhy do we use process analysis?
When you want to learn how to do something, or how something works or is done.
What are the two types of process analysis?
Instructional and Informative (used for most academic writing)
“BLACK MUSIC IN OUR HANDS”
Purpose is to identify how the author uses the writing process to get the message across the reader.
Black Music in Our Hands was written as an expository essay with a purpose of describing her story early roots with music.
FIRST LEVEL OF AWARENESS
As she got interested in black music she sung three different types.
Spiritual sung by the college choir, Rhythm and Blues (R&B) done by and for the blacks, church music.
MUSIC AS A PART OF CULTURAL EXPRESSION As she saw black choral singing
with huge, powerful, rich congressional response. The beats to the hymn were clapping call-and-response.
People singing and praying until they shouted.
She realized that the church took people from their calm selves to a place physical and intellectual worked in harmony with the spirit.
Church did something more for her culture and it was a vital part of it since before her time and will remain one after.
The way the author was describing the church scene, you could tell that she was passionate to be a part of how we express ourselves.
REALIZATION
After her first march for the Civil Rights movement, her perception of music changed.
Unaware of her actions, she changed the song she was singing to fit to the particular moment she was doing at that time.
Since the Civil Rights Movement we still sing and rap about songs about what’s going on in the community or just what we are going through individually.
THESIS
“Although I was not consciously aware of it, this was one of my earliest experiences with how my music was supposed to function. This music was to be integrative of and consistent with everything I was doing at that time; it was to be tied to activities that went beyond artistic affairs such as concerts, dances and church meetings.”
BERNICE IN JAIL
As Bernice sat inside the jail cell along side everyone else she reached a new level of awareness.
Her jail experience allowed her to connect with members of her community that she had never came into contact with before.
The Albany Movement
The Freedom Singers
BERNICE AS A LEADER
As a young leader, Bernice found herself leading younger women in song, discussions, and speaking with prison officials.
She used music as an instrument to shape her reality.
THE ALBANY MOVEMENT
Took place in Albany, Georgia
A desegregation coalition formed by SNCC, the SCLC, and the NAACP.
Leaders: William G. Anderson, Martin L. King, JR.
GEORGIA SEA ISLAND SINGERS
“The Georgia Sea Island Singers, whom I first heard at the Newport Festival, were a major link. Bessie Jones, coming from within twenty miles of Albany, Georgia, had a repertoire and song-leading style I recognized from the churches I had grown up in. She, along with John Davis, would talk about songs that Black people had sung as slaves and what those songs meant in terms of their struggle to be free. The songs did not sound like the spirituals I had sung in college choirs; they sounded like the songs I had grown up with in church. There I had been told the songs had to do with worship of Jesus Christ.
THREE COMPONENTS
Music she had found in the Civil Rights Movement
Songs of the Georgia Sea Island Singers, and their relationship to the struggle of Black peoples during slavery
“Songs of the church that now sounded like those traditional songs that came close to having, for many people, the same kind of freeing power.”
MOTHER OF THE CHURCH THAT HER FATHER PASTORED
Focused on the sound, tune, rhythm, chant, whether the moans came at the proper pace and intensity.
Happened to hear every word that she said
Song felt like a storytelling of the Black community in Albany, Georgia.
PURPOSE OF COLLECTION, STUDY, AND CREATION OF BLACK MUSIC
To reveal the subliminal message of struggle
To highlight what the music has to say about the faith and heritage of the Black community
SEARCH FOR MESSAGES IN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT MUSIC
Jazz, rhythm and blues; gospel
Gospel choirs became the major musical vehicle in the urban center of Birmingham, with the choir led by Carlton Reese.
Gospel choir also led by Ben Branch in Chicago IL
Realized that music during the civil rights movement was derived from folk music as well
JAZZ
JAZZ AND BLACK MUSIC
Jazz music has no words
Jazz music contains “power, intensity, and movement under various degrees of pressure, it had vocal texture and color” (Revelations 74).
The music conveyed emotion without using words.
THE EMOTION OF JAZZ
The music conveyed the emotions of the Black community.
Jazz related to the hardships and struggles in the community.
“The music knew how to be Black and Down, Black and Angry, Black and Loved, Black and Fighting” (Revelations 74).
BLACK’S MUSIC EXISTENCE AND
ARTISTS Black Music exists everywhere that black
people thrive.
It exists everywhere that black people struggle, live, and think.
Black Artists must know the world around them and allow their expression to convey their feelings.
BLACK MUSIC WORKS TOGETHER AS A
WHOLE “Blues, gospel, ballads, dance, rhythm, jazz,
and love songs all make up Black Music” (Revelations 74).
Black music is necessary to relate to the people and community that provide it with its inspiration to express itself.
WORKS CITED
Maimon, Elaine P. Howard University Student Handbook for Writers.
Boston: The McGraw Hill Companies, Inc., 2010.United States of America.
Redd, Teresa M. Revelations.New York: Pearson Learning Solutions,
2010. United States of America.
QUESTIONS
What are some examples that back up the thesis?
What were some of the things that Civil Rights activists did to make it through their periods of jail time?
Do you believe that black music today still tells stories?
Why do we need black music?