The Last Mile of The Way: Soul Music and the Civil Rights Movement

In the summer of 1960, a group of Soul performers was scheduled to perform at a segregated dance in Little Rock, Arkansas. Jesse Belvin, Jackie Wilson and Arthur Prysock were to play two shows that evening—one for a black audience and a second show for a white audience. These segregated shows were essentially the norm in the majority of the country. However, that night, Jackie Wilson decided he was not going to perform the second show for a white audience and encouraged the others to follow suit. They were all subsequently run out of town at gun point and somewhere outside of Little Rock, Belvin’s tires on his 59’ Cadillac blew and he lost control of the vehicle, resulting in the death of him and his wife. Arkansas investigators attributed the accident to “disgruntled white” audience members who slashed the tires of the Cadillac. Meanwhile at local Soul concerts the “K-9 dogs [were] patrolling the aisles to prevent race mixing or over demonstrativeness on part of the colored population” in Birmingham. Almost from its inception, Soul music was concretely intertwined with the American Civil Rights movement and the issues surrounding race relations. This struggle by both white and black Americans to eradicate segregation and Jim Crow while fighting to extend equal social and political rights to African Americans is arguably the most understood and appreciated social movement in American history. However, there are areas in which thoughtful analysis can benefit both the history of the movement as well as race-relations in the 21st century. In the early years of the movement, the western world experienced a phenomenon that can be referred to as a “Soul Explosion.” Throughout the late 1950s into the 1970s, what was once considered “black” or “colored” music began to crossover into “mainstream” or “white” America with unprecedented success. The effect that this phenomenon had on those involved in the Civil Rights movement is one of a profound and varying nature. Black artists reached the summits of commercial success while black consumers found a voice for unity, strength and perseverance. Meanwhile, white audiences let a significant part of black culture into their world in a period where segregation of both bodies and cultures was the norm. Although sometimes unintentional, this access to black society helped to alter white perceptions of African Americans. The venues for creation and consumption of Soul music threatened to and, in many cases, did break down the barriers of segregation in America. In fact, Stax Records based in Memphis Tennessee, had one of the most famous studio bands in the industry, Booker T. and the M.G.’s, composed of two black musicians and two white musicians. The Last Mile of The Way: Soul Music and the Civil Rights Movement