Missions Resources - Bibliography
A Change is Gonna Come: Music, Race & The Soul of America
Authors: Werner, Craig
ISBN: 0-452-28065-6
Publisher: New York: Plume (Penguin)
Type of cover: Soft Cover
Summary: A Change is Gonna Come tells the story of the second half of the twentieth century in America, through our oral literature - specifically popular music. During this time, music has been the most open and honest forum for talking about race and justice, far more than Congress, or school, or unfortunately even church.
Taking its title from a Sam Cooke song, A Change is Gonna Come fluently shifts between narrative history, commentary, and prose "testimonial," as Craig Werner tells the stories of the Civil Rights movement, Black Power, Reagan's war on drugs, to the today's urban power movements. He locates the DNA of Rock in Gospel and Blues, and emphasizes the links, rather than the differences, between BeBop and Hip Hop.
Werner is a bit of a revisionist, in the best sense of the term: He lets us look at very recent history with new eyes, in order to better explain where we're at today. Whereas Hollywood tells us the late sixties (see Forrest Gump for the official Hollywood history) were a time of increased liberalism, Werner demonstrates the reactionary foundation holding the hippie movement together. While Hollywood tells us the Eighties were a time of euphoric prosperity coupled with moral "openness", Werner gives us a darker perspective. The Eighties, especially the Reagan years, were the hardest times for urban African-Americans since Jim Crow.
This is not a "Christian" book, but it flows with Gospel soul, tears of righteous anger, and reckless faith in change and redemption for America. Few profound thinkers are this visionary, few visionaries are this broad in their commitments, and few broad painters are this profound.
Read this book! Along with Free
at Last? and The Souls of Black Folk, A Change is Gonna Come
is on the short list of excellent books on race that I've seen.
Print
Email
Comments
Be the first one to add a comment.
To post a comment, please login or register