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Black Women Entertainers and the Civil Rights Movement

In 1964, Nina Simone sat at a piano in New York’s Carnegie Hall to play what she called a “show tune.”

Then she began to sing: “Alabama’s got me so upset/Tennessee made me lose my rest/And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam!” Simone, and her song, became icons of the civil rights movement. But her confrontational style was not the only path taken by black women entertainers. Join professor Ruth Feldstein for a journey into the lives and work of six celebrated black women performers—Simone, Lena Horne, Miriam Makeba, Abbey Lincoln, Diahann Carroll and Cicely Tyson—to explore the risks they took, their roles at home and abroad, and the ways that they raised the issue of gender and race. These women did not simply mirror black activism; their performances helped constitute the era’s political history.











When: Tue., Jul. 8, 2014 at 12:00 pm
Where: The 92nd Street Y, New York
1395 Lexington Ave.
212-415-5500
Price: $21
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In 1964, Nina Simone sat at a piano in New York’s Carnegie Hall to play what she called a “show tune.”

Then she began to sing: “Alabama’s got me so upset/Tennessee made me lose my rest/And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam!” Simone, and her song, became icons of the civil rights movement. But her confrontational style was not the only path taken by black women entertainers. Join professor Ruth Feldstein for a journey into the lives and work of six celebrated black women performers—Simone, Lena Horne, Miriam Makeba, Abbey Lincoln, Diahann Carroll and Cicely Tyson—to explore the risks they took, their roles at home and abroad, and the ways that they raised the issue of gender and race. These women did not simply mirror black activism; their performances helped constitute the era’s political history.

Buy tickets/get more info now