U.S. History
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Freedom Songs Worksheet
Instructions: In this activity, you will consider the role of freedom songs in the civil rights movement. You will examine
songs sung during the 1961 Freedom Rides, as well as the reflections of two movement participants on the importance
of the song. Read the sources with your group members and answer the questions below.
Part I: Song Analysis
Fill in the chart below after you read each song. In the second column, list the emotions expressed by the song. For
example, does it express hope, fear, sadness, gratitude, happiness, determination, etc.? In the third column, explain
what the song is about. In the last column, write down a time you think the Freedom Riders might have sung this song.
For example, would they have sung it riding on the bus? During confrontations with the police? When they were in jail?
Song title
Emotions expressed
What is this song about?
When might it have been
sung?
Part II: Considering the Role of Songs in the Movement
1. According to Dr. King and Prathia Hall, what are the historical roots of these songs?
2. Why do you think people in the movement used spirituals as the basis for freedom songs?
3. Why do you think movement participants often changed the words of the songs they sang?
4. Why did movement participants sing?
Choices for the 21st Century Education Program - Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University - www.choices.edu
Songs of the Freedom Riders
Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round
Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me ‘round,
Turn me ‘round, turn me ‘round.
Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me ‘round.
I’m gonna keep on a-walkin’, keep on a-talkin’,
Marchin’ on to freedom land
Ain’t gonna let no jailhouse turn me ‘round,
Turn me round, turn me ‘round.
Ain’t gonna let no jailhouse turn me ‘round.
I’m gonna keep on a-walkin’, keep on a-talkin’.
Marchin’ on to freedom land
Ain’t gonna let segregation turn me ‘round,
Turn me ‘round, turn me ‘round.
Ain’t gonna let segregation turn me ‘round,
I’m gonna keep on a-walkin’, keep on a-talkin’.
Marchin’ on to freedom land
In Fayette County,
Set off and remote,
The polls are not open
For Negroes to vote.
Three hundred Freedom Riders
When offered a choice
Six months, three hundred dollars,
Respond in one voice.
Chorus:
Hallelujah, I’m a jailbird
And I ain’t paying no fine.
Hallelujah, I’m a-traveling
Down freedom’s main line.
Buses Are A-Comin’
Keep on a-walkin’, keep on a-talkin’,
Marchin’ on to freedom land.
Hallelujah, I’m A-Traveling
In nineteen fifty-four,
The Supreme Court has said,
Listen here, Mr. Jim Crow
It’s time you were dead.
Chorus:
Hallelujah, I’m a-traveling
Hallelujah, ain’t it fine;
Hallelujah, I’m a-traveling
Down freedom’s main line.
At Howard Johnson’s one day,
We will all buy a Coke
And the waitress will serve us
And know it’s no joke.
I’m taking a trip
On the Greyhound Bus Line
I’m riding the front seat
To Jackson this time.
Buses are a-comin’
Oh Yes!
Buses are a-comin’
Oh Yes!
Buses are a-comin’
Buses are a-comin’
Buses are a-comin’
Oh Yes!
Better get you ready
Oh Yes!
Better get you ready
Oh Yes!
Better get you ready
Better get you ready
Better get you ready
Oh Yes!
They’re coming through Alabama
Oh Yes!
Coming through Alabama
Oh Yes!
Coming through Alabama
Coming through Alabama
Buses are a-comin’
Oh Yes!
They’re rolling into Jackson
Oh Yes!
Rolling into Jackson
Oh Yes!
Rolling into Jackson
Rolling into Jackson
Buses are a-comin’
Oh Yes!
Note: Activists often adapted the songs they sang to
suit their purposes, for example, by substituting in the
names of local politicians or towns in which they
worked. For the Freedom Riders, songs also became
important when they were in jail. In a well-known
episode in Parchman Prison in Mississippi, prison guards
threatened to take away the activists’ mattresses if they
didn’t stop singing. The Freedom Riders responded by
singing this song, but with new lyrics: “You can take my
mattress, oh yes! I’ll keep my freedom, oh yes!”
Calypso Freedom
Well, I took a trip on a greyhound bus,
Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.
To fight segregation, and this we must,
Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.
Chorus:
We want Freedom,
Freedom, Freedom, Huh!
Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.
Freedom
Freedom, Freedom, Huh!
Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.
Well, I rode a bus down Alabama way,
Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.
We met with much violence on Mother’s Day,
Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.
Chorus:
What do we want?
Freedom, Freedom, Huh!
Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.
Freedom, Freedom
Freedom, Freedom, Huh!
Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.
Well, over the Mississippi with speed we go,
Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.
De blue shirt policeman meet me at the door,
Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.
Chorus:
Give us Freedom!
Freedom, Freedom, Huh!
Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.
Freedom,
Freedom, Freedom, Huh!
Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.
Well, the judge say local law must prevail,
Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.
And we say no and we land in jail,
Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.
Chorus:
What do we want?
Freedom, Freedom, Huh!
Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.
Freedom,
Freedom, Freedom, Huh!
Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.
Freedom, Freedom
Freedom, Freedom, Huh!
Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.
Reflections of Movement Participants
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 1963
From Why We Can’t Wait (New York: Harper & Row,
1964).
“In a sense the freedom songs are the soul of the
movement. They are more than just incantations of
clever phrases designed to invigorate a campaign; they
are as old as the history of the Negro in America. They
are adaptations of the songs the slaves sang – the
sorrow songs, the shouts for joy, the battle hymns and
the anthems of our movement. I have heard people
talk of their beat and rhythm, but we in the movement
are as inspired by their words. ‘Woke Up This Morning
with My Mind Stayed on Freedom’ is a sentence that
needs no music to make its point. We sing the freedom
songs today for the same reasons the slaves sang them,
because we too are in bondage and the songs add hope
to our determination that ‘We shall overcome, Black
and white together, We shall overcome someday.’
“I have stood in a meeting with hundreds of
youngsters and joined in while they sang ‘Ain’t Gonna
Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round.’ It is not just a song; it is a
resolve. A few minutes later, I have seen those same
youngsters refuse to turn around from the onrush of a
police dog, refuse to turn around before… men armed
with power hoses. These songs bind us together, give
us courage…”
Prathia Hall, SNCC activist
From “Freedom-Faith” by Prathia Hall in Hands on the
Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC,
edited by Faith Holsaert et al. (Urbana, Chicago, and
Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2010).
“I’d heard those songs before. I’d heard them in the
piney woods setting of the churches of my mother’s
heritage in Nelson County, Virginia… Yet, in this place,
Southwest Georgia, with hostile police ringing the
exterior of the church, they were neither repetitious nor
familiar; they were worship that contained within the
reality of its expression a power affirming life and
defying death. That power with which those songs and
prayers were infused… fashioned fear into faith,
cringing into courage, suffering into survival, despair
into defiance, and pain into protest… It would be
insanely dishonest to claim that we were unafraid. Fear
was an intelligent response. Fear was a part of the
survival kit. The challenge was to use fear as a signal to
exercise caution while refusing to allow fear to paralyze
you. One night when a gang of local ‘lawmen’ entered
the mass meeting and stood behind us with their hands
on their guns, we sang our freedom songs with defiant
and prayerful fervor… All of us joined that prayer and
we sang:
Ain’t gonna let no sheriff
Turn me ‘round,
Turn me ‘round,
Turn me ‘round.
I’m gonna keep on a-walking,
Keep on a-talking,
Marching up to Freedom Land.”
Choices for the 21st Century Education Program – Watson Institute for
International Studies, Brown University – www.choices.edu