The sit-in movement of the
1960s, like other protest campaigns,
produced a very large number of
 freedom songs. Groups like the
Carolina Freedom Fighters, the
CORE Freedom Singers, and, most
famously, the SNCC Freedom Singers
from Albany, Georgia, were recorded
by dedicated civil rights activists
like Guy and Candy Carawan from
Highlander Research and Education
Center in Tennessee. Although many
albums of freedom songs were issued,
the artists themselves have generally
 With Medgar Evers Family, 21 June 1963. Photograph
been neglected by blues and gospel
by Cecil Stoughton, courtesy the John F. Kennedy
experts because they were not  dedi-
Presidential Library and Museum, Boston. (ST-323-2-63)
cated gospel recording artists, as
gospel discographer Robert Laughton explained.57 As a result, they are not
to be found in the standard blues and gospel discographies, and we are at
a loss for information about recording dates and locations, and in many
cases even the identities of the singers themselves. Sometimes their iden-
tities may have been withheld for their own protection.
At a SNCC conference in Atlanta in either 1964 or 1965, the SNCC
Freedom Singers recorded a  Ballad of Medgar Evers about the assassina-
tion. It was composed by Rev. Matthew A. Jones Sr., who based it loosely
on the ballad  Jesse James. Jones had structured the song so that the cho-
rus was open to congregational singing.
In Jackson, Mississippi, in Nineteen Sixty-three,
There lived a man who was brave,
He fought for freedom all of his life,
But they laid Medgar Evers in his grave.
He spoke words of truth for all men to hear,
Black and white alike for to save,
Then a hate-filled white man, named Byron de la Beckwith,
Laid Medgar Evers in his grave.
M a r c h O n , D r. M a r t i n L u t h e r K i n g [ 1 0 1 ]