Decade by Decade: Black Women Musicians, Activists Alike

Over the years, black women have faced conflict after conflict, and have been responsible for overcoming these issues at hand. Some of these women are musicians and use their platforms to advocate for their rights, even when society is fighting against them. These women have been fighting for centuries, and there are far too many women who go unrecognized. The following women are only a select few of those fighting tirelessly every day for years. 

1970s: Elaine Brown

Elaine Brown was and still is a major activist advocating for black rights, especially in the 1970s. Brown attended her first Black Panther Party (BPP) meeting following the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and quickly made her way up the ladder, becoming a member of the Party’s Central Committee as Minister of Information in 1971. In 1973, Brown was commissioned by Huey P. Newton, the founder and minister of defense of the BPP to record the album, “Until We’re Free.” In 1974, Newton chose Brown to lead the BPP, where she served as chairwoman until 1977.

During her time as chairwoman, she led the successful 1977 Mayoral run in Oakland, California for Lionel Wilson, who would become the first African American mayor. Brown also founded the Panther Liberation School in 1969. 

After Brown’s run as chairwoman ended, she dedicated her time to advocating for radical prison reform, and worked to provide resources for African American children living in poverty. 

Brown acted as a radical voice not just for her musical audience, but also for lawmakers and civil rights advocates, voicing concerns and beliefs of the African American community. 

“Until We’re Free,” featured two songs, “Until We’re Free,” and “No Time.” Both songs represented the pain and strife of the black community.

In “No Time,” Brown expresses her need to protect black children from the raging world outside of the home. She laments that there is no time to “hold some Black child, and rock him,” no time to “Tell some mother dearly, tell her all the world is hers, tell some dear Black mother of her beauty,” no time to “hold some man,” “Live with him until I die,” “I’ll miss him…’Cause outside they’re shooting, and there is no time to try.” 

The pressing issues within the Black community didn’t allow the time needed to express love and protection to their loved ones. The Black community were robbed of so much, including their time.

Brown aches to “Love them all, Keep them from The Strain of it all.”

Her powerful voice accompanies the bluesy and Motown melodic feel, creating an accessible experience for listeners, despite the heartbreaking lyrics. 

“Until We’re Free,” describes the history of Brown, her friends, and her community. That even despite the experiences they didn’t deserve,

“The times we saw we didn’t deserve

Hostility, we couldn’t see it was absurd

But we gave joy, each girl and boy

So innocent

Our future bent against the wind”

Brown recognizes that “Some friends forgotten, and some are gone,” she “misses them all, but the future calls Demanding we set ourselves free as we should be.” Brown’s courage shows through all of her lyrics, standing up and fighting to have her voice and the voice of the Black community heard. 

The last lines of the song are impactful to say the least, Brown singing, 

“Oh yes my friends

Our History 

The Memory shall carry me until we’re free” 

Brown’s lyrics only add to the impact she created as a chairwoman of the Black Panther Party. The album was re-released in 2018, with an additional seven songs, Brown’s lyrics being historically and presently relevant, as communities continue to fight for justice.

Brown declared her candidacy for the 2008 Presidential Election, as a member of the Green Party, but ultimately left after being surrounded by a white community who didn’t have the same ideals as her.

In recent years, Brown has led lectures on prison reformation. 

1980s: Tracy Chapman

Chapman grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, during the sixties and seventies. She was born just two years before the Hough Riots, in which four African-Americans died, and 50 people were injured. Several other tragedies occurred in the city throughout her childhood, leaving her to grow up and experience extreme racism firsthand. 

“There was always tension,” Chapman said. “It felt like the kind of racism people assume existed in parts of the South in the late 60s, in that you’d go to a public pool and there’d be a sign saying ‘Whites only.’” 

Chapman began writing songs about social issues when she was 14. 

At 22 years old, Chapman gained popularity, just two years before she released the incredibly poignant song “Across the Lines,” in 1988.

The song challenges racial separation and the continuous racial riots that were occurring for years, with the Miami Riots in 1980 being most timely at the release of “Across the Lines.” 

“They were bussing black children into white neighborhoods, and white children into black neighborhoods, and people were upset about it, so there were race riots,” Chapman explained to The Guardian.  

Chapman protests these riots lyrically, asking

“Who would dare to go

Under the bridge

Over the tracks

That separates whites from blacks”

She addresses the matter of choosing sides – black or white- as 

“Choose sides

Run for your life

Tonight the riots begin

On the back streets of America

They kill the dream of America”

The dream she addresses is one we all know, that is, equality of liberty and rights, the dream supposedly creating a space for all people of America to have the ability to reach their dreams and goals, no matter their background. We know this to be a false claim, however,  when it doesn’t include minorities. 

Chapman has been an activist for most, if not all of her life. In 1988, Chapman toured the world for the Human Rights Now tour, which raised awareness for the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In 2004, Chapman received an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts through Tufts, granted for her social activism. 

1990s: Queen Latifah

The American actress, singer, and Grammy Award Winning rapper, Queen Latifah is oftentimes known as “Hip-Hop’s First Lady.” She released her first single “Wrath of My Madness,” in 1988, and her first album “All Hail to the Queen,” in 1989, which sold more than 1 million copies. 

In 1995, Queen Latifah released the album “Black Reign,” which featured the song “U.N.I.T.Y,” which won the Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance in 1995. 

“U.N.I.T.Y.,” addresses street harassment, domestic violence, and slurs against black women. Queen Latifah’s lyrics are raw and honest, addressing the hold abusers have over the abused. 

“I guess I fell so deep in love, I grew dependent see

I was too blind to see just how it was affectin’ me

All that I knew was you was all the man I had

And I was scared to let you go.” 

You can sense Queen Latifah’s anger and resentment as she calls out the abuse she witnessed and experienced. She is the voice for so many women who haven’t had the same opportunities to speak up. Despite this, she calls for black men and black women to come together and love each other. 

“U.N.I.T.Y., U.N.I.T.Y. that’s a unity (Here we go, you gotta let him know)

(Come on, here we go)

U.N.I.T.Y., love a black man from (Yeah, you gotta let him know)

Infinity to infinity (You ain’t a bitch or a ho, here we go)

U.N.I.T.Y., U.N.I.T.Y. that’s a unity (Uh, you gotta let him know)

(Come on, here we go)

U.N.I.T.Y., love a black woman from (Yeah, you gotta let him know)

Infinity to infinity (You ain’t a bitch or a ho)

Queen Latifah’s message rings strongly. Unity is most important, as communities experience times of strife and pain. 

In 2019, Queen Latifah received a medal from Harvard, for her support and advancement to black history and culture. 

2000s: Lauryn Hill 

Born in 1975, Lauryn Hill grew up in a musical family and spent much of her time listening to soul music of the sixties and seventies. She performed as often as she could, and went on “Showtime at the Apollo” when she was 13. Hill met two Haitian immigrants, Pras Michel and Wyclef Jean, who invited her to join their group The Fugees. 

The Fugees signed a record contract during Hill’s freshman year of college at Columbia University, causing her to leave school to pursue music. The Fugees second album, “Blunted by Reality,” made it onto the Billboard 200 and won a Grammy for Best R&B Performance of the Year for Hill’s version of “Killing Me Softly with His Song,” originally made famous in the 1970s by Roberta Flack. 

Over the years Hill had a child with Rohan Marley, and released her first solo album, “The Miseducation of  Lauryn Hill,” providing commentary on the fame she experienced as a young woman. Released in 1998, the album paved the way for Hill’s success, winning her five Grammys in one year: Album of the Year, Best New Artist, Best R&B Song, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, and Best R&B Song. Hill was the first woman to win five awards in one night.

Hill decided to focus on her family in the ensuing years, but continued to write, and in 2001, she performed on MTV. The recording premiered the following year, and was named Unplugged No. 2.0. She performed “I Find It Hard to Say (Rebel),” a song she wrote about the police shooting of Amadou Diallo in NYC in 1999. 

Innocent of all crimes, Diallo was shot and killed by police officers who based on racial profiling, thought he was a rape suspect. Hill addresses the police and how they view black lives, singing:

“But what you fail to see

Is all the consequences

You think our lives are cheap

And easy to be wasted

As history repeats

So foul you can taste it”

Hill also comments on the large population of people who refuse to face police brutality as an actual problem. Stating that their comfort and blissful unawareness is a stark contrast of Diallo’s life, taken away from him forever. 

“And while the people sleep

Too comfortable to face it

His life’s so incomplete

And nothing can replace it”

In later years, Hill established The Refugee Camp Youth Project, which fundraises so that inner-city youths can go to summer camps.

2010s: Esperanza Spalding

Esperanza Spalding is an American bassist, singer, and composer, known for her jazz compositions she infuses into other genres and languages, including singing in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. 

Spalding grew up in Oregon, where she played in the Chamber Music Society of Oregon for ten years. After earning her GED, she attended Portland State University before transferring to Berklee College of Music. In 2005, Spalding graduated with a bachelor’s degree in music and became Berklee’s youngest teacher at the age of 20. 

Spalding is a five-time Grammy winner, taking home the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 2011, Best Arrangement for instrumentals and vocals in 2013, and Best Jazz Vocal Album in 2013, 2020, and 2022. 

Perhaps one of her most impactful songs, Spalding released “Land of the Free,” in 2012, a track speaking about Cornelius Dupree, a man who spent 31 years in jail after he was wrongly accused and imprisoned for aggravated robbery that took place in 1979.  Dupree was ultimately exonerated in 2011.

In “Land of the Free,” Spalding puts facts into perspective, stating Dupree spent 11,000 days in prison, “locked away in the land of the free.” She remarks that not only did he lose his freedom, but he also lost “his parents, his wife, his home, his life.” 

Spalding asks, 

“How can we call our home, the land of the free

Until we’ve unbound the praying hands

Of each innocent woman and man

In these lands of the…”

She calls on her listeners, asking how this land is free, if black men and women are being falsely accused of crimes based upon physical descriptions, being forced to serve years to a lifelong sentence for a crime they did not commit. 

The topic of harassment by men also comes up in Spalding’s lyrics, in the song “I Am Telling You.” She demands “get your hand off of me when I tell you to,” and asks “Why are you bothering me?” Spalding continues these valid demands as she says, 

“It isn’t complicated

Turn around and go that way

I’m not asking you

I am telling you.” 

Spalding’s voice is a necessary call to action, whether she’s standing up for the wrongfully accused or women being harassed. Spalding is a storyteller, providing a voice to say what so many others are saying, but aren’t necessarily being heard.

Spalding’s success led her to perform for former U.S. President Barack Obama three times. She currently performs her music both solo and with other jazz musicians, and became a professor at Harvard in 2017. 

2020s: Megan Thee Stallion

American rapper, Megan Thee Stallion, performed what was perhaps one of the most impactful performances Saturday Night Live has ever seen. She performed her hit single “Savage,” as the screen behind her read “Protect black women.” As the song ended, Stallion and her backup dancers stood tall, fists raised, as the screen showed bloody bullet holes while clips of Malcom X’s 1962, speech “Who Taught You to Hate Yourself,” played. 

Her performance also featured quotes of Tamika Mallory criticizing Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron after he chose to charge only one of the three officers who were participants in the shooting of Breonna Taylor, an innocent woman fatally shot in her apartment. 

Stallion also performed at a Black Lives Matter march in Hollywood, featuring rainbow hair to support Black trans rights. She also took a moment in her first virtual concert to recognize and honor Black victims of police brutality. 

VP Kamala Harris later thanked Stallion, after writing an op-ed for The New York Times called, “Why I Speak Up for Black Women.” 

In the article, Stallion addresses violence against women, citing her own experience being shot by a man she wasn’t romantically involved with. She notes that post self reflection she’s realized that violence against women isn’t always within a relationship. It can be enacted by anyone for any reason. 

“Instead, it happens because too many men treat all women as objects, which helps them to justify inflicting abuse against us when we choose to exercise our own free will,” Stallion remarked. 

Stallion additionally addressed her SNL performance, citing that despite the criticism she expected to receive, she’s not afraid of it. 

“We live in a country where we have the freedom to criticize elected officials. And it’s ridiculous that some people think the simple phrase “Protect Black women” is controversial,” Stallion said. “We deserve to be protected as human beings. And we are entitled to our anger about a laundry list of mistreatment and neglect that we suffer.”

Stallion addresses several other topics including maternal mortality rates for Black mothers, the obsessive judgment placed upon Black women simply for what they wear, and women being pitted against one another. 

Despite the criticism and judgment Stallion has experienced firsthand, she continues to stand up for herself and Black women, creating an environment in which women can speak up, tell their stories, and unlearn the racism that was forced upon them. 

Black women have had to take on a great deal of conflict, and have been responsible for overcoming these issues. It’s time we recognize them for their activism, and help them to lighten the weight they carry.