When Will We Be Paid Analysis

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Civil Disobedience “My country tis of thee sweet land of liberty”, or so we thought. The Staple Singers, a blues/mo town band, wrote a song that showed the aggravation and persecution that pro civil rights person where feeling called “when will we be paid”. The civil rights was a movement broadcasted a major theme equality for all whether black or white, which touches on the under lying there behind “when will be paid”. In the song “when will we be paid” by the staple singers, it demonstrates how the African American population demanded composition for the work that they have done, which was a right that many protested for during the Civil Rights movement. The Staple Singers, started out as just a family then ended up as a musical sensation. They where all related and brought together as a band by their father, who was a civil rights activist during the 1960’s. Which makes the reasons and lyrics in the song more obvious? They almost had always some sort of black power or equal rights theme in each of there songs. Even when moving to the New York-based Riverside label, the Staple Singers adopted a more folk-oriented sound, recording contemporary, message-oriented songs by the likes of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan and were able to keep that Civil Rights theme. The Staple Singers, in their own way, showed the…show more content…
This song represents the hard pressed labor of the construction of the railroads, and highways which left the laborers of the times with demands of payment and reparations for the horrors and exploitation of the working class African Americans. The song talks about mainly slavery and how blacks were and are constantly being oppressed with no compensation. They relate so much to the Civil Rights because all the people who were being oppressed were looking for has retribution. The song really hits home for the time and the audience it was referred

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