Rock And Roll Uniting Force

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Rock ‘n’ Roll: A Uniting Force? In the 1950’s a new style of music came to the forefront of American culture. Frank Sinatra described it as “phony and false” (6). Time magazine compared it to “having a resemblance to Hitler’s mass meetings” (6). It’s called Rock ‘n’ Roll and it had parents, teachers, and politicians worried for the youth of America. Rock ‘n’ Roll was the first of its kind in that the vocals were not always the center of discourse, but the body language of the performers and the beat of the music moved the audience a lot of times…Rock and Roll was elemental, savage, dripping with sex; it was just as our parents feared” (8). The reason for the fear: Rock ‘n’ Roll evolved from recordings by African-American artists known…show more content…
White teenagers practically ate it up in the post-World War II era. Altchuler quotes Mitch Miller, a talent scout for Columbia records as saying “young people might be protesting the Southern tradition of not having anything to do with colored people. There is a steady-and healthy-breaking down of color barriers in the United States; perhaps rhythm and blues rage…is another expression of it” (17). Miller believed white youth embracing R&B was a huge leap for racial harmony. By the mid-1950s, R&B began to gain major traction as the popularity of the radio began to surge. “By 1959, 156 million radios were in working order” (15). Many white teens went out of their way to find R&B records. Altchuler, however suggests, that Evans’ and Miller’s optimism was…show more content…
Rock ‘n’ Roll was a unifying force against segregationist policies for African Americans. In a quote from Ebony magazine, “Negroes don’t want to be Negroes anymore…We want to be Americans” (42). Many African-American teenagers indicated their resolve was at an all-time high in preparing for the careers they desired, as they believed job discrimination was coming to an end. As Altchuler notes, “Along with white supporters, of civil rights, blacks looked to entertainment, especially Rock ‘n’ Roll, as a weapon in the struggle against Jim Crow” (42). The 1950s, in large part due to Rock ‘n’ Roll lit a fire of rebellion in the white youth of America. Rock ‘n’ Roll’s opposition did not realize that the more ardent and violent its treatment against not just rock ‘n’ roll, but African-Americans as well, would create more dissention. Altchuler quotes the Pittsburgh Courier that the resistance to rock ‘n’ roll is “an indirect attack against Negroes, of course, because they invented rock ‘n’ roll and because it has captivated the younger generation of whites that are breaking down dance floors and gutting night clubs…As between Rock ‘n’ Roll…and the chill austerities of white supremacy, we think young white Americans will choose the former with all its implications” (42). Rock ‘n’ Roll opened the emotions of people like never before and challenged the established beliefs of society concerning race,
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