ABSTRACT
The right to protest is a cornerstone in American culture, where revolutionary social change is a major part of national identity, yet something that remains very abstract for many people in the United States. Protest and similarly political music provide a good insight into the ways a society is approaching the possibility of widespread political and social change. This chapter will examine multiple songs from different periods of history in the United States, and further provide an overview of the major theoretical perspectives in the sociology of revolutions as they relate to protest music in the 20th and 21st centuries. Specifically, the chapter will focus on music that emerged from the Civil Rights era into the administrations of Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Trump, and how much the relationship between the music and the revolutionary conditions changed across these very distinct periods in American history.
