ABSTRACT
As Peter Yarrow’s comment illustrates, there is a communal experience of solidarity building in folk protest music that is similar to the experience of religious rituals or major popular cultural events. Three different areas need to be explored when examining the role of music rituals in American social movements. First is the way that traditional group sing-alongs, with their strong emphasis on emotion, coincide with sociological ideas of ritual. Second is an examination of the use of collective singing rituals in social movements. Here, four progressive movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are used-
(1) the abolition movement (Eyerman and Jamison 1998; Horsfall 2013, Chapter 5, this volume; Southern 1997; Wright 2006); (2) the early labor movement (Fowke and Glaser 1973; Horsfall 2013, Chapter 2, this volume; Roscigno, Danaher, and Summers-Effler 2002); (3) the civil rights movement (Eyerman and Jamison 1998, Reagon 1975); and (4) the anti-Vietnam War movement (Lynskey 2011).The third area to be explored is the way that musicians and activists themselves explain the importance of singing to their social change work. Drawing on interviews and focus groups, I found it provides a link to historical social activism and gives them needed emotional cohesion and strength to participate in social movements
Numerous studies by sociologists and others show that rituals are not just routinized practices taking place in formal settings (e.g., a Catholic high mass) but also refer to the everyday actions in all areas of life that over time become repeated or customary. According to Smith (2007:1), “Ritual involves conventionalized and stylized human actions. These are often organized with reference to overarching cultural codes, have a communicative intent, and generate powerful emotional responses among participants.”
