ABSTRACT
Upon Lorraine’s death, Robert Nemiroff, her ex-husband and continuous faithful good friend since they met, began to collect her unpublished letters and journal entries. Angela Davis, American political activist, scholar and author, is noted for saying to Nina Simone “Your music does more to persuade people to the struggle than any book can ever do… Her phenomenal voice beckons us toward battles to come”. The lyrics of song offer an empowering message that argues young African Americans have immense worth, talent and intellect; and that this message, this way of thinking: “gifted and Black,” should be conveyed to every young African American to combat America’s Eurocentric thinking that continues to paint people of Color as inferior, unworthy and/or the “other”. The Drinking Gourd is emotionally and mentally charging; it is a drama that causes one to consider how deeply African American people feel and have always felt about education – academic learning – in America over past 400 plus years.
