The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam[1]If this swearing offends you, we would refer you yet again to the Prophet of the Restoration Joseph Smith, Jr., who declared, “I love that man better who swears a stream as long as my arm yet deals … Continue reading
And I mean every word of it[2]Jazz legend Nina Simone’s 1964 first foray into Civil Rights anthems; it would later be joined by similarly-themed tunes like “Four Women,” “To Be Young, Gifted, and … Continue reading
Alabama’s gotten me so upset[3]Reference to the bombing of a historically Black church in Birmingham, Alabama that killed 4 little black girls earlier that same year.
Tennessee made me lose my rest[4]Reference to Tennessee’s then-recent history of resisting desegregation; in some later live versions, she would swap out Tennessee for “Governor Wallace,” the notoriously rabid … Continue reading
And everybody knows about Mississippi[5]Reference to the murder of the Civil Rights Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi the year previous in 1963, as well as to the racially-motivated murder of Emmit Till in Mississippi in 1955., Goddam
Alabama’s gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
Can’t you see it
Can’t you feel it
It’s all in the air
I can’t stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer[6]This statement is at least partly sarcastic–folks were plenty impatient and disgusted with the lazy, hand-washing “thoughts and prayers” crowd even back then–and certainly her … Continue reading
Alabama’s gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
This is a show tune[7]Show tunes, incidentally, were the favorite genre of Thomas S. Monson–who was also instrumental in helping establish the Genesis group in the early-’70s that was in turn an important … Continue reading
But the show hasn’t been written for it, yet
Hound dogs on my trail[8]Allusion to slave-trackers chasing slaves trying to escape to freedom.
School children sitting in jail[9]Probably an allusion to The Birmingham Children’s Crusade of 1963, in which thousands of Black schoolchildren marched through Birmingham from May 2nd to May 5th, 1963 in a Civil Rights protest. … Continue reading
Black cat cross my path[10]Highlighting how “Black” is too often associated with “accursed” in America; indeed, the Curse of Ham in the Bible was diabolically deployed to justify both slavery and … Continue reading
I think every day’s gonna be my last
Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time[11]“We all gonna get it in due time” is also the thesis of the Book of Mormon, incidentally, which is the record of two ancient pre-Columbian American civilizations that were utterly … Continue reading
I don’t belong here
I don’t belong there
I’ve even stopped believing in prayer[12]The line I was mentioning earlier; though I think it important to emphasize that this isn’t the flippancy of the casual atheist, but the grief and mourning of the sincere believer who has lost … Continue reading
Don’t tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
I’ve been there so I know
They keep on saying “Go slow!”[13]To quote MLK’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail: ‘For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost … Continue reading
But that’s just the trouble
“do it slow”
Washing the windows
“do it slow”
Picking the cotton
“do it slow”
You’re just plain rotten
“do it slow”
You’re too damn lazy[14]The purported inherent “rottenness” and “laziness” of Black people was long used to justify their enslavement and segregation; Nina Simone, then, is correct to flip these … Continue reading
“do it slow”
The thinking’s crazy
“do it slow”
Where am I going
What am I doing
I don’t know
I don’t know
Just try to do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest[15]An appeal, I suspect, to her white listeners. To quote again MLK in Birmingham Jail: ‘I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride … Continue reading
For everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
I made you thought I was kiddin’
Picket lines
School boycotts
They try to say it’s a communist plot[16]Here we get to the crux of the matter: my supervisor once informed me that as a young girl in Provo in the early-’60s, someone bought out a big billboard on the I-15 with a giant photo of MLK … Continue reading
All I want is equality
for my sister, my brother, my people, and me
Yes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And you’d stop calling me Sister Sadie[17]Female version of an Uncle Tom, derived from Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Oh but this whole country is full of lies[18]“Wo unto the liar, for he shall be thrust down to hell.” -2 Nephi 9:34
You’re all gonna die and die like flies
I don’t trust you any more
You keep on saying “Go slow!”
“Go slow!”
But that’s just the trouble
“do it slow”
Desegregation
“do it slow”
Mass participation
“do it slow”
Reunification
“do it slow”
Do things gradually
“do it slow”
But bring more tragedy
“do it slow”
Why don’t you see it
Why don’t you feel it
I don’t know
I don’t know
You don’t have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about Mississippi
Everybody knows about Alabama
Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
That’s it![19]Both in the sense of the song being over, but also as in “I’ve had enough!”
References
| ↑1 | If this swearing offends you, we would refer you yet again to the Prophet of the Restoration Joseph Smith, Jr., who declared, “I love that man better who swears a stream as long as my arm yet deals justice to his neighbors and mercifully deals his substance to the poor, than the long, smooth-faced hypocrite” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, ed. Joseph Fielding Smith, 1976, pg. 303). |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | Jazz legend Nina Simone’s 1964 first foray into Civil Rights anthems; it would later be joined by similarly-themed tunes like “Four Women,” “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black,” and “Ain’t Got No, I Got Life,” but this is the one that first inaugurated her into the movement–which was such a shock to many listeners at the time, that promo copies of this song sent out to radio stations were promptly returned broken in half. At the time, it must have seemed that she was actively torpedoing her career by taking a stand; but then, as numerous scriptures have stated–and far fewer self-proclaimed Christians have sincerely believed–certain things are simply more important than money. |
| ↑3 | Reference to the bombing of a historically Black church in Birmingham, Alabama that killed 4 little black girls earlier that same year. |
| ↑4 | Reference to Tennessee’s then-recent history of resisting desegregation; in some later live versions, she would swap out Tennessee for “Governor Wallace,” the notoriously rabid pro-segregation Governor of Alabama who even won electoral votes in the Deep South during his 1968 presidential run as an independent. Indeed, Simone would constantly update this lyric in the years to come–changing it to “Selma” after police violently beat peaceful Voting Rights activists in 1965, “Watts” after the Watts Riots in L.A. broke out in 1966, and “Memphis” after MLK’s assassination in 1968. One can only speculate how Simone would have continued to update the song if she had been permitted to live past the age of 70–perhaps to “Ferguson” in 2014, “Baltimore” in 2015, and “Minneapolis” in 2020–or even to “Minneapolis” again after that ICE murder of Renée Good in 2026. |
| ↑5 | Reference to the murder of the Civil Rights Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi the year previous in 1963, as well as to the racially-motivated murder of Emmit Till in Mississippi in 1955. |
| ↑6 | This statement is at least partly sarcastic–folks were plenty impatient and disgusted with the lazy, hand-washing “thoughts and prayers” crowd even back then–and certainly her declamation later in the song that “I’ve even stopped believing in prayer” would seem to confirm that reading. But this statement is also perhaps genuinely sincere, too: Simone was raised in a strong Christian home herself, and had initially adopted the stage-name “Nina Simone” (her birth name was Eunice Kathleen Waymon, so that her family wouldn’t learn she’d become a Jazz singer), and hence would have had drilled into her from a young age the vital power of prayer. Given the profound influence of the Black church upon the Civil Rights movement of the era, to “say a prayer” was no small request indeed. |
| ↑7 | Show tunes, incidentally, were the favorite genre of Thomas S. Monson–who was also instrumental in helping establish the Genesis group in the early-’70s that was in turn an important test-balloon for overturning the racist Priesthood ban–but more on that in a forthcoming post. |
| ↑8 | Allusion to slave-trackers chasing slaves trying to escape to freedom. |
| ↑9 | Probably an allusion to The Birmingham Children’s Crusade of 1963, in which thousands of Black schoolchildren marched through Birmingham from May 2nd to May 5th, 1963 in a Civil Rights protest. Many of these children were then brutally hosed down by firemen and arrested by police officers during the march. |
| ↑10 | Highlighting how “Black” is too often associated with “accursed” in America; indeed, the Curse of Ham in the Bible was diabolically deployed to justify both slavery and segregation–including within the LDS Church in that era, but more on that in a minute. |
| ↑11 | “We all gonna get it in due time” is also the thesis of the Book of Mormon, incidentally, which is the record of two ancient pre-Columbian American civilizations that were utterly destroyed from off the face of the earth due to their recurrent and persistent failure to show charity for the Other. The Nephite prophets in particular, recall, constantly called out the Nephites for their racism, telling them bluntly that the Lamanites were more blessed than them, which the narrative of the Book of Mormon fulfills to a terrifying degree. Nina Simone, too, had the Spirit of Prophecy. |
| ↑12 | The line I was mentioning earlier; though I think it important to emphasize that this isn’t the flippancy of the casual atheist, but the grief and mourning of the sincere believer who has lost her faith. |
| ↑13 | To quote MLK’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail: ‘For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
‘We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.’ |
| ↑14 | The purported inherent “rottenness” and “laziness” of Black people was long used to justify their enslavement and segregation; Nina Simone, then, is correct to flip these insults back on to her white oppressors, reminding them that–at least as far as racists are concerned–every accusation is a confession. It was always the slave-owners who were rotten and lazy, for example, never their slaves. As were the segregationists in her day. We still see this today: Trump called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and “criminals,” for example, because he himself is self-evidently a rapist and a criminal–just as the people who called Renée Good a terrorist did so because they are obviously terrorists themselves–or how Jonathan Ross, the ICE murderer, called Good “a fucking bitch” because he himself was one. |
| ↑15 | An appeal, I suspect, to her white listeners. To quote again MLK in Birmingham Jail: ‘I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.’
In this, of course, Dr. King was citing sound doctrine, as found in Revelations 3:15-16, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” |
| ↑16 | Here we get to the crux of the matter: my supervisor once informed me that as a young girl in Provo in the early-’60s, someone bought out a big billboard on the I-15 with a giant photo of MLK writing at a desk, which featured the ominous caption, “This is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. studying at the School of the Communists!” The accusation that the entire Civil Rights movement was a Trojan Horse run by the communists to undermine America from within, nonsensical as it may sound to so many of us now, had widespread currency among far-right conservatives at the time–including Elder Ezra Taft Benson, who angrily and repeatedly denounced Dr. King as a “liar” and a “communist agent” in his 1969 book An Enemy Hath Done This, lambasting the entire Civil Rights movement as a threat to American freedom and liberty, all without the slightest shred of self-awareness. And of course he was not alone in thinking this; though a few Apostles like Hugh B. Brown were actively trying to overturn the Church’s racist priesthood ban, he was regularly outflanked and outnumbered by hardliners like Benson, Mark E. Petersen, and Harold B. Lee–and the “communist” accusation was one of their chief rhetorical maneuvers.
Church leadership has come a long way since then, up to and including Russel M. Nelson allying with the NAACP to condemn racism after 2020. But the rhetoric of opposing “socialism” and “communism” is still deployed by the current U.S. president and spiritual wickedness in high places to justify the most appalling racism and segregation and state-sponsored terrorism today. |
| ↑17 | Female version of an Uncle Tom, derived from Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. |
| ↑18 | “Wo unto the liar, for he shall be thrust down to hell.” -2 Nephi 9:34 |
| ↑19 | Both in the sense of the song being over, but also as in “I’ve had enough!” |