VH1 And You Don't Stop - 30 Years of Hip-Hop Episode 2 VH1 Music Studio Cable in the Classroom Lesson for Music Classes, Grades 9-12 Lesson 1

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NOTE TO THE TEACHERS: The programs viewed in conjunction with these lesson plans may include references, consistent with the eras portrayed, to substance abuse, violent acts, and topics of a sexual and/or political nature. Because this may be considered inappropriate for classroom use in some communities, you are encouraged to review the programs before presenting them to your students, and if necessary, choose those sections that enhance your lesson and are acceptable for use in your classroom.

IMPORTANT: Some lyrics are inappropriate for classroom use and have been edited here by using asterisks in the place of inappropriate words. Please edit the lyrics further as needed. CD's edited for obscene content can be found at stores such as Wal-Mart.

Objectives

• Students will discuss the culture surrounding Public Enemy's rise to fame and the lyrics which so many people considered inflammatory.
• Students will compare and contrast the lyrics and musical elements of Public Enemy's songs with songs popular in the Black communities during the Civil Rights Movement.
• Students will write rap-style lyrics that express feeling oppressed and/or freedom from oppression.

National Standards:
4. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.
6. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
7. Evaluating music and music performances.
8. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
9. Understanding music in relation to history and culture.

Materials

• VHS VCR Player
• Television
• VH1's And You Don't Stop - 30 Years of Hip-Hop Episode 2 (Cable in the Classroom edited version)
• Web-based lesson materials
• CD player/audio equipment
• Overhead projector (optional)
• Pencils/pens and paper (students)
• Overhead transparencies of the "Fight the Power" Analysis Chart and Civil Rights Movement information sheets OR students copies for distribution (optional)
• Overhead transparencies of the lyrics to Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" and Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" OR copies of them for individual student use (included with lesson)
• Audio recording of a rap style beat to which students can perform their compositions.
• Audio recordings of Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" from the album Fear of a Black Planet, and Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" from the album What's Going On

Procedures

1. Lead students in a discussion of the Civil Rights Movement. When did it happen? Why? Who were the leaders and what did they want to accomplish? Make a chart on the board listing the when, why, how, who and where. Discuss significant events like the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, the significance of sit-ins, riots, and peaceful protests, and the change in voting rights. The timeline provided below may be helpful in guiding the discussion, and if desired, could be distributed to students or displayed on an overhead projector.

2. Distribute student copies of the lyrics to Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," or display them on the overhead projector. Play the song for students, asking them to note how the lyrics reflected the attitudes and ideas of what was happening at the time.

3. Lead students in discussing how Marvin Gaye's music reflected Black identity and pride, as well as the difficulties experienced by civil rights activists. Have them comment on the important role that music, in general, played during the Civil Rights Movement. The information below (Music of the Civil Rights Movement) may be helpful, and can be provided to the students if preferred.

4. Distribute student copies of the lyrics to Public Enemy's "Fight the Power," or display them on the overhead projector. Play the song for students, and ask them to consider why Public Enemy wrote the lyrics.

5. Distribute copies of the "Fight the Power" Analysis Chart, or display it on an overhead projector, chalk board, etc. Have students suggest how the lyrics reflect the issue of civil rights and what happened in the past, as well as what might be going on at the time the song was written. Complete the chart during the discussion.

6. Show VH1's And You Don't Stop - 30 Years of Hip Hop, Episode 2, the section that focuses on Public Enemy.

7. Ask students to comment on what they learned about the group. How do their physical appearance (clothing, hair, etc.) and movements reflect the lyrics and ideas they write and convey? What did people think about their lyrics? Were they well received or divisive?

8. Have students comment on the differences and similarities between the lyrics of the Marvin Gaye and Public Enemy songs. Are they attempting to convey the same message? Is the emotional tone different? Were the songs reaching the same type of audience?

9. Have students write a short, one paragraph rhyme that focuses on oppression or freedom. They may read their rhymes for the class or turn them in as homework. Remind students that their rhymes and performances should be free of inappropriate or suggestive language or actions. Consider having the students rap their rhymes to a live or recorded hip hop/rap rhythm as an in class performance.

Supplemental Resources:

Civil Rights movement Web sites:

• www.voicesofcivilrights.org/civil5.html
• http://dir.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/History/U_S__History/
  By_Time_Period/20th_Century/Civil_Rights_Movement/
• www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/

National Standards for Music Education
1. Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
2. Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
3. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments.
4. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.
5. Reading and notating music.
6. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
7. Evaluating music and music performances.
8. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
9. Understanding music in relation to history and culture.

These standards-based materials are provided through a partnership with MENC: The National Association for Music Education. This lesson plan was created by MENC member Rachel Weissman, Music Enrichment Teacher, Evergreen Montessori School, Wheaton, MD

Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On"
(Original) Lyrics

Public Enemy's "Fight The Power"

"Fight the Power" Analysis Chart

Song Lyric	Lyric's Meaning	Reference to Civil Rights	What does it mean today?
"Our freedom of speech is freedom or death..."	Black people should talk about injustices, inform those outside their community what goes on.	Black people were jailed without a fair trial or beaten and killed routinely while white offenders went free.	Knowledge is power. By bringing attention to these injustices, does it insure that they happen less often?
"No we're not the same Cause we don't know the game..."	Black people have to compete in a market run by white people.	Segregation kept Black people from gaining the knowledge they needed to better their lives.	Has availability of better education and hiring quotas made a difference?
"Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps..."	Black people aren't recognized for their achievements or contributions to society.	Black people wanted acknowledgement of their contributions to the wealth and prosperity of America.	Have Black History Month and Martin Luther King Jr. celebrations made people more aware of prominent Black people?

The civil rights struggle in modern times - A Timeline

1954 -- U.S. Supreme Court declares school segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruling.
1955 -- Rosa Parks refuses to move to the back of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus as required by city ordinance; boycott follows and bus segregation ordinance is declared unconstitutional; Federal Interstate Commerce Commission bans segregation on interstate trains and buses.
1956 -- Coalition of Southern congressmen calls for massive resistance to Supreme Court desegregation rulings.
1957 -- Arkansas Gov. Orval Rubus uses National Guard to block nine black students from attending a Little Rock High School; following a court order, President Eisenhower sends in federal troops to ensure compliance.
1960 -- Four black college students begin sit-ins at lunch counter of a Greensboro, North Carolina, restaurant where black patrons are not served; Congress approves a watered-down voting rights act after a filibuster by Southern senators.
1961 -- Freedom Rides begin from Washington, D.C., into Southern states.
1962 -- President Kennedy sends federal troops to the University of Mississippi to quell riots so that James Meredith, the school's first black student, can attend; the Supreme Court rules that segregation is unconstitutional in all transportation facilities; the Department of Defense orders full integration of military reserve units, the National Guard excluded.
1963 -- Civil rights leader Medgar Evers is killed by a sniper's bullet; race riots prompt modified martial law in Cambridge, Maryland; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers "I Have a Dream" speech to hundreds of thousands at the March on Washington; church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, leaves four young black girls dead.
1964 -- Congress passes Civil Rights Act declaring discrimination based on race illegal after 75-day long filibuster; three civil rights workers disappear in Mississippi after being stopped for speeding; found buried six weeks later; riots in Harlem, Philadelphia.
1965 -- March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to demand protection for voting rights; two civil rights workers slain earlier in the year in Selma; Malcolm X assassinated; riot in Watts, Los Angeles; new voting rights act signed.
1966 -- Edward Brooke, R-Massachusetts, elected first black U.S. senator in 85 years.
1967 -- Riots in Detroit, Newark, New Jersey; Thurgood Marshall is first black to be named to the Supreme Court; Carl Stokes (Cleveland, Ohio) and Richard G. Hatcher (Gary, Indiana) elected first black mayors of major U.S. cities.
1968 -- Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee; James Earl Ray later convicted and sentenced to 99 years in prison; Poor People's March on Washington -- planned by King before his death -- goes on.
1973 -- Maynard Jackson (Atlanta, Georgia), first black elected mayor of a major Southern U.S. city.
1975 --Voting Rights Act extended.

Excerpted from: www.infoplease.com/spot/civilrightstimeline1.html

Music of the Civil Rights Movement

In the 1950s and 1960s, African Americans struggled to win their civil rights. They wanted the right to stay in hotels and eat in restaurants with other Americans. They wanted the right to use the same restrooms and water fountains as other Americans. They wanted the right to sit in any empty seat on a bus. They also wanted the right to vote without having special hardships placed upon them, like poll taxes or reading tests.

Songs were an important part of the civil rights movement. People sang some of the old spirituals that African American slaves had created, as well as new songs. The civil rights movement was full of danger. Many people were physically attacked while standing up for their rights. Others, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., were killed. Those on the front lines of the battle were sometimes frightened. Singing songs together comforted people and gave them courage.

An important song of the civil rights movement was "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," written by two brothers, James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) and J. Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954). They were born in Jacksonville, Florida. The family enjoyed singing together. Mrs. Johnson played the piano, and Mr. Johnson played the guitar. James became a school principal, and Rosamond was a music teacher. They worked together on a number of songs. James wrote the words, and Rosamond wrote the music. Later, James Weldon Johnson became one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

"Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" is the best-known song the brothers created. James was asked to speak at a celebration of Abraham Lincoln's birthday, on February 12, 1900. He decided to write a poem for the occasion, which his brother set to music. A chorus of 500 students sang the song at the celebration. The children liked the song and taught it to their friends. Some of them grew up to be teachers and taught it to their students. After a while, it became known as the "Negro National Anthem." In his autobiography, James Weldon Johnson describes how creating this song with his brother brought more satisfaction to him over the years than anything else he did.

The most famous song of the civil rights movement was "We Shall Overcome." It may have been created by African American textile workers in the 1940s at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. It expresses the singer's belief that someday he or she will overcome the obstacles to freedom.

Many well-known singers of the 1950s and 1960s lent their voices to the civil rights movement. Singer Harry Belafonte was an established star by the time the movement began. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., asked him to join in. Belafonte did, gladly.

An important European American folksinger named Joan Baez donated the proceeds of many of her concerts to the civil rights movement and many other causes. Baez has always traveled to troubled places in the world, just when they were at their most dangerous points of conflict, to sing her thought-provoking songs and draw attention to human rights issues. Another European American, singer/songwriter Bob Dylan joined Joan Baez for a while in musical support of civil rights and other causes. Baez and Dylan still lend their talents to promote important causes.

On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a huge march on Washington, D.C., to express the desire for increased civil rights. Over 250 thousand people were there - the largest gathering Washington, D.C., had ever seen. They gathered at the Washington Monument, then marched on to the Lincoln Memorial.

Joan Baez was the first to sing, at 10:00 A.M., while people were still arriving. She sang a spiritual called "Oh, Freedom." Baez later led the crowd in singing "We Shall Overcome." Bob Dylan sang a song he wrote called "Only a Pawn in Their Game," which focuses on the man responsible for the death of a civil rights worker.

The day was filled with music. Odetta, an important folk-gospel singer and guitarist (whose work influenced people like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan) sang the spiritual "I'm on My Way." The European American folk group Peter, Paul, and Mary sang "If I Had a Hammer" and "Blowin' in the Wind."

As the event was drawing to a close, the great opera singer Marian Anderson sang "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." The great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson was there, too. She was an important pioneer of gospel music. Her style combines black Baptist singing with the secular blues style. She graced the huge crowd that day by singing the spiritual "I Been 'Buked and I Been Scorned," then got the crowd to sing with her on "How I Got Over."

Dr. King gave the closing speech. Toward the end of the speech, he started speaking to the crowd without notes about a dream he had for all people to live together in peace. That became his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

Excerpted from: www.sbgmusic.com/html/teacher/reference/
historical/civilrights.html