There is little doubt that black people's struggle, in diaspora, as well as on the African continent, was one of the greatest transformative processes of 20th-century history. This is the historical context of Shana L. Redmond's book, with its strong emphasis on the USA, where five of the six analysed black anthems were performed and composed.
However, anthems did not only accompany but also mobilised the struggle, claims Redmond: they did not only belong to social movements but are those movements. Engaged in African American history, social movement studies and musicology, Redmond follows the history of black anthems, as she calls them, their performers, performance situations and audiences.
The life cycle of the represented anthems fits approximately within the 20th century, from ‘Ethiopia’, composed in 1918 by the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), through ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’, ‘Ol’ Man River’ and ‘We Shall Overcome’ to ‘To be Young, Gifted and Black’, composed in 1969 by Nina Simone, the latter marking the change from civil rights struggle to the black power era. The author gives detailed accounts of collective performances, while not forgetting semiotic aspects of individual voices. The description of the militaristic and gendered collective performance of UNIA's ‘Ethiopia’ is thus contrasted to the analysis of Nina Simone's performance and Paul Robeson's personal role in the transformation of ‘Ol’ Man River’. Redmond analyses several musical elements of each song, their ability to create and carry meaning. The author's insights into the way that life histories shaped individual voices, and what these voices expressed, are the most fascinating aspects of the work.
All anthems analysed are from the US black diaspora, the pan-African hymn ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’ the only exception. In some sense, however, it is the most vital, even if the oldest, of the anthems represented. Composed in 1897 by Methodist reverend Enoch Sontonga in the Eastern Cape of present-day South Africa, and in South Africa often called simply ‘The Africa Song’, it accompanied so many struggles of various peoples and liberation movements in the region that it was finally declared the official national anthem of five recently independent countries (p. 243). Redmond does not mention that the hymn's original religious use (p. 225) is still very well alive throughout the region and can hardly be separated from political aspects. Her focus is on its later use as the anthem of numerous movements struggling against apartheid and colonialism, with the ANC the most well-known example. Originally written in Xhosa, ‘Africa Song’ was soon translated to several African languages: Redmond notes that this multilingualism may be a reason why the song spread so effectively and for its remarkable Pan-African power (p. 227).
While the author has every right freely to choose her anthems, I regret that the remarkable and influential musical heritage of Jamaica was attended to only in footnotes: Jamaica could represent numerous black anthems of its own. In the book, Caribbean Islands have merely the role of receiving ideas and organisational structures, such as UNIA branches from the USA. Redmond's representation of the African diaspora is not wholly but principally limited to North American civil rights organisations and only secondarily to their connections to other places such as the Caribbean, Africa and Japan. Some lines of flight are also illustrated in American musicians’ personal relations to their colleagues in exile, such as Nina Simone's relation to Miriam Makeba, the South African singer who accompanied and mobilised the decolonisation of Africa, performing in several independence declaration ceremonies, such as in Tanganyika, Zambia and Angola and – which the book does not reveal – in Mozambique. Even if it is not unexceptional in social sciences, this USA-centrism might be the weakest aspect of the book, despite the author's effort to include South African exile and its anthem among the case studies. More methodological reflection would also be of interest to me as an anthropologist of popular music. Definitions of central concepts could also come earlier: for instance, the ‘anthem’ of the title is defined only at page 79.
For the study of social movements, Redmond's observations on some present-day trends in her conclusions are interesting (pp. 261–88). Present-day struggles, such as ‘Black Live Matters’, revolts labelled as the ‘Arab Spring’, and popular uprisings in various countries, including Mozambique, seem to have organisational structures and musical aspects different from those of earlier struggles. These current struggles are not any longer, or at least not principally, organised within official organisations, but are organized in rhizomic networks (Bertelsen Reference Bertelsen2014). Nor was the uprising of African-Americans following Rodney King's brutal beating in 1992 by the LA police department, which Redmond uses as example, organised within non-governmental organisations. Of course, present-day struggles also have their songs, often rap, with its capacity for fast social intervention and mobilisation of youth, but such songs are unlikely to receive the kind of official status as the six anthems on which Redmond focuses in her book. The song which Redmond suggests as ‘‘the last anthem of the century’, Public Enemy's ‘Fight the Power’ in 1989, lacks formal organisational connection in spite of its obvious connection to the struggle against police violence and racial discrimination.
Despite my criticism I find it fascinating that historiographical work, nearly exclusively based on archival materials and recorded music, can grasp the design, dream and struggle for a better future contained in such great songs. Anthem is a rich work which gives fresh insights to an undervalued musical aspect of a great historical struggle, one which has changed the lives of millions of oppressed people, not least black people. This is good to read for any social scientist interested in how the world can be made a better place: its detailed analysis of each song might also interest socially involved musicians who want to understand how the world already was changed, and how it could be further changed, through their art.
