[Ads-l] Antedating of "Protest Song"

[Ben Zimmer]

Slightly earlier than Fred's cite, this relates to Lawrence Gellert's
"Negro Songs of Protest" (the headline has it as "Negro Protest Songs").

---
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-new-york-age-negro-protest-songs/194123670/
New York Age, June 27, 1936, p. 7, col. 5
Presents Negro Protest Songs
Noted Young Concert Artist Featured In Recital
Inaugurating what will probably make musical history, The American Music
League, a national organization with definitely cultural aims, presented
William Bowers, popular young baritone, in a unique presentation of "songs
of protest" culled from the South, at Steinway Hall on Wednesday, June 17.
Realizing that the need of a true portrayal of the Negro's attitude toward
the inferior position imposed upon him by the traditions of the South, the
American Music League sent Lawrence Gellert to collect these songs
heretofore suppressed, which echo the unrest and dissatisfaction of the
Negro with conditions and show a diametric opposition to the carefree
optimism of Negro Spirituals.
---

On Tue, Mar 24, 2026 at 7:59 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> Perhaps worth a bracketed cite: Lawrence Gellert published a series called
> "Negro Songs of Protest" in the Marxist periodical _New Masses_ beginning
> in 1930. See p. 10 of the Nov. 1930 issue:
>
>
> https://archive.org/details/v01n05-sep-1926-New-Masses/v06n06-nov-1930-New-Masses/page/n17/mode/1up
>
> https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1930/v06n06-nov-1930-New-Masses.pdf
>
> The series was later compiled in two volumes: _Negro Songs of Protest_
> (1936) and _Me and My Captain_ (1939). I don't see searchable versions of
> these online, but the preface of the second volume mentions "protest songs":
>
> ---
> What if the white man laughs and gauges the mentality of his charges by
> the nonsensical doggerel and ribald parodies he's permitted to hear?
> Educating him contrarywise with protest songs would proportionately
> diminish the convict's life expectancy on the road.
> (quoted in _African American Folksong and American Cultural Politics: The
> Lawrence Gellert Story_ by Bruce M. Conforth)
> https://books.google.com/books?id=B2mqs_FvabIC&pg=PA192
> ---
>
> --bgz
>
> On Tue, Mar 24, 2026 at 5:43 PM Shapiro, Fred <
> 00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
>> protest song (OED 1953)
>>
>> 1936 Daily Worker 10 July 4/7 (Newspapers.com)
>>
>> This Week-end at CAMP UNITY  WINGDALE, NEW YORK ... Chorus — Negro
>> Protest Songs.
>>
>>

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