This page is referenced by:

• 1 2019-11-04T15:12:03-08:00 "To Be Young, Gifted, and Black" 20 Nina Simone's Transformation to Black Nationalist Activist plain 2019-12-07T20:30:00-08:00 "The terminology of the franchise signals the duplication of these texts across community, time, and space, and like the corporate models, these anthems are situated in differently located, yet aligned, political conditions, thereby becoming representatives or approximations of the original in performance rather than an exact replicate." - Shana Redmond 5, Anthem
  
  
  Inspired by Hansberry's post-humously produced play of the same name, "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" (TBYGB) is an anthem that was chosen in 1971 by the Congress of Racial Equity (CORE) to reflect their increasing militant position on racial equality. The song not only functions to validify the pride of black people, it also signals the importance of friendship among black women, and the bravery to be black in the face of state violence. 
  
  As Simone states in the video above, Lorraine Hansberry "gave" her the song, which can be interpreted as Simone's poetic way of saying that Hansberry inspired her to not only be gifted, but to be gifted while black. Redmond alludes to Simone's transition from secular musician to black nationalist, through her burgeoning mentor/mentee friendship with Hansberry. In describing Simone’s and Hansberry’s “mentoring relationship”, Redmond draws our attention to how space is used by the socially disenfranchised to commune and connect over shared injustices (195). These spaces, like salons, allowed Hansberry and Simone to commune with one another over “real girls’ talk” (195). The conversations between these two women, from different worlds, resulted in Simone’s awakening as a black activist, who was “now attuned to her subjectivity, what it meant in context, and, … how it might be mobilized in the fight for black liberation”(195). After Hansberry’s death, Simone writes TBYGB in dedication to her mentor-friend, and Redmond provides an in-depth analysis of the song and its work to commemorate and continue the work of those that had come before.
  
  In her performance, Simone is captivating in her movements and in her enunciation of words. When she says, "to be young, gifted and BLACK", the "-ACK" she sounds out is one of obstinance. It is a stubborn pronunciation to all would-be detractors of the fact that to be young, gifted and black "is where it is at". She stops playing the piano at the end of "-ACK", replacing the period, sonically emphasizing the subject of the song: blackness. Simone's emphasis on blackness in her music, as well as her politics was what made her such an icon in the black nationalist movement. Simone's music demanded attention from the audience, because, as demonstrated in the video above, she sings, "there's a world, [little girl], that's waiting for you", signaling to black individuals, especially the young in the audience, that this song belonged to them. Redmond argues that Simone's awareness of her subjectivity as a black woman in America made it clear to her that her politics had to be "antiracist, unlike that of white women, and antisexist, unlike those of black and white men"(186). Her eventual appeal to young, black activists who were disenchanted with post-civil rights America, and were ready to take a more forceful (militant) stand against discrimination, resulted in the canonization of To Be Young, Gifted and Black as the Black National Anthem. 
  
  As the successor of the Negro National Anthem, Lift Evr'y Voice and Sing written by J. Rosamond Johnson and James Weldon Johnson, TBYGB does not exist to undermine the work of spirituals in evoking the emotional turmoil, and enduring hope of black bodies in bondage. As Redmond explains, it marks the transformation from "Negro" to "Black", demonstrating a reclamation of "black" as a positive collective signifier in lieu of the more derogatory "Negro"(192). Again, CORE's adoption of TBYGB is a demonstration that the mantle to "sing a song full of faith that the dark past has taught us,... a song full of the hope that the present has brought us" has been taken up and transmuted into a more affirmative and uplifting declaration that, "TO BE YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK IS WHERE IT'S AT!"
  
  
  Works Cited: 
  Redmond, Shana L.. Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora. United States, NYU Press, 2013.