Syreeta McFadden wrote this about Nina Simone, published in The Nation:
Simone, the patron saint of the artist-activist, in the tradition of Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, and Harry Belafonte, responded to what she described as a “duty,” but not without tremendous personal sacrifice. While Simone may never have felt that her contribution was fully appreciated by her contemporaries, perhaps her contemporaries were never her rightful audience.
Is America today her rightful audience? True artistic genius, it has been said, crafts timeless work. But Simone’s music isn’t timeless so much as it is forever current. Younger listeners may hear “Sinnerman” and think of Dylan Roof just as their parents or grandparents had thought of Sheriff Bull Connor when they heard it first in 1965. Inside her song, she is still very much alive, reminding us that evil and wrongdoing cannot hide from judgement.
And now couldn’t be a better time to revisit her life, activism, and art. There’s a new documentary just released on Netflix that does precisely that. Watch the trailer below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moOQXZxriKY
Covered Bridge will be back tomorrow with some of our favorite stories and articles from around the web. Don’t miss it.
