An African American woman's voice, a child of Southwest Georgia, a voice raised in song, born in the struggle against racism in America during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s ...

Aretha Franklin grew up in 1950s Detroit, surrounded from childhood by the now-famous faces of the civil rights movement. Her songs would become ... her contract in the 1960s included the clause ...

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings playlists, Sounds of the Civil Rights Movement and Peace Songs of the 1960s, reveal the vibrancy of the genre.