In History: Nina Simone on how racial injustice fuelled her songs (2024)

In these exclusive BBC archive clips, Nina Simone describes how racism robbed her of her dream of being a classical pianist, and how in the 1960s she used her remarkable voice to demand equality for black Americans.

"I must say that Martin Luther King didn't win too much with his non-violence," Nina Simone told the BBC's David Upshal on the Late Show in 1991. The singer was herself a prominent figure in the 1960s civil rights movement, but was frustrated by the cautious route of civil disobedience and peaceful protests championed by Martin Luther King Jr. Infuriated by the slow pace of change and anguished by the violence and brutal oppression she saw happening to black Americans daily, she felt a more militant approach was needed if racial equality was ever going to be achieved. In this, she felt more in tune with more radical tactics endorsed by civil rights leader Malcolm X and Black Power movements.

"[Martin Luther King] is remembered more than Malcolm X, and Malcolm X never had a chance to get the kind of popularity that Martin Luther King got. But I was never non-violent, never. I thought we should get our rights by any means necessary."

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Simone's move into political songwriting had been triggered by the shocking murder of four young black girls attending Sunday school in Birmingham, Alabama, which was bombed by white extremists in September 1963. At that time, Nina had already established a career in music, with her 1959 debut album Little Girl Blue, and was preparing for an upcoming series of club dates. The horrific incident left her heartbroken and enraged.

She poured this anger into the electrifying song Mississippi Goddam (1964), which she wrote in less than an hour. A howl of righteous fury at the Alabama bombing, it also referenced the racially motivated murder of 14-year-old Emmett Louis Till, who was abducted, tortured and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, and the assassination of civil rights organiser Medgar Evers by a member of the Ku Klux Klan in June 1963.

The crimes were so well known by the black community at the time, that she was able to invoke them merely by mentioning the names of the states where they happened, and the lyrics detail her grief, anger and exasperation with the sluggish pace of any meaningful change, with the lines "You keep on saying 'Go slow. Go slow'. But that's just the trouble."

The song became a rallying cry for the fight against racial injustice and was banned in several southern states. Although she may not have agreed with Martin Luther King's approach, she gave a performance of the song in 1965 at the march he led from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, and again in 1968, three days after his assassination, at a concert in New York, which served as an outlet for the outrage and collective grief over his murder. Her music during the 1960s saw her become a pivotal figure in the civil rights movement, her songs reflecting the turbulent times and giving voice to the pain and hopes of black Americans.

The song Four Women, written in 1966, portrayed the struggles and resilience of black women in the US, while 1969's To Be Young, Gifted, and Black was a message to young people to take pride and joy in their identity and potential. The song is dedicated to the memory of her friend, playwright Lorraine Hansberry, the first black American female author to have a play performed on Broadway, who died of cancer at the age of 34.

Growing up in the South

Nina's own life had been defined by growing up in a Jim Crow-segregated South, as well as her precocious musical talent. She was born Eunice Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina, in 1933, the sixth of her parents' eight children. Her exceptional gift for music was recognised and encouraged by her mother, a Methodist preacher. By the age of six, Nina was accompanying her mother's sermons on the piano at church.

The wealthy family for whom Nina's mother worked as a housekeeper saw her promise and funded formal piano lessons for her. "I played from the age of five by ear and started studying for 22 more years," she told BBC Breakfast Time in 1988. These lessons inspired her love of classical music, especially the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, and sparked a dream in the young Nina.

"I wanted to be the world's first black concert pianist for 22 years. I certainly like the idea that I have the bearing of one because at least I can relate to that when I play these jazz songs that I have to play at my concerts all the time," she told the BBC's Late Show in 1991.

But despite the doors her talent could open for her, she found that prejudice would close just as many. During her first piano recital in a library when she was 12, her parents were asked to sit at the back because they were black. Nina refused to play unless her parents were moved to the front. After high school, she continued to pursue her dream of a career in classical music.

"I went to the Juilliard School of Music for two years and studied with Carl Friedberg and then I applied for a scholarship to Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and they turned me down because I was black and I never got over it."

Feeling crushed and desperately in need of money, she took a job playing piano at the Midtown Bar & Grill in Atlantic City. She was offered more money if she would sing as well. To prevent her religious parents finding out, she adopted the stage name "Nina Simone". It was during these years that her unique sound would develop – a fusion of jazz, blues, gospel and classical, carried along with her rich, distinctive voice, which could be by turns heartbreaking or haughty, amorous or angry.

No matter what genre she picked, her classical techniques would infuse her songs, from the George and Ira Gershwin musical showtune I Loves You Porgy, to My Baby Just Cares for Me, an unlikely pop hit which enjoyed a surprise resurgence in 1987, when it was used in a Ridley Scott-directed Chanel No 5 commercial.

She herself described her music as "black classical music".

"For years it was known as jazz, but it isn't that. It's a combination of gospel, pop, love songs, political songs, so it is black-oriented classical music, that's what it is," she told BBC Breakfast Time.

Extraordinarily versatile, and a captivating, if at times volatile performer, she remained ambivalent about the music that brought her fame and the audiences it attracted. She seemed to feel that despite her groundbreaking and remarkable body of work as a singer-songwriter, it did not bring her the respect that being a classical pianist would have brought her.

"I suppose in my solitude I still regret that I didn't become it, because you get an audience who listens to music, who do not smoke, who do not drink and they have come to listen to you. And it's the world's most revered kind of music, classical music is, all over Europe and all over the world. It's regarded as the highest and, of course, I always wanted to be associated with the highest type of music so in that sense I regret it," she told the BBC.

Perhaps though, given her gifts, background and the tumultuous times she was living through, she would have always felt compelled to use her art as a platform to fearlessly speak out, whatever path had been open to her.

"I choose to reflect the times and the situations in which I find myself," she said in an interview in 1969. "That, to me, is my duty. At this crucial time in our lives when everything is so desperate, when every day is a matter of survival, I don't think you can help but be involved.

"How can you be an artist and not reflect the times? That, for me, is the definition of an artist."

In History is a series which uses the BBC's unique audio and video archive to explore historical events that still resonate today.

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