English museum

Hello everyone, I am Justine, today I have the honour of standing before you, to talk to you about this new museum which has just opened in Chicago. In this museum, you will find the history of African-American over time. Their stories are illustrated by different arts, such as sculptures, writings, voices, objects, music, paintings... I'm going to focus on one art in particular, which is music, because in my opinion music is really a particularly striking art through which you can convey all kinds of messages. The African-American used music to tell the story of what they had overcome, the difficult moments such as slavery, segregation but also the joyful moments. Through their music they have the opportunity to change mentalities, in fact they transmit messages of hope, of peace with the words they use, the emotions they manage to convey using their voices.

At the time, music also allowed African-American to escape from reality, to be entertained, to have fun. Different songs bear witness to the condition of African slaves on American soil, where music alone embodies a refuge for these populations. Work songs , are songs without instruments, mainly performed in cotton fields. These songs are built on pronounced and repetitive rhythms with lyrics far from the activity of the slaves to support the effort while trying to forget the forced labour. By singing these work songs, the slaves try to escape from real life. These songs are at the origin of jazz.

Speaking of jazz, do you know Louis Amstrong? He was a famous jazz musician and singer. His talent as a trumpet player, his charisma, his qualities as a man of the stage and his generous personality have over the years forged his international reputation. In 1953, he became a jazz legend. In 1957, he committed himself against segregation, after the events at Little Rock in Arkansas. He said, “I’m sick and tired of the way black people are treated in the south.” He cancelled a tour and did everything to help the African American.

Now let's talk about another legend.

Aretha Franklin was an African-American artist. She was an activist for the civil rights movement. She fought for equality and freedom for African American thanks to her songs. Franklin used her fame to fundraise for the civil rights movement and in 1968 recorded « Think », an anthem for equality with the the catchy chorus, « Give me some freedom, oh, freedom, right now ! » . Aretha has been able to use art to support and promote social change without using violence. While using her voice to entertain but also to uplift and inspire generations through her songs that have now become anthems.

In august 2018, when she died, Barack Obama said of Aretha, « Aretha helped define the American experience. In her voice, we could feel our history, all of it and in every shade our power and our pain, our darkness and our light, our quest for redemption and our hardwon respect ».

Music is a versatile art, there are all types of songs, music, instruments, styles . African American artists convey to us their values, their hopes, their emotions concerning their history. Their songs are known first in a regional dimension, then national and finally international. This proves that nothing is impossible, the African Americans have struggles throughout their lives to obtain freedom and equality by making messages through different arts , certainly

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