The Nina Simone song written in response to the death of Martin Luther King Jr
The civil rights movement in America saw countless prominent Black artists pivot from pop music to political activism. In addition to advancing the rights of Black Americans, the movement also provided some of the most interesting and important artistic movements in the country’s history. Among the artists at the forefront of this movement was Nina Simone, the ridiculously skilled pianist who established herself as a giant of both jazz and pop music.
Simone established herself on the jazz scene with her 1957 album Little Girl Blue, which is arguably one of the finest debut albums in musical history, but her career reached new peaks when she began penning tracks about the struggle for civil rights. Releasing a plethora of incredible protest songs, including ‘Young, Gifted and Black’, ‘Mississippi Goddam’ and ‘Old Jim Crow’, with themes of racial injustice becoming increasingly present within her discography as she became more politically conscious.
A pivotal moment within the civil rights movement came in 1968, with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, a leading figure in the fight for civil rights and an advocate for peaceful protest. Although the murderer was officially deemed to be James Earl Ray, numerous conspiracy theories soon arose, tying the assassination to the FBI, the US Government and even the mafia. These conspiracies are not particularly difficult to believe, especially given the FBI’s long and well-documented history of harassment towards King, including sending him numerous letters advocating for his suicide.
The death of MLK, therefore, was rightly seen as a great injustice and a signifier of how much further Black Americans had to go before achieving true equality in the USA (something which, depressingly, still has not happened over five decades later). The assassination also showed that, although the Civil Rights Act had been passed, the movement was far from over.
Unsurprisingly, Simone was outraged by the death of MLK and quickly set about creating a song surrounding the assassination. The resulting track, ‘Why? (The King of Love is Dead)’, was released shortly after King’s death. The piece was actually written by Simone’s bass player, Gene Taylor, and the group performed it for the first time in New York only three days following King’s assassination.
During Simone’s performance at the Westbury Music Fair in New York, she said, “We can’t afford any more losses … they’re killing us one by one.” A harrowing indictment of the American government’s treatment of Black citizens, Simone’s track and subsequent speech, represented her fearless and enduring activism within the civil rights movement.
The live performance of ‘Why? (The King of Love is Dead)’, was included on the 1968 live album Nuff Said!. The album is among Simone’s finest efforts, featuring other prominent protest tracks such as ‘Ain’t Got No, I Got Life’ and ‘Backlash Blues’. Nuff Said! earned Simone an Emmy nomination and reached 44 in the US R&B charts, representative of her intense popularity and sway at the time.
