‘Keep on Pushing’: the ultimate Curtis Mayfield protest song
Call them what you will, protest songs or progress songs. Songs of peace or songs of power. Songs of humanity, or songs of praise. Maybe even, song that raise. Whatever way they move you, so many of Curtis Mayfield’s best, and most powerful, songs about just that: movement. He spoke for a movement, and he spoke of movement. Which direction should we go in? ‘Move on Up’, of course. What should I do in the face of adversity? ‘I Gotta Keep on Moving’.
And it wasn’t just his own sense of movement that he was dealing with. Writing at the peak of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and into the aftermath of the murders of senior movement figures like Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Dr King, Mayfield knew that his music had the power to inspire direct action in his audience. “Get on your feet” he sings in ‘Power to the People’, “and into the street”.
Even when Mayfield wasn’t writing with the movement explicitly in mind, his song connected with the pleas and demands for equality and acceptance of the time. “It doesn’t matter what colour [you are] or faith you have” he said in 1997 when discussing one of the greatest songs he ever wrote, ‘People Get Ready’, but that message of commonality, universality and equal significance was precisely what drew people to the song in the first place. More than anyone, the song caught the attention of Dr King himself, who would cite the lyrics to get people marching and even labelled it as the unofficial anthem of the whole movement.
‘People Get Ready’ is as much a song of faith as it is anything else, but in essence, so were all of his songs, whether it was a faith that there was a better life to come or if it was a faith that a better world was possible in this lifetime. One of his strengths as a songwriter and inspirational performer was Mayfield’s ability to turn one of the worst atrocities you can imagine—the oppression of his people—into an inspirational message. So many of his best songs work so well because they are filled with positivity, vitality, and expressions of encouragement. He wanted to build, not to topple. He came to raise, not to bury.
Music was a hugely powerful and important weapon in the arsenal of the army of love who were marching across America to fight for civil rights in the 1960s. Whether it was The Staples Singers singing about the ‘Freedom Highway’, James Brown saying out loud that he was Black and he was proud, Sam Cooke believing that a change was gonna come or Mahalia Jackson’s rousing rendition of ‘We Shall Overcome’, music bridged gaps between the races all across the country.
And, in order to bring their messages, the music and the movement all across the country, plenty of brave Civil Rights activists early in the decade boarded the ‘Freedom Rider’ buses, which pulled into cities in the South to take part in protests and sit-ins; to fight for the right of Black people to exist in public places, to eat or drink in diners just like the white folk could, and even just to fight for the small dignities of simply using a public restroom or sitting on a bus seat of their own choosing.
As the activists drove from town to city and then on again, they’d sing the songs that carried their messages loud and clear. One of the most commonly heard songs on countless Freedom Rides across America was Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Keep on Pushing’, an inspirational anthem of positivity and light. A promise of a better time to come. A better world. A happier existence. All you had to do to get there was keep on pushing the message of love, peace, acceptance and respect. The simplicity of the lyrics, coupled with the joyous voices and heavenly guitar, kept the message ringing loud and clear for anyone who wanted to listen, and all those who knew how to hear.
With the rise of the far-right around the world and the return of fascism to the shores of North and South America, Europe and parts of Asia, Mayfield’s best songs are unfortunately as relevant in places again today as they were when he wrote them. While we aren’t blessed with a collection of singers who are resisting the oncoming oppression as the people fighting for what’s right were in the 1960s, we do still at least have the songs that Mayfield left us with and the messages within them. The times ahead will be tough, and the road will be hard. We have to be ready as a people, we have to move on up, we have to keep the power with the people and we have to keep on pushing, we can’t stop now.
