Imagery. The civil rights of black Americans and the mass communication of 1960s Italy.
Martin Luther King’s dream was also a powerful source of inspiration for the visual arts.
Mirko Basaldella (1910 – 1969) was among a handful of artists living and working in America during this period. In 1968, he created Crucifixion, a homage to Martin Luther King Jr. The painting depicts the torture of Christ transformed into a metaphor of the modern martyr: a dramatic scene that blends pain and hope, passion and historical truth.
King’s voice reaches across the Atlantic to Italian artists as a sign of universal freedom. Between 1965 and 1968, the Turin-based artist Carol Rama (1918-2015) referred to it in various works, characterized by technical and formal experimentation in which eyes, letters, nebulous traces composed of ash emerge. It is a visceral language that relies on the evocative power of matter and translates the tragedy of death into a symbolic interruption of the creative gesture.
Amid the fervent climate of the 1960s, it was above all the visual poets of Group 70 — an artistic movement founded in Florence in 1963 — who took up challenge posed by Martin Luther King. With the Da Luther King series (1968), Roberto Malquori (1929-2025) juxtaposed sensual pin-ups with the words of the Afro-American leader, transforming the female figure into a mirror and guardian of universal values. In his 1965 collage, Eugenio Miccini (1925-2007), reworks the language of the chronicle into a sort of choral song, where the struggle becomes a living image of community.
Even photography came to reflect the resonance of King’s dream. Giulia Niccolai (1934-2021), for a few years a brilliant exponent of photojournalism, followed Kennedy’s election campaign and captured King in Los Angeles in 1960: his absorbed, distant gaze already seems to her to be an omen of his future death.
From painting to visual poetry to photography, King’s dream runs through Italian art of the 1960s like a powerful echo: a universal voice that interrogates, moves and evokes visions.
Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights Movement and Music
While remaining consistent with its cultural and religious roots, the music of American black churches has undergone significant transformations over time. When it became the “soundtrack” of the Civil Rights Movement, African American music never ceased to be a public liturgy of liberation.
The passage of Spirituals’ singing from the pews of churches to the streets of marches and protests does not represent a break from it that tradition but rather an historical, symbolic and spiritual continuity.
Sacred music becomes politicized, but without losing its spiritual force. On the contrary, politicization is the consistent outcome of a long history in which Christian faith has been as a practice of resistance, dignity and justice, through congregational singing. Christian faith has been interpreted as a form of resistance dignity and justice through congregational singing.
There are many songs and hymns that lie at the heart of African American consciousness and the Civil Rights Movement. Some songs have crossed the thresholds of churches — We Shall Overcome, This Little Light of Mine, Oh Freedom — while others have arrived by a different path. Born as protest songs, they have taken on a spiritual posture that led them into the sacred space of the church: Where Have All the Flowers Gone? and Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ’Round. Spirituality is not consolation, but a foundation for struggle. Christian faith is not a narcotic for the soul, but moral and ethical energy that fuels resistance.
The music of the Civil Rights Movement was never a mere emotional accessory, nor was it an ornamental soundtrack. It represented a true liturgical body, a public extension of private and communal worship. The black church was the beating heart of the movement: not only as an organizational space, but as a source of language, imagery, ethics and music. The march began in the worship hall and continued through the streets. The sermon found its extension in the protest song. The pulpit moved but did not lose its sacredness. The march began in the sanctuary and flowed into the streets. The sermon merged its voice with that of the protest song. The pulpit left the sacristy, but not the sacred.
Playlist 1:
1. Go down, Moses (The Golden Gate Quartet)
2. Guide my feet, Lord (Bernice Johnson Reagon)
3. We shall not be moved (Pete Seeger)
4. Keep Your Eyes on the Prize (Barbara Dane)
5. Oh, Freedom (Joan Baez)
6. This little light of mine (Etta James)
7. Turn me ‘round (The Freedom Singers)
8. Take my hand, Precious Lord (Mahalia Jeckson)
9. Where have all the flowers gone? (Peter, Paul and Mary)
10 We shall overcome (Pete Seeger)
MLK, the Movement and the songs: between USA and Italy
Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement succeeded in the impossible during the 1950s and 1960s: getting blacks and whites to sing together. From great gospel singers like Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972) – Martin Luther King’s favorite singer – and Odetta Holmes (1930-2008) to folk singers like Joan Baez (1941) and Peter, Paul and Mary; from stars like Harry Belafonte (1927-2023) to “deep” US singers like Pete Seeger (1919- 2014); the groups that physically led the marches and protest struggles, such as the Freedom Singers, and the singers who risked their careers and lives to pursue their activism, such as Barbara Dane (1927-2024).
But what happened after King’s assassination?
In the decades between King’s activities and his death, dozens of songs were written inspired by King and the movement. We recall some of them:
Sam Cooke, A change is gonna come (1964)
Nina Simone, Why (1968)
Michael Jackson, HIStory (1995) and Man in the Mirror (1988)
U2, Pride (1984)
Bobby Womack, American Dream (1984)
Grandmaster Flash, The King (1988)
Neil Diamond, Dry Your Eyes (1978)
Italy too, did not stand idly by. Indeed, between the late 1960s and the 1970s, both a political side, made up of songwriters, artists and poets, and a religious side, that of the young evangelicals, took a wide range of music and culture from overseas and presented it to the Italian public.
In 1969, a cadet camp was held at the Agape Ecumenical Centre in Prali (TO), organized by Waldensian pastor Franco Giampiccoli, with the specific goal of creating a musical songbook.
The Agape Songbook was published along with an accompanying disc. Music was also shared through concerts held both inside and outside churches, as well as through performances, presentations, and public worship services — all dedicated to promoting a political vision conveyed, above all, through music. For the first time translated into Italian, protest songs and spirituals such as Non ci sposteremo, Quando vedrete le stelle cadere and Noi trionferemo could be heard.
For the more politicized, secular and left-wing side, just think of Giovanna Marini and her record Vi parlo dell’America (1967), the Quartetto Cetra – a very popular Italian vocal group, active since the 1940s – with the 1971 song Angela (dedicated to the Afro-American activist Angela Davis, a Communist Party militant) and the many translations of protest and pacifist songs (from Bob Dylan to Pete Seeger).
Playlist 2:
1. Blowin’ in the wind (Bob Dylan)
2. A change is gonna come (Sam Cooke)
3. Why? (Nina Simone)
4. Dry your eyes (Neil Diamond)
5. Pride (U2)
6. American Dream (Bobby Womack)
7. Man in the mirror (Michael Jackson)
8. The King (Grandmaster Flash)
9. HIStory (Michael Jackson)
10. Non ci sposteremo (Canzoniere di Agape)
11. I don’t want to be a freedom writer (Giovanna Marini)
12. Angela (Quartetto Cetra)
13. Fratello, no, non va (Canzoniere di Agape)