The Beat as an Object of Celebration and Concern in Segregation-Era America

How has “the beat” been an object of both celebration and concern in the history of popular music?

Know (knowledge):

• The history of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s campaigns against communism
• Statistics regarding televisions in American households in the 1950s and the significance of those figures
• An understanding of “the beat” as a contested subject in American life
• About Jim Crow laws and their effects in 1950s America
• About musician Little Richard’s roots and importance as an African-American Rock and Roll musician
• About “covers” of African-American music recorded by white musicians in the 1950s
• How opposition to Rock and Roll music in the 1950s sometimes focused on “the beat” and its connection to African-American culture

Be able to:

• Characterize social, economic, and cultural change over time
• Interpret how public reaction to popular music reflects the social norms and values of a particular historical era
• Analyze statements from historical materials to arrive at a better understanding of the past
• Understand connections between popular culture and the time, place and social circumstances in which it was created
• Integrate and evaluate information presented visually, quantitatively, and orally in diverse media and formats

1950s America often appears to have been a conservative decade. The image of what might be called the “ideal American” circulated widely through the popularity of fifties television shows such as Father Knows Best, The Ozzie and Harriet Show, and other such family programming. The image these programs quietly promoted was that of a white, suburban family life in which gender roles were fixed and difficulties were few. Issues of racial discrimination, Cold War anxiety, and, really, conflict of any substantial kind was left at the door of television’s dream world. Alternately, in that same time period Senator Joe McCarthy’s campaign to stamp out the “Communist threat” also promoted a vision of “the ideal American.” But in McCarthy’s case, he established a vision of the “ideal American” by arguing what one should not be if one wanted to attain such an ideal.

Senator McCarthy used his political position to rail against the possibility of Communists “hidden in plain sight,” going on to associate Communism with whatever else he believed to be “deviant” behavior. His list of those who threatened American life included anyone with an interest in Socialist ideas but also artists, homosexuals, labor organizers, and more. Ultimately deemed a “witch hunt,” McCarthy’s campaign to rid America of “Un-American activity” was one in which fear of the Other threatened to undo the principles of democracy as many Americans understood them. But in some fashion, McCarthy’s anxieties, extreme in nature, were not his alone. McCarthy’s “witch hunt” and its seemingly unlikely success as a political effort revealed the intolerance and anxiety about Otherness that was indeed a part of American life. Widespread concerns about the categories “normal” and “abnormal,” “American” and “Un-American,” “insider” and “outsider” revealed themselves across the fabric of the country.

Into that historical moment came Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll included the music of groundbreaking African-American artists such as Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard, whose uptempo, Southern, church-inspired beats caught the attention of both fans and those who worried that in these beats were the seeds of a kind of deviance that might itself be a threat. In that way, it was a time in which “the beat” became an issue in and of itself. This lesson explores the manner in which “the beat” in music has at different historical moments become a matter of contestation and anxious scrutiny. In 1950s America, it happened with Rock and Roll. So how does that struggle around a contested issue such as “the beat” reveal itself, and how is it managed? With Little Richard as a focal figure, this lesson will explore the ways in which the rhythms in Little Richard’s music elicited a strong response from teenage fans but also from pro-segregation forces. Equating “the beat” with a particular racial spirit and power, pro-segregationists railed against Rock and Roll as McCarthy railed against Communism.

As the lesson unfolds, students will get to investigate some of the ways listeners feel and relate to rhythms, focusing on the language used to describe “the beat,” and the manners in which rhythms connect to a deeper past and seem to anticipate particular futures. If “the beat” was a concern in 1950s America, it was again a concern for some, decades later, when Gangsta Rap began to dominate the Billboard charts. How far have we come? And how can we study the past to learn more about the future we’re making and the music we’ll make it with? This lesson gets to the heart of the conflicts that arise as particular rhythms get made, released, listened to, and loved.