Gabriel Ertsgaard
Civil Rights Vinyl #1
The Nashville Sit-In Story. Folkways Records. 1960.
Conceived, Coordinated, and Directed: Guy Carawan
Narration Written (and partially ad lib): Rev. C. Tindell Vivien – Vice-President, NCLC
Creatively Edited: Mel Kaiser – Cue Recording Studio, N.Y.
Recorded on Location by Willards Electronics – Nashville, Tenn.
This isn’t, despite the fervent protest songs,
A music album (not primarily);
Nor stand-up comedy, despite the humor.
Had this work been broadcast, I’d use the term
Radio play—but comic drama serves.
The scene is set in Nashville, Tennessee.
The year is 1960. The season: spring.
The album opens with “We Shall Overcome”:
Drawn from folk traditions white and Black,
This anthem’s tangled choral roots embody
The integration that the sit-ins sought.
After the final chorus ends, a vocal
Rumble depicts a tense lunch counter scene.
A group of well-trained, peaceful college students—
Most Black, some white (“What are you doing with them?”)—
Resist the routine norm of segregation
Through bodies, flesh, occupying space.
They calmly bear an angry mob’s assault.
Before they win the day, the youth must face
An unjust judge and biased legal system;
A growling warden who declares, “No praying!”;
And at last the harried Nashville mayor,
A staunch defender of the rights of business
Who, nonetheless, when pressured will declare
His personal distaste for segregation.
In the end it won’t be law that bends,
But rather custom, as the business leaders
Coolheadedly conclude that segregation
Just isn’t worth the hassle to preserve.
This is the story, this the history
As memorialized in the afterglow.
The voice actors weren’t professionals,
But some of those same students, just months beyond
their great campaign. On side B, famous names
(Back when those very names were being made)
Gave interviews: John Lewis, who served long
In Congress, spoke at the March on Washington,
Survived a fractured skull on Bloody Sunday;
Marion Barry, two-time D.C. mayor,
Whose civil rights accomplishments
Would buoy him through his later legal troubles.
But back in 1960, both those men
Followed a different leader: Diane Nash.
Just 22, she steered their course in Nashville,
Putting her Fisk U. scholarship at risk.
Long overlooked in public histories
In favor of her male counterparts,
This record testifies to her importance.
A note on Reverend Vivien’s narration
Which frames the campaign’s tale, fills the gaps:
His gentle, joyful hope brings to my mind
The classic Christmas specials of Rankin/Bass
(Frosty, Rudolf, Little Drummer Boy)—
Not just because they share a common era,
But also for their shared goodwill toward all.
Nonviolence was indeed a set of tactics
For strategists of civil rights campaigns—
But also something deeply integral,
a guiding vision of the well-lived life.
We’ve likened justice to “a rising tide”
So often that the phrase seems commonplace—
Yet a warning lurks within the metaphor
For tides will turn, pale moons pull waters back.
On the ravaged beach of this embittered decade,
To lose one’s faith may almost feel like wisdom.
Nonetheless, I’ll revive by needle drop
The bright account of a spring in Tennessee
When it was not the richest nor the cruelest
Whose inner strength endured the toughest trial,
But rather those who had the heart to fight
Through methods of compassion, love, and peace.
when wildfire smoke
tints lungs and sky
I will recollect
the mottled witness
of this blooming orchard
About the Author
Gabriel Ertsgaard is editor in chief for The Peace Chronicle and copy editor for Drifting Sands Haibun. He has taught university English courses for the past decade and holds a Doctor of Letters with a concentration in global studies from Drew University. He is the author of A Fiction Writer’s Guide to Peace: Crafting Nonviolent Heroism.