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On October 16, 1992, three weeks before election day, Stevie Wonder took the stage at the Bob Dylan Thirtieth Anniversary Celebration to revisit the song that in 1966 gave him a number one rhythm-and-blues hit. His fingers striking stately gospel chords, Wonder introduced “Blowin’ in the Wind” with personal, historical testimony: “The significance of this song to me,” Wonder testified, “is that this is a song that will last unfortunately for a long, long time. And when I say unfortunately, I’m talking about the fact that it will always be relevant to something that is going on in this world of ours.” He mentioned the civil rights movement, Vietnam, Watergate , Steven Biko and antiapartheid, and the fight to end starvation. “Today in the ’90s, the song is still very relevant.” With the gospel-based musical conversation building between singer, band, and audience, Wonder turned from his well-received history lesson to a direct call to the congregation, challenging the Madison Square Garden crowd to remember their obligations in the continuing freedom struggle: “And as you think about who you should vote for, I want you to vote for that person who is going to commit to bringing unity to all people, not only throughout the world but in this country.” With the invocation concluded, and nearly three minutes into his performance, Wonder performed “Blowin’ in the Wind” with an intensity that transcended even his own previous version. Wonder punctuated his soaring take on the song’s crucial question—“How many years can some people exist before they’re allowed to be free?”—with a cry of “Let my people go!” directly invoking the tradition of African-American resistance. On a night that sometimes felt like a memorial service, Stevie Wonder’s living, breathing performance provided a clear reminder of Dylan’s continuing relevance to ongoing struggles for justice and equality. Understanding Bob Dylan’s relationship to the black freedom struggle of the 1960s and beyond is not limited to an appreciation of his direct involvement with movement causes, nor even the role that he and his music played for activists and 44 5. Allowed to Be Free: Bob Dylan and the Civil Rights Movement Charles Hughes Allowed to Be Free / 45 fellow artists. Indeed, while those factors are crucial, there is more to be learned by placing Dylan and his music in conversation with the ideological, strategic, and spiritual foundations from which the movement took its multiple shapes. Dylan’s vision combined gospel redemption with scathing critiques of American society, an ideological combination exhibited by nearly every important strain of the civil rights movement, and most firmly linked by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). It is little surprise that SNCC became Dylan’s strongest movement connection. Even when Dylan “abandoned” protest music, his songs yet reflected deep questions of freedom, equality, and identity that spoke to similar concerns within SNCC, the movement, and—indeed—America. Dylan was by no means a central figure in the black freedom movement, but understanding his work in this way offers important perspectives. Recent writing has greatly complicated the previous narrative, particularly the work of Mike Marqusee, who explores Dylan’s relationship to 1960s political moments and movements in unmatched detail.1 Still, Marqusee’s precedent should provoke further efforts to situate all facets of Dylan’s connection to civil rights politics within larger contexts of African-American political and musical traditions, as well as within a fuller understanding of Dylan’s personal ideology and worldview. Although this political consciousness dates from his earliest Minnesota days, Dylan’s direct involvement with civil rights activism began in his earliest New York days. His girlfriend Suze Rotolo was a volunteer for CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality, which in 1960 launched the tumultuous “Freedom Ride” campaigns. Rotolo suggests that although Dylan’s love of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger had politicized him to a certain degree, civil rights “was new to him.”2 Dylan himself recalled that he “checked out” his early protest material with Rotolo’s mother, a union activist who—according to Dylan—“was into this equality-freedom thing long before I was.”3 The influence of the Rotolo women (including Suze’s sister Carla, also a CORE activist) inspired Dylan to perform at a CORE benefit in New York and to write a series of songs based around questions of racism and racial oppression. Even at this earliest stage, Dylan—who had listened to gospel and blues for years— engaged...

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