Dr. Birgitta Creates a Soundtrack for #BlackLivesMatter

On August 9, 2014 Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri by Ferguson police officer, Darren Wilson. There have been protests, town hall meetings, and autopsies, yet no indictment for the killing of the unarmed teenager.

Thankfully, Dr. Birgitta Johnson (@DrBirgittaSays) created a playlist that helps us remain focus to help ensure that #BlackLivesMatter. The dedication she writes is poignant and powerful,

This playlist goes out to all the soldiers on the ground in Ferguson, Missouri and allied cities around America (and the world) this weekend marching to bring about the dream referenced 52 years ago this week in the nation’s capital. This playlist is for those on the front lines putting jobs, families, homes, and possibly their lives on the line so that we all yet might be free one day in America. This playlist is part tribute, part sonic armament. For when the slaves couldn’t even see freedom, they sang about it anyway. When the Freedom Riders had to stifle their ‘fight or flight’ reflexes in order to stay on the buses targeted by fire bombs, on the roads with mobs on both sides, at the counters with the hot coffee & cigarette burns, and in the jails among the gun butts & batons, they sang about peace, not being moved, and not being turned around. They didn’t always have nor need a record company to do this. They just did what was necessary and what the culture has always done since before America was America. We salute you marchers! We pray for you! And we thank God in advance for your service to our collective freedom for what you are doing will, in due time, change the world.

Birgitta’s list traverses African American music genres. It places musicians from different eras in dialogue with each other such that the listener hears the voices of Public Enemy, Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and James Cleveland all fueling the same noble cause. Please check Birgitta’s entire list.