Mississippi Goddam is a song written and performed by United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 singer and pianist Nina Simone

Nina Simone

Eunice Kathleen Waymon , better known by her stage name Nina Simone , was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music...

. It was first released on her album Nina Simone in Concert

Nina Simone in Concert

Nina Simone in Concert is an album by singer/pianist/songwriter Nina Simone. It was her first album for the record label Philips and was made up of three live recordings in Carnegie Hall, New York City in March and April 1964...

which was based on recordings of three concerts she gave at Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 in 1964. The album was her first release for the Dutch label Philips Records

Philips Records

Philips Records is a record label that was founded by Dutch electronics company Philips. It was started by "Philips Phonographische Industrie" in 1950. Recordings were made with popular artists of various nationalities and also with classical artists from Germany, France and Holland. Philips also...

 and is indicative of the more political turn her (recorded) music took during this period. The song was released as a single and boycotted in several Southern states, ostensibly because of the word 'goddam' in the title. Together with "Four Women

Four Women (song)

"Four Women" is a song written by singer, composer, pianist and arranger Nina Simone, released on the 1966 album Wild is the Wind. It tells the story of four different African American women...

" and "To Be Young, Gifted and Black

To Be Young, Gifted and Black

"To Be Young, Gifted and Black" is a song by Nina Simone with lyrics by Weldon Irvine. It was written in memory of Simone's late friend Lorraine Hansberry, author of the play Raisin in the Sun. The song was originally recorded by Simone for her 1970 album Black Gold; released as a single, it became...

" it is one of her most famous protest song

Protest song

A protest song is a song which is associated with a movement for social change and hence part of the broader category of topical songs . It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre...

s and self-written compositions.

Interpretation

The song is her response to the murder of Medgar Evers

Medgar Evers

Medgar Wiley Evers was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi...

 in Mississippi; and the bombing of a church

16th Street Baptist Church bombing

The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed on Sunday, September 15, 1963. The explosion at the African-American church, which killed four girls, marked a turning point in the U.S...

 in Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...

, killing four black children. On the recording she cynically announces the song as "a show tune

Show tune

A show tune is a popular song originally written as part of the score of a "show" , especially if the piece in question has become a "standard", more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context...

, but the show hasn't been written for it yet". The song begins jauntily, with a show tune feel, but demonstrates its political focus early on with its refrain "Alabama's got me so upset, Tennessee's made me lose my rest, and everybody knows about Mississippi goddam". In the song she rails on the common argument at the time that civil rights

African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)

The African-American Civil Rights Movement refers to the movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against African Americans and restoring voting rights to them. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1955 and 1968, particularly in the South...

 activists and African Americans should "go slow" and make changes in the United States incrementally: "Keep on sayin' 'go slow'...to do things gradually would bring more tragedy. Why don't you see it? Why don't you feel it? I don't know, I don't know. You don't have to live next to me, just give me my equality!"

She performed the song in front of 40,000 people at the end of one of the Selma to Montgomery marches

Selma to Montgomery marches

The Selma to Montgomery marches were three marches in 1965 that marked the political and emotional peak of the American civil rights movement. They grew out of the voting rights movement in Selma, Alabama, launched by local African-Americans who formed the Dallas County Voters League...

 when she and other black activists, including Sammy Davis Jr., James Baldwin

James Baldwin (writer)

James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.Baldwin's essays, for instance "Notes of a Native Son" , explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th century America,...

 and Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte

Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...

crossed police lines.