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Communicating political principles through music was the strategy of two musicians of the mid-twentieth century. In New York City, early in her career, Ruth Crawford Seeger composed avant-garde classical pieces with a political message. Later, in Washington, D.C., she turned to transcribing folksongs as a means of moving political ideas across American social classes. Zilphia Horton, working in rural Appalachia, used music as direct action on the picket lines of the labor movement and later in the civil rights movement. Through the leadership programs at the Highlander Folk School, Horton taught folk music to many civil rights leaders. Each woman worked independently of the other in musical traditions usually thought antithetical, yet they were equally committed to social justice. They successfully employed music to further progressive politics in the twenty years preceding their premature deaths in the early 1950s, while leaving a legacy of effective musical strategies that would be adapted by leaders in later social movements.
Particular pieces of music stand out in American popular culture as auditory shorthand for social movements they've come to represent. Musicians themselves have similarly been associated with the politics of various eras. Ruth Crawford seeger (1901-1953) and Zilphia Horton (1910-1956), who mobilized music for political purposes in the interwar years, were two such musicians. Both were classically trained and politically progressive-Crawford seeger (hereafter Crawford) as a pianist and composer and Horton as a pianist and singer-and they deployed music in their political and social activism for social justice. Zilphia Horton directed the music and arts programs at the Highlander Folk School in the impoverished Appalachian region of rural eastern Tennessee. She worked in a direct-action style, first in the labor movement and later in the nascent civil rights movement. Meanwhile, in New York City, Ruth Crawford was engaging musically in politics more indirectly, early on by writing art songs and later by transcribing folksongs for publication in songbooks for adults and children. Feeling challenged by the circumstances of Depression-era America to promote social justice and solidarity, the two women pursued different avenues of musical activism. They nonetheless shared a sense of the political importance of the music of common people, seeing in it moving expressions of daily struggle and triumph. Horton and Crawford consequently became crucial...