Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood- Nina Simone

I feel like the article, Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood and the movie we watched in class, What Happened Miss Simone portrayed two different images of Nina Simone. The article made her seem less violent than the movie did. In my response I am going to reference both the article and the documentary. In both the article and movie, it is very clear that Nina Simone was extremely passionate about her rights as a black woman/citizen. She displayed her passion for the equal rights movement in her song lyrics. The article states, "Simone was aware of her ability to captivate her audience and chose to be an activist as well as an artist.... In other words, Simone used her talent to go beyond entertainment, to contribute to pro-agressive politics." (248) In the documentary, it said that she had many auditions to play piano, but was turned down because of the color of her skin. That was one of the many times it hit her how segregated the US really was, especially in the South where she lived. Nina was experiencing it. She felt isolated. Although she started singing to support her family, she began to create song lyrics based on her experiences and the racial equality she dreamt of. "How can you be an artist and not reflect on the times?" She asked in the documentary. She wanted to sing to help her people (the Black Power Movement), so she began singing civil rights music.

I also found it interesting that the article broke down her songs and coded them.  One of her biggest hit's Mississippi God Damn, "expresses disgust for anti-Black violence, and the false promises of integration. For example, “Mississippi Goddam” lyrics include, “Picket lines, school boy cots, they try to say it’s a communist plot, all I want is equality for my sister my brother my people and me”"(257). It was then that the radios started refusing to play it, and she started losing fans. She was proud of being black, but did not fit the revolutionary women image. "She was aggressive and wanted to expose how messed up the American System is." She told Martin Luther King that she was,"not non violent." Her violence started harming her career. "My mother was Nina Simone 24/7. Thats why it became a problem." Her daughter expresses, during the documentary.