As the United States moved into the 1960s, more Americans became involved with the Civil Rights Movement. Black and white Americans alike across the country organized protests, boycotts, and demonstrations to protest the political and economic injustices Black Americans faced during the time. An important tool of the Civil Rights Movement was folk music. With a rich tradition, folk music was a perfect genre for Americans to use to challenge societal norms and fight for justice with their ordinary voices and acoustic guitars. Many of these protests occurred on college campuses, like the University of Maryland. Folk music was used by UMD students to further the Civil Rights Movement on campus by building community and amplify their progressive messages.
UMD’s Experience with Folk Music
As folk music gained popularity in the early 1960s, it became apparent that the University of Maryland accepted it into campus culture. In 1963, the WMUC campus radio station announced the addition of a “Folk Music Hour” to its historically rock-focused radio show lineup.1 Along with this came a wave of folk performances on campus, like Gary and Bart joining the JFK Quintet in 1963, Peter Paul and Mary in both 1963 and 1964, Womenfolk in 1965, and a massive televised “Hootenanny” performance in 1964 that featured a huge amount of contemporary talent.2 The attraction of all this talent was for good reason; attention towards anything “folk” was clearly exploding in every facet of life. Advertisements appeared in The Diamondback for folk instruments and festivals, while students put on makeshift folk concerts called “hootenannies” by just showing up with friends and a guitar.3 These hootenannies were popularized by Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, who discovered the custom from trade unions while on tour in Washington. The name “hootenanny,” much like the colloquial “whatyoumaycallit,” had no inherent meaning but was adapted by the community to describe a gathering of folk culture.4
In the 1960s, folk music started to become normalized on campus and held various folk concerts.
Sorority and fraternity events also started incorporating hootenanny culture into their lifestyle. A group performed folk at Kappa Alpha Theta’s kite-flying competition and members of Sigma Delta Tau were shown in the 1965 yearbook with the quote “WE DON’T give a ‘hoot’ whether this is a dry campus or not!”5 This use of folk music for protest was not an isolated event, as it became apparent that the genre coincided with a big shift in campus culture. At the same time as the “Folk Music Hour” was added to the WMUC lineup, the organization doubled the amount of news coverage included on their channel.6 The parallel increase of news coverage and folk music on campus demonstrates a link between those two changes as well as a development in political attitude in students.
Folk Music’s Impact on Students
Folk music was intentionally simple, featuring straightforward chords, familiar lyrics, and spoken lines for people who could not read music.7 In a cultural climate that the youth saw as manufactured, folk music’s value of simplicity was appealing.8 This was important during a time of protest and activism, as casting a wide net was crucial for building coalitions.
Excerpts from: Songs for the Southern Freedom Movement: We Shall Overcome! (1963), The People’s Song Book (c1961), Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Songs of The Freedom Movement (1968), and Songs for Peace (1966), Oak Publications.
Folk music is excellent at creating community, as it unites people with shared tradition. Folk music is very “American,” so people perceive it as a nostalgic deep-dive into their history. People have historically felt connected through the geographic bounds they share, making national identity a powerful unifier. The lyrics of one song in The People’s Songbook were entirely lifted from a speech by Abraham Lincoln, a figure that every American has in common. 9 By doing this, the genre connects Americans to their roots, reminding them that their differences pale in comparison to their shared heritage.10 Folk music allows people to focus on similarities, and build coalitions across all demographics. As Pete Seeger wrote in The American Folk Scene: Dimensions Of The Folksong Revival, “How many town dwellers have learned a bit about a rougher outdoor life from songs created by men with calloused hands? Old can learn about young; men about women.”11 With a wide range of perspectives in the music, two people can connect with only the kinship of the music they sing. This can be seen with the friendship of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Coming from very different classes and backgrounds did not stop them from becoming good enough friends that Seeger wrote the forward to Guthrie’s autobiography. 12 With folk music’s ability to unite people, regardless of their backgrounds, hootenannies became community organizing events and folk songs became doctrines, bringing any assortment of people together to fight for what they believe in.
“An ABC Hootenanny”, Terrapin, 1964
These hootenannies especially demonstrated the community-building nature of folk music by prioritizing the group over the individual. While concerts typically involve seeing a larger-than-life figure standing above the crowd on a stage, hootenannies gave an opportunity for UMD students to play with their peers. The 1964 Hootenanny festival at UMD adhered to these ideals, as massive talents like The Chad Mitchell Trio, the Modern Folk Quartet, Johnny Cash, Carolyn Hester, the Serendipity Singers, Vaughn Meter, Brock Peters, Joan Tolliver, and the Village Stompers performed beneath the crowd, seeming to be more a part of the audience than above them.13 These shifts pointed to an increase in egalitarian thinking at UMD, focusing less on idolizing these “important” figures and more on the community. The Hootenanny festival also came with controversy, with ABC barring the incredibly prominent Pete Seeger, credited with spreading Hootenannies, from performing in the series because he refused to sign an oath rejecting communism, despite the fact that the practice of hootenannies originated from unions.14
Along with its simplicity and capability for community-building, another great impact of folk music came from its functional role as a medium for political messaging. These were not just songs for entertainment, they were “participation songs, mass-singing and mass-action songs.”15 This function is evident in songs like “Hallelujah, I’m a-travelin’,” which was written by a Black farmer during the Columbia, Tennessee trials, and served as a direct protest against segregation with lyrics like, “I hate Jim Crow and Jim Crow hates me, And that’s why I’m fighting for my liberty.”16 Similarly, “Roll the Union On,” provided activists with lyrics that could be directed at any obstacle.17 The adaptive nature of these songs allowed activists to tailor their message for maximum impact, “often [being] adapted to new situations and new verses ad-libbed on the spot.” 18 Anthems like “We Shall Overcome,” a repurposed church song, became a famous protest anthem that created palpable power and unified movements by strengthening group solidarity.19 By using simple, adaptable music to carry powerful political messages, this functional use transformed folk songs into essential political tools for challenging authority and organizing social change.20
Student Activists vs The University
By the early 1960s, the same folk songs that had filled UMD’s hootenannies and WMUC’s “Folk Music Hour” began to echo at protests outside the UMD Administration Building. Fueled by messages from artists like Pete Seeger, students transformed music into action. They challenged nearby restaurants in 1960 about refusing service to Black people, and collaborated with campus political groups like the Student Democratic Society (SDS).21 These efforts soon brought students into direct conflict with the university administration. Petitions, sit-ins, and even arrests revealed not just a growing generational divide, but a power struggle between students demanding justice and administrators seeking to maintain control.22
Much of this early organizing came from student-led political groups that aimed to challenge segregation beyond the classroom. These groups included the Young Democratic Club, the Student Democratic Society (SDS), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), often with support from community organizations like Prince George’s (PG) County CORE. Students also frequently took their activism off campus. In May 1960, the Young Democratic Club collected signatures urging the manager of a chain restaurant in Maryland and Virginia to reconsider his refusal to serve Black patrons.23 CORE members soon followed their lead, and in November 1962, PG County CORE members joined students on campus to protest the lack of housing for Black students. Holding signs that read “Equal Housing for Negro Students” and “Break the Chains Against Prejudice,” they walked the campus perimeter to spread their message.24 Many students participated in multiple groups, fully aware of the risks involved. Richard Ochs, a UMD student and active member of PG County CORE, was arrested along with sixteen others during a restaurant sit-in near the State Capitol.25
Excerpts from Aaron, Letter and Petition to Wilson H. Elkins, May 13, 1968, and Elkins, H. Wilson. Letter to CORE. May 23, 1968, SCUA.
Students also directed their efforts toward the university itself, focusing on changing campus policies. The SDS protested a race question on the admissions form by writing to The Diamondback, disagreeing with the school’s justification for including it.26 Students consistently sent letters and petitions to President Wilson H. Elkins on a variety of issues.27 One petition from UMD’s CORE chapter, signed by 174 members across eight departments, demanded “complete equality of opportunity for Black people.”28 Elkins’s responses varied, acknowledging petitions while rejecting proposals for courses exclusively on “the culture of the Negro,” yet affirming efforts to recruit Black professors, athletes and students in general.29 Collectively these efforts presented UMD’s student community as unified, proving their passion towards ending segregation.
“A New Day,” in Songs for Peace, (1966), 5
“We Shall Overcome,” in Songs for the Southern Freedom Movement:
We Shall Overcome!, (1963), 11
The folk songs that spread across campus during this time were not just for entertainment but carried inspiring messages that connected students to national movements for peace and equality. They reflected a growing awareness of how music could be utilized in activism. As shown in the 1968 folk music songbook Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Songs of the Freedom Movement, music was a crucial tool for unity and strength within the Civil Rights Movement. 30 The lyrics within the songbook often emphasized endurance and a collective strength, with call-and-response patterns like “Do you want your freedom? / oh yes.”31 Songs for Peace highlighted protest songs that blend personal conviction with moral responsibility, using hopeful phrases such as “A new day soon to be / When the storm clouds are all past / And the sun shines on a world that’s / free,” to inspire faith and remind listeners that freedom was a collective goal.32 The simple melodies, with repetition and predictable patterns, in the songbook were an invitation for everyone to join in and turn audiences into participants. Similarly, in another 1963 folk songbook entitled Songs for the Southern Freedom Movement: We Shall Overcome!, the steady repetition and simplicity in many of the lyrics reinforced unity and persistence during moments of fear. In the song “We Shall Overcome,” artists turned a simple phrase into a declaration, making the song the “unofficial theme song for the freedom struggle in the South” because of the power and emotion it generated when being sung by a crowd.33 When students at UMD sang these songs in protest, their voices became part of a nationwide chorus for justice, transforming emotion into action and uniting campus activism with the greater Civil Rights Movement.
These persistent actions ultimately produced tangible change. President Elkins gradually committed to reducing discrimination in staff hiring, athletics, and academics. Under his leadership, an African American Studies minor was established in August 1969, despite his earlier reluctance to approve exclusively Black-focused courses.34 The same folk artists who had inspired students at hootenannies served as the soundtrack for activism, turning music into a unifying force that energized campus efforts. These songs acted as signs that connected sound with shared emotion and meaning, connecting students together through the musical experience.35 Folk melodies echoed church hymns and civil rights anthems, evoking memories of unity and struggle that strengthened students’ collective determination.36 Beyond policy changes, this activism marked a symbolic victory, granting UMD students their own spot during the Civil Rights Movement and demonstrating the power of younger generations to challenge systems of power. By combining on-campus advocacy, off-campus involvement, and collaboration with groups like CORE, students revealed a clear generational and institutional power struggle while planting the seeds for future activism at UMD.
Folk Music in Current Times
In our modern age, folk music has long served as a powerful tool for social activism and progressive change. Historically, it played a crucial role in uniting Americans during the Civil Rights Movement. However, today it is rarely used as a collective voice, partly due to the commercialization of the music industry and the dominance of other genres like pop music. For instance, artists like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie once used folk music as a protest tool, but now people turn to pop, rap, or even social platforms to express political messages. As our nation and others continue to grapple with growing political polarization and exclusionary policies, it remains vital that people continue to advocate for equality and unity. Folk music has long provided a means to do so, bridging divides and amplifying voices. As we move further into the twenty-first century, we must carry forward the spirit of the American Folk Revival, using music once again to spark collective action and reignite compassion.
Bibliography
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Allen, Ira. “Black Studies Available” The Diamondback. September 10, 1969. Digital Collections, University of Maryland Libraries. https://digital.lib.umd.edu/student-newspapers-old/id/fba456a6-2f81-48c0-b61d-ba3cf11e62d0?relpath=pcdm&query=Black%20studies%20available.
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Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso Books, 2016.
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Brandfon, Fred. “The History Boy: Innocence and History in the Life and Music of Pete Seeger.” The American Poetry Review 43, no. 5 (September/October 2014): 43–46.
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Cain, Michael Scott. “The Music of the People.” In Folk Music and the New Left in the Sixties, 91–98. McFarland, 2019.
Kaemmer, John. Music in Human Life. University of Texas, 1993.
Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Translated by Ben Fowkes. New Left Review, 1976.
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Additional Sources
Groce, Nancy. “Coffeehouses: Folk Music, Culture, and Counterculture” Opening Remarks. (Forum, Library of Congress, April 2024). Posted by Stephen Winick to Folklife Today: American Folklife Center & Veterans History Project. Library of Congress. April 17, 2014. Accessed November, 2025. https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/.