"Able to carry on": How Sam Cooke's celebrity and death affected and influenced the Civil Rights Movement
Abstract
Sam Cooke, singer and writer of such songs as "Cupid," "Twistin' the Night Away," and "A Change Is Gonna Come," is widely regarded as one of the instrumental founders of the soul music genre. Figures such as Otis Redding and Al Green who would later expand the genre were heavily influenced by Cooke. But a side of Sam that goes hand in hand with his music was his role in the African-American community in the 1960s and his part in the Civil Rights Movement. Through his unique journey through life and the music industry, his entrepreneurial skills and his untimely death, Sam's persona and music would become deeply important to and emblematic of the struggle for equality and the pursuit for happiness. This project will track Cooke's growth as a man and as a musician and the ways in which he fit into and influenced the American Civil Rights Movement.