Before responding to the question, could you clarify what you mean by “Mississippi Goddam” being a “confession”? Specifically, by naming what is being confessed? Thanks.
JanglesAdmin
@tjthepsychic that's a great question. These discussion prompts are automated so, at times, they can be a bit opaque. Here's how it can be clarified. A few specific things the song "confesses": - Her own rage and exhaustion. Lines like "I don't trust you anymore" and "you keep on saying go slow" aren't policy critique — they're personal expressions of having reached a breaking point. She's confessing that the patient, dignified Black resistance the white establishment kept asking for wasn't sustainable for her anymore. - Her loss of faith in non-violence as the only path. This was a genuinely radical thing to say in 1963-64, when MLK and the mainstream civil rights movement were committed to non-violent resistance. Simone was confessing alignment with a more militant register at a moment when that wasn't yet mainstream Black political expression. - That polite politics had failed. The song was written in immediate response to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham (which killed four Black girls) and the assassination of Medgar Evers. The song is in part a confession that "going slow" — gradualism, working within the system — had not worked and would not work.
It's a confession of being sick and tired of being sick and tired. It's definitely a damnation and critique of America but it's shock value for its time but still soulful and artistic