Amichai’s Top 50/24. Glory

“Freedom is like religion to us”

“Glory” was released in 2014 as the soundtrack of the movie “Selma’ and won the Oscars for best song. Created by Common, John Legend and Rhymefest it’s about what happened in 1965 during the Selma to Montgomery marches but it’s about the continued systemic oppression and racism right here right now — and what the future without it will look like. And it will. Because we must. That’s where the vision of glory comes in, critical, motivated by the deepest faith in the arc of justice bending up.

I wasn’t born in the USA. Grew up reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin (in Hebrew) and only after getting to NYC in the late 90’s slowly starting to understand the grand historical and current scope of cruelty and courage, the slow trajectory of transformation and the deeply rooted racism that I and so many of us, too many of us, nursed with our mothers’ milk. Glory makes me weep, still, as a reminder of the work left to do, the visions of Dr. King and so many other visionaries still alive to raise the bar on dignity and justice, fighting white supremacy, now more than ever, and never losing hope. In this together. #Blacklivesmatter.

– Amichai

Amichai’s Top 50: Soundtrack of my life. 4/20-6-8 2019/Passover-Shavuot 5779

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