A Song For Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, here is one of my favorite covers of Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come" from Gavin DeGraw's Chariot (Stripped re-release).  This song reminds me that equality is something we all have to continue to strive for everyday.  For equality to exist, there must exist in each of us, a belief that our individual betterment is inexorably linked to one another, and only when all of our situations improve, will we make collective progress.

While it might offend some for a white man to sing a song so specifically written to express the black struggle for civil rights, remember that Sam Cooke was, in part, influenced to write the song after hearing Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" which he felt (to paraphrase biographer Peter Guralnick) "was something he should of, as a black man, written".  Sam was also influenced by "conversations with sit-in demonstrators in North Carolina in the spring of 1963" and (most likely) an incident at a hotel in Shreveport, Louisiana a few weeks prior to writing the song, when he was refused lodging at a hotel because of his race.  

Check out a biography of Sam Cooke's life and music over at American Routes.