I was inspired to create this portrait after hearing Kim Nalley’s beautiful and moving rendition of Mississippi Goddam during her performance of the Nina Simone songbook at the Fillmore Fair, San Francisco, in 2005. Kim told the story of how the (mostly white) audience at Carnegie Hall reacted as Simone sung Mississippi Goddamn. Simone started out playful and ended with a scathing attack on racism and appeal for immediate action in securing civil rights for African Americans.

The “Mississippi Goddamn” lyrics include “Alabama got me so sad”, referring to the terrible murder of four young girls in the bombing by white supremicists of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 15th, 1963. Those four girls are represented in this portrait on the left hand side of the painting.

The lyrics also include “and everybody knows about Mississippi goddamn”. At the time this song was first performed there had been a series of brutal murders of civil rights workers, including the murder of Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963. Evers is depicted in this portrait in the upper right corner.

Other imagery in this painting includes photographs taken by Steven Somerstein at the Selma Civil Rights March on March 25th, 1965, depicting both black onlookers and white hecklers.

This painting, along with The Speech, was part of the Transformation exhibit at the BRAVA Theater (see photos below), February, 2009. Another painting based on a Nina Simone song is Feeling Good.

Patrons enjoy the paintings...

Jeremy and Raelle Myrick-Hodges, Artistic Director of BRAVA

While the art exhibit was running, Nefasher Ayer performed at the Brava Theater, shown here after bandleader and lyricist Meklit Hadero invited the audience to join her on stage...

Bassist Marcus Shelby leaves the building...

This painting was also displayed on stage when Kim Nalley performed her Nina Simone songbook at her club Jazz at Pearl’s (shown below, 2008), San Francisco, and at Yoshi’s, Oakland (2008).