Fight For Your Right To... Trivia Quiz

Answer: Biko

Peter Gabriel's song "Biko" about the atrocities being committed by the apartheid government has also been recorded by Simple Minds, Joan Baez and Paul Simon. As the anti apartheid movement continued to gather international support, the line "You can blow out a candle but you can't blow out a fire" rang true. "Fire In Soweto" was also an anti apartheid song and was recorded by Sonny Okosun.

Answer: Tom Robinson

Although homosexuality was decriminalized in 1967 in the UK, British police were still raiding gay pubs and clubs for no reason ten years later. This and the fact that the newspaper "Gay News" was charged with obscenity for publishing a photo of two men kissing while soft porn magazines were openly on sale at any news outlet prompted Robinson to write this song, protesting the hypocrisy of the situation.

Answer: N.W.A.

NWA truly gave us some of rap's greatest stars. As solo artists, MC Ren's album "Shock of the Hour" went gold, Eazy-E went double platinum with "Eazy-Duz-It", Ice Cube's first seven albums were either gold or platinum and Dr. Dre's album "2001" surpassed his three x platinum debut "The Chronic" by going six x platinum. Dre and Ice Cube are also accomplished actors.

Answer: We Shall Overcome

"We Shall Overcome" was sung to end picketing each day in the American Tobacco Company strike of 1945 according to the Wikipedia entry. It was popularised by Baez and Seeger at folk festivals in the 1960s and continues to be used to this day as a way of bringing attention to injustices.

Answer: Kent State

The National Guard fired 67 rounds in 13 seconds into a group of unarmed protesters, killing four, wounding nine others. As well as the song from CSNY, there was a nationwide student strike of over four million pupils in protest at their actions.

Answer: Woody Guthrie

Guthrie was among the thousands of Dust Bowl refugees that migrated to California and used these experiences to write his "Dust Bowl Ballads" album. "This Land Is Your Land" has been recorded by countless artists in many different languages including Spanish, Welsh and Esperanto. Guthrie is an icon in the folk world and towards the end of his life mentored a young Bob Dylan.

Answer: Vietnam

"War" was written by the Motown duo of Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong and originally recorded by The Temptations on their "Psychedelic Shack" album. People started requesting the song be released as a single so Motown chief Berry Gordy made the decision to re-record it so as not to alienate the conservative fans of The Temptations. Edwin Starr got the gig and took it to number one in Canada and U.S.A. and number three in U.K.. Fifteen years later, as a warning against blindly trusting government, Bruce Springsteen took it into the top ten in U.S.A. and top twenty in U.K..

Answer: Bob Dylan

Dylan's song was about white racism, suggesting that although Beckwith was guilty of murder, he wasn't the only one, as society is equally to blame in the way that poor white people blame poor black people for their situation, rather than blaming the rich white people in government who have let them down. Evers served U.S.A. with distinction in WWII but when he came home, found he still wasn't allowed to vote, so he went to segregated university to study law and with the NAACP organised voter registration and the boycotting of businesses that practiced discrimination.

Answer: Donald Trump

Waters' song, while not exactly dance music, is powerful and contains the lyrics, "Fear, fear drives the mills of modern man, Fear keeps us all in line
Fear of all those foreigners, Fear of all their crimes, Is this the life we really want? , It surely must be so, For this is a democracy and what we all say goes".

Answer: Bruce Springsteen

"American Skin (41 Shots)" has also been performed by Mary J. Blige and Jackson Browne and is about the killing of unarmed student Diallo, who was reaching for his wallet with his I.D. when police opened fire with 41 shots, 19 of which hit him. The four officers were charged with second degree murder and all were acquitted. Ziggy Marley, Wyclef Jean and 88-Keys are among the other artists that have recorded songs about the incident coupled with the racial profiling and police brutality involved.