Andrea Gibson - Blue Blanket

u-1 ventriloquist dummy

The recorded voice of Virginia Woolf and the sound of words & WORDS

This is the only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf's voice. It is part of a BBC radio broadcast from April 29th, 1937. The talk was called "Craftsmanship" and was part of a series entitled "Words Fail Me".
The audio is accompanied by a slideshow of photographs of Virginia Woolf.

The text was published as an essay in "The Death of the Moth and Other Essays" (1942), and its transcribed, the recorded portion, here:
http://atthisnow.blogspot.com/2009/06...

Transcript:

…Words, English words, are full of echoes, of memories, of associations. They have been out and about, on people's lips, in their houses, in the streets, in the fields, for so many centuries. And that is one of the chief difficulties in writing them today – that they are stored with other meanings, with other memories, and they have contracted so many famous marriages in the past. The splendid word "incarnadine," for example – who can use that without remembering "multitudinous seas"? In the old days, of course, when English was a new language, writers could invent new words and use them. Nowadays it is easy enough to invent new words – they spring to the lips whenever we see a new sight or feel a new sensation – but we cannot use them because the English language is old. You cannot use a brand new word in an old language because of the very obvious yet always mysterious fact that a word is not a single and separate entity, but part of other words. Indeed it is not a word until it is part of a sentence. Words belong to each other, although, of course, only a great poet knows that the word "incarnadine" belongs to "multitudinous seas." To combine new words with old words is fatal to the constitution of the sentence. In order to use new words properly you would have to invent a whole new language; and that, though no doubt we shall come to it, is not at the moment our business. Our business is to see what we can do with the old English language as it is. How can we combine the old words in new orders so that they survive, so that they create beauty, so that they tell the truth? That is the question.

And the person who could answer that question would deserve whatever crown of glory the world has to offer. Think what it would mean if you could teach, or if you could learn the art of writing. Why, every book, every newspaper you'd pick up, would tell the truth, or create beauty. But there is, it would appear, some obstacle in the way, some hindrance to the teaching of words. For though at this moment at least a hundred professors are lecturing on the literature of the past, at least a thousand critics are reviewing the literature of the present, and hundreds upon hundreds of young men and women are passing examinations in English literature with the utmost credit, still – do we write better, do we read better than we read and wrote four hundred years ago when we were un-lectured, un-criticized, untaught? Is our modern Georgian literature a patch on the Elizabethan? Well, where then are we to lay the blame? Not on our professors; not on our reviewers; not on our writers; but on words. It is words that are to blame. They are the wildest, freest, most irresponsible, most un-teachable of all things. Of course, you can catch them and sort them and place them in alphabetical order in dictionaries. But words do not live in dictionaries; they live in the mind. If you want proof of this, consider how often in moments of emotion when we most need words we find none. Yet there is the dictionary; there at our disposal are some half-a-million words all in alphabetical order. But can we use them? No, because words do not live in dictionaries, they live in the mind. Look once more at the dictionary. There beyond a doubt lie plays more splendid than Antony and Cleopatra; poems lovelier than the Ode to a Nightingale; novels beside which Pride and Prejudice or David Copperfield are the crude bunglings of amateurs. It is only a question of finding the right words and putting them in the right order. But we cannot do it because they do not live in dictionaries; they live in the mind. And how do they live in the mind? Variously and strangely, much as human beings live, ranging hither and thither, falling in love, and mating together. It is true that they are much less bound by ceremony and convention than we are. Royal words mate with commoners. English words marry French words, German words, Indian words, Negro words, if they have a fancy. Indeed, the less we enquire into the past of our dear Mother English the better it will be for that lady's reputation. For she has gone a-roving, a-roving fair maid.

Thus to lay down any laws for such irreclaimable vagabonds is worse than useless. A few trifling rules of grammar and spelling is all the constraint we can put on them. All we can say about them, as we peer at them over the edge of that deep, dark and only fitfully illuminated cavern in which they live – the mind – all we can say about them is that they seem to like people to think before they use them, and to feel before they use them, but to think and feel not about them, but about something different. They are highly sensitive, easily made self-conscious. They do not like to have their purity or their impurity discussed. If you start a Society for Pure English, they will show their resentment by starting another for impure English – hence the unnatural violence of much modern speech; it is a protest against the puritans. They are highly democratic, too; they believe that one word is as good as another; uneducated words are as good as educated words, uncultivated words as good as cultivated words, there are no ranks or titles in their society. Nor do they like being lifted out on the point of a pen and examined separately. They hang together, in sentences, paragraphs, sometimes for whole pages at a time. They hate being useful; they hate making money; they hate being lectured about in public. In short, they hate anything that stamps them with one meaning or confines them to one attitude, for it is their nature to change.

Perhaps that is their most striking peculiarity – their need of change. It is because the truth they try to catch is many-sided, and they convey it by being many-sided, flashing first this way, then that. Thus they mean one thing to one person, another thing to another person; they are unintelligible to one generation, plain as a pikestaff to the next. And it is because of this complexity, this power to mean different things to different people, that they survive. Perhaps then one reason why we have no great poet, novelist or critic writing today is that we refuse to allow words their liberty. We pin them down to one meaning, their useful meaning, the meaning which makes us catch the train, the meaning which makes us pass the examination…

delirious hem asks what does a feminist poet look like, and thinking again has some thought too

delirious hem recently called for responses to ...what does a feminist writer look like? click here
This is What a Feminist [Poet] Looks Like: what branch of feminism, model of feminist poetics, feminist icon, or etc. informs your poetry? Or, from which of these does your poetry diverge? Are there particular feminist tactics you employ? Do you consider yourself a feminist in many ways, but don't particularly involve it in the poetry? Feel free to take liberties with the questions! Short, long, essay, manifesto, whatever appeals to you!

I submitted a piece focusing more of what she sounds like...click here.

You asked what does a feminist poet look like?

And I want too say that we are not one. Indeed we are multifarious.

I want to reply to this question of who we are, more by exploring notions of what we are and how that effects our, and my methods. I will attempt to explain this through using quotes from the work of Luce Irigaray and Monique Wittig as they affect my work.

Indeed I am ventriloquizing their notions, here, for you. But lets [us] start from the space of the initial question of 'our look', the being seen. We are both visible and yet invisible , we are a nothing to be seen and this has its disadvantages but many advantages.

Irigaray in the Speculum of the Other Woman talks of this. The idea that a ‘nothing to be seen’… might have some reality, would be intolerable to man.

In this ‘virtual’ space, I am not one

Irigaray speaks of this 'she' indeed 'she' is 'the' whole project,

She, meaning me, and us, does not set herself up as a one, (single) female unit.

”She is not closed up, or around, one single truth or essence. The essence of a truth remains foreign to her. She neither has nor is a being. And she does not oppose a feminine truth to a masculine truth. The female sex takes place by embracing itself, by endlessly sharing and exchanging its lips, its edges, its borders, and their ‘content’, as it ceaselessly becomes other, no stability or essence is proper to her”.

Margaret Atwood in her Handmaiden's Tale relays a joke, that is said at the expense of woman but that instead actually outlines our key strength...

“Women, he said jokingly can't add up.

When I asked him what he meant?

He said, for women, one and one and one and one don’t make four.

What do they make? I said, expecting him to say five or three?

but no,

Just one, and one, and one and one, he said”.

(peels of ironic laughter)

This ability to take on complexities is a diffused space that is full of potential for women, writing, saying, thinking, and busy in being.

Irigaray again....

”It is already getting around - at what rate? In what contexts? In spite of what resistances - that women diffuse themselves according to modalities scarcely compatible with the framework of the ruling symbolic. Which doesn’t happen without causing some turbulence, we might even say whirlwinds, that ought to be reconfined within solid walls of principle, to keep them from spreading to infinity” The Sex Which Is Not One.

Instead we can an actively do take on otherness.

again...Irigaray

”Strictly speaking, one cannot say that 'she' mimics anything, for that would suppose a certain intention, a project, a minimum of consciousness.

She instead, is pure mimicry. Which is always the case for inferior species, of course. Needing to define essences, her function requires that she herself have no definition.”

Speculum of the Other Woman

These notions offer very broad and fecund spaces for feminist writers, poets, and theorists to reclaim voice and re shape knowledge claims of what it is to say.

What of my own methods you ask?

I am engaged in becoming the method of my own methods.

I listen carefully to the sound in language and write it.

I ventriloquize women's voices.

I multiply origins.

Dissociating signification's, I excavate voids, condense givens, ply and weave mannerisms, I embrace interferences and seek out and valorize polyphonies.

I am engaged in confusing genres and neutralizing techniques and media and understand this as a creative and politically creative method.

I am a paradox

Sounding language

… a multitude of multitudes

This is a method that produces notions and writing as scores of possibilities. It weaves possibilities into seemingly authentic calculations, a practice like that of Ada Countess of Lovelace.

It is a method that gives rise to monsters with voices, and monstrous voices.

Wittig, in Les Guerillieres, speaks of this colorful monster as in a permanent state of singing...?

“Somewhere there is a siren. Her green body is covered with scales. Her face is bare. The undersides of her arms are a rosy color. Sometimes she begins to sing.

The women say that of her song nothing is to be heard but a continuous O. That is why this song evokes for them, like everything that recalls the O, the zero, the circle the vulval ring”.

Paraphrasing the boys who wrote A Thousand Plateaus…lets, …Transpierce the mountains instead of scaling them, excavate the land instead of straitening it, or be it, be its voice, bore holes in space instead of keeping it smooth, and closed, turn the earth into Swiss cheese, or milk, our milk of words. Turn the frames of the known, the strictures of grammar, the separations of disciplines into their own gaping holes.

My method through this notion is a call to making these frames and language our creative zero.

Wittig again…”At this stage one must interrupt the calculations and begin again at zero. If one makes no mistake with the calculations, if one jumps with both feet together at just the right moment, one will not fall into the snake pit. If one makes no mistakes in the calculations, if one bends down at just the right moment, one will not be caught in the jaws of the trap. At this stage, one must interrupt the calculations, and begin again at zero”.

zero as a starting and being in point?

a zero plus one

plus one

plus one

Wittig… (and my own work continues her project), urges us to “take time, consider this new species that seeks a new language…” Listening to our own tongues, listening for the it in it.

make an effort to invent it

make an effort

and invent if you have to invention.

Thinking again offered a response click here
.. and then I left a comment saying...

Hi…thank you for raising such thoughtful questions re feminism and feminist practice especially in its relation to theory. And thank you for your delicious list of feminist informed writers, I look forward to reading though it. Re your mention of articulating a feminist poetics…I’d like to add to the discussion the work being done into the ‘said’ gap between practice and theory that is as we speak being filled up with a new type of theory, practice led theory and practice as theory. In this framework the insights and particularities, and the voice of a practice, are considered important and valid material to build and shape new theories and ideas across a wide range of disciplines, indeed it is making disciplines into tranies… (trandisciplinarity frameworks). It’s true some feminist theory is written for the world but some is written for a particular audience in that world. Those who can hear it. Innovative, aware, informed practice is always built for our ‘informed peers’, it always strives to move ahead and often way ahead of the dominant cultural and social frames. This isn’t snobbery or elitism but the way new things come into being through the giving and then receivership in some form. New thoughts, perspectives and means are always coming into being in this way. I am engaged in such a practice informed and creating a theory of sounded-language. I submitted the piece ‘what does a feminist poet sound like’ to the discussion on delirious hem and this is one of my key areas of interest and the core of my experimental work in theory/ literature and art.

Your right, in the past the gap between the poets practice and contemporary theory was considered a non issue, particularly and especially in academic circles. Indeed the connection was a non-event, an invisible gap in knowledge recognition. But artists/writers have always both made and made about ideas, issues, and shaped there works as knowledge claims regardless of their reception. But did we hear them? One of the complication was that the arguments/claims/ insights that privilege some notions over others, occurred within disciplines and institutions. Think the halls of the museum and the annals of art history and the halls of English literature departments etc. As the frame of cultural theory and literary and aesthetic theory has expanded, evolved and deliciously complicated each argument and firmly held belief, the artist/writer now ventriloquizes in words/paint not just the subject but their own inherent voice in a range of open experimental in a wide number of ways, transdisciplinary frameworks. The net being one of them

Before, in the not so distant past, ‘the muse’ was recognized as each one of us, practice be it art, writing, ‘the creative response’, lets call it had long been considered delivered muse-made via some sort of vacuum sealed package, though a magic blend of blessing, appeasement and struggle. The artists intensions to ‘the work’ were to be kept at an odd angle separate from the work itself and appreciation of the work that would follow by the expert, which was primarily considered in terms of its aesthetic value…, think of O’Keefe’s painted petals being ‘appreciated’ as examples of pure form…minimalism, precisionist, flattened picture plane etc, or Gertrude Stein’s work as having been built solely to confound and every now and then flirt the titillating secrets of her sexual life. But the artist’s voice and its strong voice at that, is now necessarily been heard as part of the conversation noting what is of value in culture and important to consider re knowledge frames. This voice is gaining ground now, fighting the good fight at the front, principally in academic circles and in Britain and Australia it has spilt over into shaping/ opening or closing down the funding of departments and institutions. This voice and its recognition is now speaking over the smothering voice of traditional notions within aesthetics that has been engaged too long measuring value in terms of a works evocation, calling up sensations etc. There is now a strong history of focus noting that how to write writing from ‘other’ standpoints is key, the individual voice as the principle factors. Result = new writing and ways or writing saying different things. These works are necessarily fragmented and pull at the notion of authorial voice, common sense and nonsense as they make new senses. Within these liminal works bordering theory/practice there are explorations occurring that are parallel to those explored in the most recent literary and cultural theory indeed some are leading them. New forms are being invented to allow for these innovations and the web is one of the most useful of those tools. This fact that this project is occurring in pockets makes the flow of the web even more appropriate for connection.

Feminist practice and theory has long been interested in overthrowing restrictive/ knowledge claims and in creating the voice to do it. And practice led theory and theory led practice is coming up with new ways of thinking and making that voice and its content. This is just one frame being established within a growing range of innovative theory informed practice by artists/writers who are working away in this area, rubbing out the ‘old boy’ standard. Ficto-critical frameworks and feminine ecriture in relation to practice-led theory are my two favorites…. This ongoing project for voice has and continues to be a long and hard fought for battle, not just for women, but those interested in inclusion of us all, indeed it might well be thought never over, as new voices enter the discussion and are at first always refused by the established order. But it is also one of mischief, and playfulness or gathering and disseminating ideas, or pulling threads together and of stepping back. Within connected communities of thinking, new approaches are critiqued and strengthened. I was glad to be part of the delirious hem forum as yet another example of this.

what does a feminist poet look like?

me playing with ventriloquising ...

Diannel Freakley The Quote Generator

Something... Simply Beautiful for a Wednesday arvo...Queen Latifah & Al Green) -

Links for Women's Experimental Film and Video from Cinenova

Cinenova click here
..."Cinenova is a non-profit organisation dedicated to distributing films and videos made by women. Formed in 1991 from the merger of two feminist distributors, Circles and Cinema of Women, Cinenova provides the means to discover and watch experimental films, narrative feature films, artists film and video, documentary and educational videos.

Through national and international distribution, Cinenova acts as an agency for artists, educators, curators and their audiences. Cinenova is a source of very specific knowledge, a network and cultural community that engages directly with women's film and video work, and with the question of how to make this knowledge more publicly accessible. Cinenova offers an extensive archive and expert advice relating to film and video directed by women, with a practice informed by its history as a key resource in the UK independent film and video distribution sector"

Cinenova' Lovelys Links Follow

LUX: distribution, collection, exhibition, publishing, research in artists' moving image work
http://www.lux.org.uk

Sixpackfilm: Austrian film and video art distributor
http://www.sixpackfilm.com/

Women Make Movies: New York-based non-profit organization established in 1972, to facilitate and promote the production, distribution and exhibition of films/video by and about women
http://www.wmm.com

Sisters in Cinema: a resource guide for and about African American women feature filmmakers.
http://www.sistersincinema.com/

Women and Film in Europe: The working group of the European Coordination of Film Festivals E.E.I.G. . The aim of the group is to 'research the history of women and film in Europe and to make these findings available'. Has extensive database.
http://www.womenfilmnet.org/

BFI ScreenOnline: Women and Film
http://www.screenonline.org.uk

Women in Cinema: a Reference Guide: detailed and discursive site focusing on the history of women in cinema. Includes introductory essay, references, bibliographies, filmographies and sources for film study.
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~pm9k/libsci/womFilm.html

Women in Film and Television - Bibliography Materials: lists various bibliographies of books and articles on subjects relating to women in film and television. Based on material held at the Media Resource centre at UC Berkeley.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/womenbib.html

Women in Film and TV - UK members' organisation: The site provides background information on the organisation, details of its aims, magazine, events and campaigns and WFTV awards and membership.
http://www.wftv.org.uk/home.asp

San Diego Women Film Foundation: Our mission is to educate the public about film, promote women filmmakers and their work, and empower young women through film.
http://sdwff.org/home.html

Women's Studies Database Film Reviews: Part of the University of Maryland Women's Studies website, the database lists reviews by film title. Users can also search alphabetically. Articles are all written by women writers or academics in film and media.
http://www.mith2.umd.edu/WomensStudies/FilmReviews/

Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media - Analyzing media in its social and political context since 1974.
http://www.ejumpcut.org/home.html

Film-Philosophy: Online journal and discussion salon dedicated to serious debate about film. Also includes an extensive list of related links.
http://www.film-philosophy.com/

Film Festivals:

Femme Totale: International Women's Film Festival Dortmund/Cologne
http://www.femmetotale.de/indexe.html

MadCat Women's International Film Festival: MadCat is a highly acclaimed festival that exhibits independent and experimental films and videos directed by women from around the globe. Based in San Francisco.
http://www.madcatfilmfestival.org/

The San Diego Women Film Festival: hosted by the San Diego Women Film Foundation, it promotes women filmmakers of all ages, and empowers young women through the films' positive messages about specific social issues including ethnicity, class, culture, race and gender.
http://sdwff.org/sdwff.html

The Women's Art Library (MAKE): an artist-led slide library developed in order to enhance public knowledge of the practice, impact and achievement of women in visual culture. The library contains published and unpublished written documentation, photographs, posters and videos in addition to a substantial slide collection and artists' files on contemporary and historical women artists. The artists' files contain paper documentation, photographs and slides, postcards, photographs, press cuttings and ephemera, with much of the material donated by women artists. Early feminist art journals held include Feminist Artists Newsletter (UK), Heresies (USA) and Matriart (Canada).
http://make.gold.ac.uk/

The Women's Library: The Women's Library is a cultural centre, housing the most extensive collection of women's history in the UK.
http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/thewomenslibrary/

British Artists' Film and Video Study Collection: Established in 2000, the British Artists' Film and Video Study Collection is a research project led by Senior Research Fellow David Curtis concentrating on the history of artists' film and video in Britain. Welcomes post-graduate researchers, curators, programmers, artists, anyone interested in the academic study of British Artists' Film and Video. Consists of an extensive range of reference materials including video copies of artists' works, still images, historical posters and publicity materials, paper documentation and a publications library. Browsable catalogue online.
http://www.studycollection.co.uk/

BFI National Library: We provide access to a major national research collection of documentation and information on film and television. Our priority is comprehensive coverage of British film and television, but the collection itself is international in scope.
http://www.bfi.org.uk/filmtvinfo/library/

Artists Moving Image Network: The Artists' Moving Image Network supports London-based artists working in moving image in all its forms. We work in partnership with other organisations to provide: funding, events, seminars, advice, surgeries, residencies, training and workshops.
http://amin.filmlondon.org.uk/

Documentary Filmmakers Group London: DFG exists to support and represent the interests of documentary filmmakers across the UK. We focus on offering training, specialised events and screenings, production opportunities as well as acting as a resource for all those interested in the art, craft and process of documentary film and video.
http://www.dfglondon.com

Shooting People: Huge UK and US based independent filmmaker internet network, with over 25,000 members. Daily bulletins covering Filmmaking, Documentary, Animation, Music Videos, Casting, Screen Writing and Script Pitching, and extensive calendar of events.
http://shootingpeople.org/

The GenderChanger Academy: Based in Amsterdam, the Gender Changer Academy is a nonprofit organisation by women for women, its primary goal being to improve women's understanding and skills with regards to computer hardware. To attain this the GCA provides workshops, makes and maintains a website and mailinglist, and distributes a reader. We encourage women to crash computers and to put it all back together again. Preferebly with an improved installation.
http://www.genderchangers.org/boot/index.html

LinuxChix: LinuxChix is a community for women who like Linux, and for women and men who want to support women in computing. The membership ranges from novices to experienced users, and includes professional and amateur programmers, system administrators and technical writers. Joining LinuxChix is easy - just join one of our mailing lists and start participating.
http://www.linuxchix.org/

Production:

Electra: Electra is a London based cross artform agency specializing in fostering projects spanning across sound art, moving image, music and visual arts.
http://www.electra-productions.com/

no.w.here lab: a centre for artist film production run by artist filmmakers Karen Mirza and Brad Butler. Creating a cultural centre for the artist filmmaking community, no.w.here provides public access to a unique set of film facilities at low cost. Also runs a training, exhibition and talks programme.
http://www.nowhere-lab.org/

Film and Video Umbrella: Film and Video Umbrella curates and produces film, video and new media projects by artists which are commissioned and presented in collaboration with galleries and venues across England.
http://www.fvumbrella.com/

Education:

British Universities Film & Video Council and Society for Screen-Based Learning (BUFVC): The BUFVC promotes and supports the use of moving images and related media in UK higher and further education, and the use of moving images in research generally. It achieves this through a variety of services, databases, publications and other activities.
http://www.bufvc.ac.uk/

Slade School of Fine Art: Has a well-respected undergraduate and post-graduate artists' film and moving image programme within its Fine Art department, including instructors such as Jayne Parker and Lis Rhodes.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/homepage.html

SPACE Media Arts: runs a wide variety of digital art courses for artists.
http://www.spacemedia.org.uk

Publications:

Camera Obscura: Journal covering Feminism, Culture and Media Studies. Published 3 times per year. Subscriptions available for web access, or you can purchase single articles from the archive dating back to 2000.
http://cameraobscura.dukejournals.org/

Vertigo Magazine for Worldwide Independent Film and Video:
http://www.vertigomagazine.co.uk/

Mute: Culture and politics after the net.
http://www.metamute.org/

Afterimage: Journal of media and cultural criticism providing a non-commercial formula for the discussion and analysis of photography, independent film and video, multimedia and other related fields.
http://www.vsw.org/afterimage/index.html

Black Filmmaker: BFM magazine is the only filmmaker magazine that exists in the UK catering to black media. The magazine's editorial mix comprises interviews, actors showcase profiles and features on film, television and multi-media.
http://www.bfmmedia.com

Cahiers du Cinema: Website of the legendary French film magazine made famous by the film-makers of the Nouvelle Vague.
http://www.cahiersducinema.com

Filmwaves: Filmwaves is a non-profit making publishing project devoted to filmmaking as well as an opportunity for up-and-coming talents to to present their work.
http://www.filmwaves.co.uk

Journal of Film and History: On-line journal concerned with the impact of motion pictures on society, focusing on how feature films and documentary films both represent and interpret history.
http://www.h-net.org/~filmhis/index.html

Kinokultura: Quarterly on-line journal on all aspects of Russian cinema.
http://www.kinokultura.com/

Midnight Eye: Midnight Eye is a web-based magazine that profiles the latest and best in Japanese Cinema. The site includes an extensive archive of film and book reviews, interviews with Japanese filmmakers, and an international calendar of screenings and DVD releases.
http://www.midnighteye.com/

Millenium Film Journal: Print journal, published since 1978, dealing with independent, experimental, and avant-garde cinema, video, and, more recently, works that use the newer technologies. Site has full archive listing of articles, and link to order back issues.
http://mfj-online.org/

Senses of Cinema: an Australian based online journal with an eclectic approach to film criticism and a large archive of criticism, comment and reviews.
http://www.sensesofcinema.com

The Thinking Eye: English-/Spanish-/Portuguese-language Mexican on-line magazine, covering Latino-American and Spanish cinema.
http://www.elojoquepiensa.udg.mx/ingles/index.html

Wallflower Press: an independent publishing house specializing in Cinema and the Moving Image.
http://www.wallflowerpress.co.uk

Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media - Analyzing media in its social and political context since 1974.
http://www.ejumpcut.org/home.html

Film-Philosophy: Online journal and discussion salon dedicated to serious debate about film. Also includes an extensive list of related links.
http://www.film-philosophy.com/

Mahalia Jackson

We shall overcome--very moving she gets totally saturated with the song, even at the end as she walks from the mic the power of her voice is still overwhelming. This song was a staple of the civil rights movement, Mahalia worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King. She also sang Precious Lord at his funeral in 1968