Black women’s green blues: songs as black women’s environmental expression and engagement in keeping a black feminist tradition

Black women often use music as art and activism to create and engage in discourse about their life conditions and experiences, yet this discourse is often marginalized in mainstream conversations and/or dominated by men’s standpoint (Collins, 2000). Music genres such as hip hop, rap, blues and country provide evidence of this (Davis, 1998; Turner-Williams, 2024; Smith, 2024). This circumstance isn’t different in songs about environmental conditions, of which most accounts are whitewashed and may feature a few Black men, but either one or no Black women (Hewins, 2023; Fountain, 2018). This version of environmental history, engagement and activism in the United States (U.S.) alludes to an incomplete, yet prevailing notion that Black people, and therefore Black women are not interested in issues related to the environment (Taylor, 1989; Kreger, 1973; Kellert, 1984). A closer look at Black women’s studies and history, however, offers us a different view.

There are several ways to view an environment and specific distinctions should be made, yet at times are not. For U.S. Black women, specificity between concern for the built and social environments compared to the natural, nonhuman and ecological environments are particularly important (Krauss, 1993). While there is a demonstrated engagement in all types of environments, previous studies of which this conclusion was drawn tended to focus on the natural, nonhuman and ecological environments (Taylor, 1989; Kreger, 1973; Kellert, 1984). Criticisms of this including small sample sizes and questionable statistical methods, have been articulated elsewhere, but it should be emphasized that Black women have always been engaged in built and social environmental issues despite a complex relationship, particularly with the land, which few studies make mention of (Taylor, 1989). Oppressive structures and systems like enslavement, sharecropping and land theft and concern for more personal, immediate threats—among other experiences pose challenges to this relationship (Taylor, 1989; Krauss, 1993; Rainey and Johnson, 2009; Wright, 2021). Yet, in spite of these complications, Black women have organized for several environmental issues ranging from housing rights and access to public spaces to disaster response, but are ofttimes relegated to footnotes or complete erasure (Taylor, 2000; Gilmore, 1996; Smith, 1995; Parks and Hernandez, 2016; Krauss, 1993; Riley, 2003).

This incomplete finding limited the possibility of looking at other sites for Black women’s environmental expression and engagement, such as through song, which is part of U.S. Black feminist thought’s Black women’s blues tradition. This paper aims to demonstrate that analyzing and interpreting songs through Black feminist thought’s matrix of domination is a viable strategy to understand and highlight U.S. Black women’s environmental expression and engagement. Additionally, through this oral expression and engagement, it is evidenced that the Black women’s blues tradition was kept.

Black feminist thought (BFT), articulated by Patricia Hill Collins, is a critical social theory that “consists of specialized knowledge created by African-American women which clarifies a standpoint of and for Black women” (Collins, 2000). It is grounded in sociological research, yet is interdisciplinary in its approach to exploring the lives of U.S. Black women. Black feminist thought centers U.S. Black women in their own stories from their standpoints by recognizing the interlocking oppressions faced by Black women such as race, gender and class (Combahee River Collective, 1978; Crenshaw, 1989, 1991; Collins, 2000). Diversity among Black women may also contribute to further oppression due to sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, age, citizenship status, etc. (Combahee River Collective, 1978; Crenshaw, 1991; Collins, 2000). BFT recognizes (1) Black women’s standpoint (lived experience) as fact, (2) the historical legacy of oppression faced by Black women and (3) Black women’s responses to systems of oppression (Collins, 2000).

Black feminist thought’s matrix of domination (MOD) consists of sites of domination and resistance for Black women and is structured along the axes of race, class and gender primarily. It occurs within four domains of power: structural, disciplinary, hegemonic and interpersonal (Collins, 2000). The structural domain of power organizes societal oppression in large scale social institutions to reproduce the subordination of Black women, usually through policies and procedures of the legal system (Collins, 2000). The disciplinary domain of power focuses on managing oppression via the organizational practices of social institutions, such as bureaucracy, to control and surveille populations (Collins, 2000). The hegemonic domain of power seeks to justify practices in the domain of power by promulgating the ideas, culture and consciousness of the dominant group and serves as the link between all other domains of power (Collins, 2000). Lastly, the interpersonal domain of power operates on the micro-level of social organization through treatment of Black women in the routine, everyday interactions between individuals (Collins, 2000). Sites of domination for Black women are ubiquitous such as in schools, the media and popular culture, but there are also sites of resistance like church, community organizations and literature (Collins, 2000). At these sites of resistance, Black women are able to develop and discuss their own self-definitions (Collins, 2000). An additional site of resistance is through music and blues specifically.

Music has been a readily accessible avenue for Black women to express themselves unadulteratedly. Blues specifically, is a Black secular folk music, descended from work songs and Negro spirituals sung by those that were enslaved as they worked, churched and resisted (Baraka, 1963). Characteristics of blues descends from West Africa, evidenced by its use of “call and response” and improvisation of the song leader, use of folk tales and storytelling and playing of the banjo (Baraka, 1963). Blues expressed the individual trials and triumphs in life of Black folks, because of their identities as Black Americans, by critiquing the social landscape of America while communing with and commiserating the experiences of the collective (Baraka, 1963; Collins, 2000). Blues is a living embodiment of the times and regarded as historical documentation (Thomas, 1990). The art form was accessible to all Black folks, especially the working class, as it was considered “lowly” and “unsophisticated” among the Black middle class and White people (Rabaka, 2012; Baraka, 1963). Yet, in spite of these categorizations, it was Black women blues singers who broke the mold and were the first to professionally record blues records, with Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues” selling 75,000 copies in the first month (Davis, 1998). Other Black women blues singers soon followed such as Ethel Waters, Sippie Wallace, Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey in addition to many more well-known women and many lesser so (Davis, 1998). They were so influential in their singing and performance style that they altered the course of popular music, particularly Smith (Danaher, 2005). These women captured the everyday, taken for granted experiences of Black women’s lives and readily explored, and often defined in new ways, themes of love, sex and sexuality (Russell, 1982; Davis, 1998; Collins, 2000).

Through this expression and engagement of various themes of life, Black women blues singers were able to use blues as a site of expression of their self-definition and as a site of resistance to social realities (Collins, 2000). This birthed the Black women’s blues tradition and by doing so, kept an existing Black feminist tradition ongoing. By providing a location for Black women to find and define their voice, recognition of Black women as agents of knowledge through creative, survival means and sharing their lived experience with interlocking oppressions within the systems of domination, Blue women blues singers pioneered and made mainstream, an expression of liberatory Black womanhood (Russell, 1982; Davis, 1998; Collins, 2000). They were conceptualizing and circulating new visions and possibilities of self-determination, resistance and freedom for Black women–in sex, in love, in finances and in life. However, Black women were later marginalized in blues, a genre they popularized, as male country blues grew into prominence (Davis, 1998). Moreover, as blues birthed other genres of music such as country, jazz, rhythm and blues, rock, soul, funk, rap and r&b, and often goes uncredited for its creation, so do the contributions of Black women, not only in music, but in society as well (Rabaka, 2012; PBS, n.d.). There were also the careers that Black women blues singers helped to propel into prominence, oftentimes via exploitation such as that of the Black women in Parchman Prison in the 1930s (Shankar, 2013). David Cohn is one example, who used Black women’s prison music to launch a highly-regarded literary career without proper attribution to these women and by playing into racist and sexist stereotypes and tropes (Shankar, 2013). His work is now featured in a special collection at the University of Mississippi Library (Shankar, 2013). Nonetheless, scholars such as Davis (1998), Carby (1999), Danaher (2005), Rabaka (2012) and Brooks (2021) have worked to recognize the role and contributions of Black women in blues by rightfully declaring them as intellectuals, “architects of modern sonic culture” and cultural producers.

Environmental themes have long been present in music such as Negro spirituals with songs like “Wade in the Water” and “Go in the Wilderness” (Parker, 2023). Often, these songs use natural imagery and personification of the natural world to tell the story of survival and resistance (Lopez, 2022; Fountain, 2023). The blues genre is no different regarding environmental themes present in the music, with the emergence of “flood blues”, “an all-purpose generic blues on the flood theme” (Mizelle, 2014). Examples of flood blues include “When the Levee Breaks” by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy, “Greenville Levee Blues” by Alice Pearson and “Muddy Waters (A Mississippi Moan)” by Bessie Smith. Generally lacking first-hand experience, blues artists sometimes sang about environmental experiences from their lens, but mainly as a way to convey the experiences of others (DenÉve, 2021). A myriad of environmental themes occur in the music, for example, along the physical environment dimension themes such as disasters, displacement and work conditions are highlighted. Along the social environment dimension, themes of violence, poverty and oppression are expressed. Thomas (1990) describes mobility as “a major motif of the blues” where blues singers described leaving a place because of disappointment and despair in life or hopes of prosperity someplace new. The aforementioned Black women of Parchman Prison described several themes in their blues music, but in particular, their living and working environment in prison in the Mississippi Delta (Shankar, 2013). Still, rarely are blues songs explored from an environmental and Black feminist standpoint.

This paper aims to build on existing lyrical analysis of blues songs by focusing on environmental themes from a Black feminist standpoint. To do so, a sample of the lyrics of a popular blues song “Backwater Blues” by Bessie Smith, which details the experience of a Black girl during a flood, will be analyzed while situating the song within the sociopolitical context that shaped and engendered the disaster response, or lack thereof. The song is commonly associated with the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, which is categorized as one of the worst floods in American history, having impacted several states (Mizelle, 2014; DenÉve, 2021). A greater overview of the flood will be detailed later.

Backwater Blues is prevalent in musical and environmental research, however it is rarely analyzed from a racial-gender perspective, providing an opportunity to explore environmental themes in a prominent blues songs from a Black feminist standpoint. To perform the analysis, Black feminist thought’s matrix of domination (MOD) is employed as an analytical framework to understand how Smith engaged with and expressed environmental themes as a Black woman. The MOD has four domains of power: structural, disciplinary, hegemonic and interpersonal, through which the sample lyrics of Backwater Blues are analyzed for alignment within those specific domains of power. By demonstrating the alignment of the lyrics with a domain of power from Black feminist thought’s matrix of domination, I argue that: (1) the MOD is viable as an analytical framework, (2) Black women have been and are engaged in issues related to the environment, as expressed through song and (3) this environmental expression and engagement from a Black women’s standpoint, keeps the Black women’s blues tradition.

Bessie Smith’s (1927) Backwater Blues rendered an emotive, self-defined and expressed account of an experience with a flood that predominantly impacted Black folks (Evans, 2007). By Smith (1927) detailing her individual experience through the use of “I” and “a” in her lyrics, she concurrently described the collective’s feelings and encounter with the flood. In doing so, she kept the Black women’s blues tradition through her very rendition of Backwater Blues because she expertly individualized the event while still expressing the group’s perspective.

This highly popular “flood blues” song is commonly associated with the fatal flood of the Mississippi River in 1927, yet it is said to have been written and recorded about the Cumberland River Flood of 1926, a tributary of the Mississippi River (Evans, 2007; Lopez, 2022). This flood began on Christmas Day and lasted for five days, displacing an estimated 10,000 folks with damages of more than $2m (National Weather Service, n.d.a; Evans, 2007). As a result of this flooding, the Mississippi River swelled, then overflowed, eventually destroying the “levees only” policy spearheaded by the United States Army Corps of Engineers for the Southern United States (Mizelle, 2014). With the destruction of the levees came the destruction of lives across the South. In total, there were billions of dollars in damages across seven states, millions displaced and a death toll of an estimated 200 people, although African Americans were projected to be undercounted (Mizelle, 2014). This disaster directly led to environmental policy changes with the passage of the 1928 Flood Control Act and added another reason for U.S. Southern Black folks to migrate north, as they’d already begun to do for better job prospects (Mizelle, 2014; DenÉve, 2021; Carby, 1999). Since this song is most commonly associated with the Great Mississippi River flooding event and the events of the Cumberland River Flood engendered the Mississippi Flood, I will base the interpretation around the facts of the Mississippi Flood.

In the second verse of Backwater Blues, Smith (1927) sings:

Here, she directly addresses the physical environment by detailing the growing severity of the flood. Her lyrics state “I woke up this mornin’, can’t even get out of my door”, effectively saying that after five days, the flooding was so intense that she could not physically leave her home on her own. Data supports this assertion as a wall of water, 130 feet high and ¾ of a mile long, flooded the Delta Region of the U.S. in April of 1927 (DenÉve, 2021). Smith goes on to intone “there’s enough trouble to make a poor girl wonder where she wanna go.” Considering the marketing of the song featured a Black woman in a boat, it is fair to say Smith is acknowledging the restraints placed on her by being poor, a girl and Black which limits her options of relocation (Evans, 2007). Additionally, the “trouble” can be interpreted literally, as in the physical danger due to the flood or through the impending “trouble” that could stem from her poverty status and uncertainty around housing options, compounding her current circumstances.

The experiences accounted for in Smith’s oral expression sit within a larger framework, BFT’s matrix of domination. She acknowledges the structural domain of power at play, which focused on organizing Black women’s subordination, by giving voice to not being able to evacuate her home and that her social identities, being Black, poor and a girl factor into that (Collins, 2000). Smith illuminates the housing patterns and how its effects relegated Black folks to disaster-prone areas such as the lowlands, which increased their flood risk (Evans, 2007; DenÉve, 2021). 95% of the Mississippi Deltas Black workforce worked in agriculture as sharecroppers and thus had limited financial means and housing options at the time (Spencer, 1994). Many of the population stayed in poorly-built and insulated housing (DenÉve, 2021). Maintaining economic subjugation and exploitation and relegating Black folks to the lowlands induced the massive number of Black folks displaced as a result of the flood. An estimated 555,000 of the 608,000 folks who lost their homes were Black (Spencer, 1994). This had far reaching effects as the relief camps constructed by the Red Cross for those displaced, were run by Southern white folks, creating (another) storm of racism, abuse and mistreatment (Spencer, 1994). When the Red Cross abandoned those displaced, the Southern white planters who employed many of the Black folks in the camp, collaborated with local white elites to hold those in camps hostage so they would not flee to the North (Spencer, 1994). This would have effectively decimated the planter’s workforce, their business and most likely the local economy. The relief camps were not in fact a place of relief, but strife, stress and abuse. White planters would not let the Black folks leave, would not allow others to employ them elsewhere, denied them food and not to mention enclosing them in poor environmental public conditions (Mizelle, 2014) Additionally, some folks were hurt, and even killed while in these camps (Spencer, 1994). These accounts during and after the flood demonstrate how the structural domain of power works. The institutions–like the Red Cross, organized the relief camps and allowed racism to run rampant under their watchful eye. At the core of this was economic subordination of Black Delta folks so they could continue to be exploited. Black survivors of the flood were also exploited politically as Hebert Hoover promised to distribute land to the Black survivors/leadership once he ascended to presidency if the Black commission provided a favorable report of the camp’s conditions (National Weather Service, n.d.b). He did not stick to his promises (National Weather Service, n.d.b).

Verse 3 goes:

Narrating a theme prevalent in blues and Black life – disaster displacement, Smith (1927) serenades “then they rowed a little boat about five miles ‘cross the pond”, explicitly discussing flood rescue and evacuation. To contextualize, during the disaster evacuation experience, Herbert Hoover, was appointed lead of disaster rescue and relief efforts (National Weather Service, n.d.b). A fleet of boats were coordinated to rescue ∼330,000 folks from their rooftops and other high places (National Weather Service, n.d.b). Many Black folks were left stranded on secure levee structures in areas like Greenville, MS (National Weather Service, n.d.b). However, as Bessie eloquently relays, she was one of the ones rescued and able to bring her belongings in the moment, an action others may not be able to perform during disaster events.

Smith expertly describes the disciplinary domain of power in the MOD. The disciplinary domain of power manages power relations through bureaucratic hierarchies and surveillance (Collins, 2000). In verse 1 of the lyrics, available in  Appendix, Smith (1927) says “when it rained five days, and the sky turned dark as night”, providing additional context that the rescue effort was delayed as in the next verse she says, “I woke up this mornin’, can’t even get out of my door”, followed by verse 3’s, “then they rowed a little boat about five miles ‘cross the pond.” By the time the “little boat” had come, the flood waters were so widespread that she could not get out of her front door to evacuate and rescuers had to cross five miles of water to get to her. This is how the disciplinary domain of power functions, not through explicitly racist and/or sexist policies, but in how organizations are run. Why did it take so long? There was advanced notice that the Mississippi Delta was not just at risk of flooding, but was sure to flood as levees in connected parts of Mississippi had already broken (DenÉve, 2021). Why were efforts not taken to prevent the impact on life? Or more pointedly, why was the impact on this life not prevented? The disciplinary power domain reveals who is deemed worthy and worthless by the bureaucratic function of organizations. The organization, in this case – the federal, state and local government and its bureaucratic actors – those actually conducting the rescue, exercised their power in deciding who receives priority for rescue by delaying the rescue of Smith. Furthermore, through additional historical context, this same exercising of power was shown by the abandonment of those ∼330,000, mostly African American individuals (National Weather Service, n.d.b). Another implicit example of the disciplinary domain of power at work is Smith’s description of a “little boat.” While acknowledging that the rescue efforts understandably sent the transportation they had, it also has to be highlighted that this lack of preparation, a reflection of how this organization was run, did not have the boat capacity to rescue the large number of people they knew were at risk in a timely fashion. Therefore, they again, had the power to determine who could and could not be saved and they exercised it.

There are several limitations to this work. Although the goal was to demonstrate the viability of using Black feminist thought’s matrix of domination as an analytical framework, the paper could have been strengthened by utilizing a methodological approach to analysis. Future work could incorporate approaches such as content analysis to create a more robust interpretation. The paper utilizes Black feminist thought and its matrix of domination as the theoretical and analytical framework, but incorporating other bodies of work such as black geographies  (McKittrick and Woods, 2007) could enhance the theoretical understanding and conceptualization of place. Relatedly, taking a more “place-based” approach would apply for deeper interrogation of the local and regional differences in framing and communication of experiences, particularly in the subgenres of blues such as Mississippi Delta blues, Chicago blues, etc. Lastly, whilst, I adhered to Black feminist thought and its matrix of domination, the analysis provided here is a result of subjective interpretation.

This essay aimed to highlight and analyze a popular blues song, Bessie Smith’s (1927) Backwater Blues, for environmental themes using Black feminist thought’s matrix of domination, the first of my knowledge to do so. The aim was to demonstrate the viability of this strategy as a way to deepen our understanding that: (1) Black women have always been engaged in issues of the environment, (2) utilizing Black feminist thought and its matrix of domination as an analytical framework is beneficial to deepen analyses by examining societal power dynamics and situating them in their historical context and (3) songs like Smith’s are valid sources of creative and historical documentation that can engender an interdisciplinary conceptualization, exploration and analysis of environmental and disaster themes. Consequently, it was evidenced how Smith (1927) kept the Black women’s blues tradition through her very rendition of Backwater Blues because she expertly individualized the event while still expressing the group’s perspective.

Just as importantly, this work builds on the legacy of other scholars such as Davis, Carby, Shankar, Rabaka and Brooks while expanding it to consider environmental themes and through the use of the matrix of domination as an analytical framework. Similar to the works of these scholars and so many others, our goal is to demonstrate, acclaim and reclaim Black women blues singers as intellectuals, cultural producers and pioneers.

There are many implications of this work, of which only a few will be highlighted. Firstly, incorporating Black feminist thought and other standpoint epistemologies into teaching, research and practice in fields such as disaster science and management, environmental health, public health, geography, etc. increases the breadth and depth of knowledge, practice and experience. Black feminist thought is unique in that it is both theory and praxis and flexible in its application. Teaching Black feminist thought and creating opportunities to apply and embody it can lead to innovation and innovation to impact in research and practice. Emphasis is placed on embody because too often, BFT is intellectualized in academic and practical spaces, yet does not translate to the real life actions of those who perform the intellectualization, particularly in the treatment of Black women. The reflexive, self-critique required by BFT is intended to help with this. As various fields of study strive to become more equitable, this must include valuing the knowledge and perspectives of those who experience multiple oppressions and interrogating the root causes of this oppression – even within their own fields and practices. This is especially true for those who engage in community-based work with environmental justice and other social movement organizations. The knowledge and practice of these organizations may not fit into the “neat, well-established” boxes validated by our fields, but should be regarded as valuable all the same. The solutions to longstanding issues depend on it.

Secondly, incorporating nontraditional methods such as songs as a tool for learning can assist in connecting the material to students, generating “geographical” or “place-based” thinking and inspire critical and creative inquiry that may lead to creative solutions (Strait, 2010). It forces students, and even teachers, to critically examine, evaluate and challenge previously held assumptions and worldviews (Bohono et al., 2019). Eyerman and Jamison (1995) found that music that coincided with social movements created a sense of belonging, empathy and a collective expression that shifted culture and later permeated society at large. Strait (2010) presents a learning module that was developed for high school teachers to incorporate lessons on the cultural geography of the U.S. South using blues culture. This module was later developed into a geography undergraduate course at two universities (Strait, 2010). Strait (2012) also takes a place-based approach to studying the geography of blues culture in the Mississippi Delta, providing a model for others to follow. Other nontraditional methods available are the creation of zines, to develop a critical consciousness and interrogation of various issues (Velasco et al., 2020).

Overall, it was demonstrated that analyzing a blues song, Bessie Smith’s (1927) “Backwater Blues” for environmental themes using Black feminist thought’s matrix of domination is a viable strategy to understanding Black women’s environmental expression and engagement. Black feminist thought requires the thoughtful interrogation of societal power structures and resulting oppressions to understand how this shapes the lives of Black women. Here, Smith’s (1927) experience during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, as conveyed by her lyrics, fell within the structural and disciplinary domains of power in the matrix of domination. By further contextualizing her lyrics with the events of the storm, an understanding of how organizations organize and manage oppression was obtained. Additionally, Smith’s (1927) rendition of “Backwater Blues” individualized the flood event while concomitantly expressing the emotions and experience of the collective. In which case, Smith kept the Black women’s blues tradition alive and well.

I am deeply grateful to Jazmin Jones and Dr. Sonnice Estill for their critical feedback and unwavering support throughout this research endeavor. Their expertise and continuous encouragement have been invaluable in shaping the direction and outcomes of this paper. I am also grateful to the Bill Anderson Fund for challenging me as a researcher and thinker and creating the space for this paper to live on. Lastly, I am grateful to Black women who have provided a model for me to follow in my work and in my life. I am grateful for their words which feel like a warm hug when I need it the most. To Black women.

Bessie Smith’s “Backwater Blues”

Lyrics from Genius

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