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"We're Not Gonna Take It": An Examination Of Congress And Controversial Music, Elizabeth Krochmalny

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the role that the United States Congress has played in the last half century in monitoring controversial music. There has always been a strong relationship between music and politics. The music of the Civil Rights Movement and the protest songs of the Vietnam War are prime examples. A brief summary provides a backdrop to the central focus of the thesis: congressional actions and hearings about music that took place in the 1980s. A number of the questions that will be addressed include the following: What was the context in which these events …