American Ideas of Independence

Available for 29 days

From the poet Rita Dove's image of Rosa Parks taking her seat on a bus as an act of defiance, through the trial in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird to Lillian Hellman's Letter to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, May 19, 1952 - this week's Words and Music takes ideas about freedom in America as its starting point. We'll hear from the pamphlet published by Thomas Paine in 1776, Common Sense, which argued strongly for separation from Britain; a letter from Birmingham Jail written by Martin Luther King, August Wilson's play Fences and James Baldwin's Sonny Blues. There is music about and in praise of the American spirit of independence by composers from Aaron Copland to Antonín Dvořák, Florence Price, Miles Davies and Jessie Montgomery. Our readers are Rhashan Stone, seen on TV in Keeping Faith and Black Mirrror and Caitlin Fitzgerald from Succession. This programme is part of Radio 3's focus on America as the country prepares to mark 250 years of independence. Readings: The Wild Honeysuckle by Philip Freneau O Pioneers by Willa Cather Common Sense by Thomas Paine Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder Days Without End by Sebastian Barry The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman Perkins Song of the Smoke King by WEB du Bois Jazz by Toni Morrison Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Rosa by Rita Dove I Too by Langston Hughes The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos Letter to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee by Lillian Helman Fences by August Wilson The Sentence by Louise Erdrich Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Beat! Beat! Drums! By Walt Whitman Producer in Salford: Olive Clancy