Historical Analysis- "Why (Am I Treated So Bad)" by the Staples Singers

The album “Freedom Highway,” released in 1965 as a live in-church session, set the stage for the gospel family act, The Staple Singers. The album included old African American spiritual songs, as well as new compositions—one being the bluesy track “Why (Am I Treated So Bad.)” On this track, “Pops” Staples—the patriarch of the family—alternates between his falsetto singing and his steady sermon-giving speaking voice, while his daughters smoothly harmonize the repeated chorus. While the song has a happy up-tempo feel, with the sisters clapping all the way through, the lyrics are filled with feelings of deep frustration. The sisters lament over baseless hate—“I’ve done nobody wrong, but I’m treated so bad,” as they brush off promises of hope—“things are going to change, still I’m treated so bad.”

These lyrics resonated strongly during this period of the civil rights movement—a peaceful resistance against discrimination towards African American citizens, led by leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. The song was released in a time and place where segregation prevailed; public places like theaters, hotels, bathrooms, and water fountains were segregated. African Americans encountered signs that read “for whites only” on a daily basis, having to be reminded of their second class citizenship repeatedly. This second class status even prevented many African Americans from voting, whether through tactics like literacy tests or poll taxes.

In a time where racism was commonplace in American policy and inherent in American culture, the rhetorical question the Staple Singers rose, “why am I treated so bad,” was incredibly powerful. What particularly struck Pops about the state of the black man—and what essentially led him to write this track—was the rejection and refusal the “Little Rock Nine” received in 1957 when the nine high school children attempted to enter a white school in Little Rock, Arkansas. Though the Supreme Court called for desegregation in 1954, in addition to the school board having allowed the registration of the nine black children, the children were nevertheless blocked from entering the school, as they were also spat on and harassed for two weeks. Mavis Staples, Pop’s daughter and lead singer of the act, describes the way in which her and her family were watching the news in the living room and how her father had laid back in his reclining chair and said, “Now why they doin that? Why they treatin ‘em like that? Why they treatin ‘em so bad?” She explained that her father started writing the song right then.

The song actually became Martin Luther King Jr.’s favorite Staple Singers song. Pops had met Martin Luther King Jr. and suggested that the group join the movement by performing; apparently Pops came home and told the family, “If he can preach it, we can sing it.” The Staple Singers did indeed join the movement, creating quite a soundtrack for the civil rights movement, with other powerful songs like “When Will We Get Paid?”—another rhetorical question that demanded reparations for the exploitation of African Americans during slavery. The Staple Singers also joined the movement with white folk singers like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. In fact, in August of 1963, both Dylan and Baez performed in Martin Luther King Jr.’s march on Washington DC, before Dr. King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. At that performance, Baez performed “Oh Freedom,” a song the black slaves used to sing. In this song, Baez delicately sings “and before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave, and go home to my Lord and be free.” At a certain point in the song, Baez sings “And there’s no more moaning, there’s no more moaning, no more moaning over me.” Interestingly enough, during Pop’s sermon-like interlude in “Why (Am I Treated So Bad),” Pop tells of asking his parents what the word “moaning” meant. His parents answered him, “Oh, when you moan, the devil doesn’t even know what you’re talking about.”

This moan could be heard in “Oh Freedom,” somehow preserved through the lyrics of the slave song. At the same time, Pop’s mention of the moaning and his telling of the story from his childhood presents this idea of the moan as a sort of backdrop of his life—something that was inherent in his surroundings that he couldn’t help but notice as a child. This moan, though created and preserved through the slave songs, has extended to the music of the civil rights movement. The Staple Singers’ “Why (Am I Treated So Bad),” as well as other music from the civil rights movement, contains this moan, this sound of suffering, pain, burden, and death.