Ella Jenkins, 'first lady' of children's music, remembered for championing social justice through song

As It Happens7:03Remembering Ella Jenkins, the trailblazing children's musician who cared about kids in 'a radical way'

Ella Jenkins, an African American folk singer and songwriter, earned the affectionate title of First Lady of Children's Music for a career entertaining and educating young audiences that spanned over 60 years.

Known to introduce complex issues to children in an engaging call-and-response format, Jenkins recorded 40 albums, including You'll Sing a Song and I'll Sing a Song, A Long Time to Freedom, and Multicultural Children's Songs.

Jenkins died in Chicago on Saturday. She was 100. 

The musician revolutionized children's music in the United States by "grounding it in the music and rhythms of the Black diaspora," said Gayle Wald, a professor of American studies at George Washington University. 

Inspired by her own participation in civil rights activism, Jenkins used music as a tool for social change. Her songs promoted unity, equality and cultural diversity. In 1964, Jenkins performed at Martin Luther King Jr.'s Illinois Rally for Civil Rights. 

"The more I came to know about her, the more I saw that the idea people have of her — as a cheerful musician with an uncanny knack for connecting with children — only scratched the surface," said Wald. 

In recognition of her musical and humanitarian contributions, Jenkins received many awards — including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award in 2004. 

Wald spoke to As It Happens host Nil Köksal about Jenkin's iconic, yet humble, legacy. Here is part of their conversation. 

[At her birthday celebration in August], what kinds of things were the people who loved her or appreciated her music and her talent ... saying to her, and you, about her? 

Ella was so thrilled to be turning 100. She was fragile at that point. Her wonderful health aides had equipped her with extra oxygen in case she was uncomfortable when she was out. She wasn't spending a lot of time outside of assisted living at that point. 

There's a park on the north side of Chicago called Ella Jenkins Park, and there was a public celebration for her. There were probably 150 people who turned out on that very nice August afternoon to see her. 

I have to say, she lit up. It was like oxygen for her being out there with all of the people who were giving her love. 

So many kids grew up with her music, [and] then there's kids who grew up with her music but who don't remember that they grew up with her music, because they were four or five when they were in love with her music. And it's kind of part of their unconscious. 

There were grandparents who came to bring their grandchildren to meet her, there were adults who wanted to sit with her and talk about the fact that she had visited their school, or they had been part of a record that she made. She often incorporated children into her albums. 

So there was just a lot of multi-generational testifying about the pleasure she had brought into people's lives, and the way that she had enabled people to feel like music belonged to them. It wasn't just something that experts did.... It was something that everyone does.

[Jenkins] also brought in musical influences and types of music from all over the world. 

Her first musical love was blues. She was the daughter of southern migrants to the metropolis of Chicago in the 1920s. She inherited some of that blues culture that her parents would have grown up with, and that was where she started. 

She also, as a young person, as a young adult, got very interested in Latin music, particularly Afro-Cuban music. Her first instruments were hand drums, especially the Congo drum. A lot of people don't know that because they see her with a ukulele. 

She based her earliest musical work on African diasporic rhythms. So everything from blues sounds to Cuban music sounds. And then she broadened from there. 

She had an incredibly broad repertoire and travelled to every continent, and many, many countries and always would trade a song when she went there. 

She collected songs, and the way that she would collect was [that] when she met someone, she would say, "Can we trade songs? I'll tell you a song that I know, if you tell me a song that you know." 

And through that exchange of songs as a kind of social currency, she developed this big repertoire. 

Do you think she's as well known as she should be in your view?

I don't think she's as well known as she should be, but I think that has to do with the ways that we don't quite value as much as we should the work that adults do with children. 

I mean, she's part of a cohort of people, everything from parents to teachers, early childhood educators, [but] because she made music for children, there's a way that she's not seen at the same level of people who make music for adults. 

And so I think her contributions can be minimized. And because she made music for and with children, her work had a certain beautiful simplicity. That didn't mean that the work was simplistic, but it was intended to be simple so that everyone could participate.

I think that's another reason, that something that looks easy to do — you say, "Oh, I could do that. That doesn't seem so hard." I think she's underestimated for that as well.

Did she mind when we talk about lack of recognition or not enough recognition for someone who had such an impact on this field? How did she feel about that? 

To be honest, she cared so much about children, in such a radical way, that I don't think a lot of those things mattered to her. She's had many important accolades in her life. But I think ... it was the energy she got from one-on-one or group singing. That's really what it came down to for her.

In some ways, I think she really appreciated that recognition, but it was less important to her. 

There's a moment where she's being celebrated, and there's a huge stage of musicians: "Ella, come on stage, we're going to salute you." And she says, "Three cheers for children," and no one listens to her.

And they keep applauding her. But I really think that "three cheers for children" meant something to her.