This episode of Visions celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a collection of liberation music: sounds of grief, struggle, freedom, loss, and joy.

I chose a couple tracks off of Max Roach’s “Freedom Now Suite” to anchor the episode. I also played Terri Lyne Carrington’s rendition of Roach’s suite, “We Insist 2025!” I play music from John Coltrane, Blue Mitchell, Cecil Payne, Nina Simone, Harold McKinney, Irreversible Entanglements, and many more.

I also promote a show coming to the Detroit Institute of Arts Diego Rivera Court this Friday, Jan. 23: George Lewis and the 45th Anniversary of the Creative Arts Collective with PUBLIQuartet. Check out information about the show and purchase tickets here.

Check out the playlist below and listen to the episode on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.

Visions Playlist for Jan. 19, 2026

• “Soldiers (I Have a Dream)” – Christian McBride
• “Tears For Johannesburg” – Max Roach
• “Mannenberg Revisited” – Abdullah Ibrahim
• “Tears For Johannesburg (feat. Julian Preister, Weedie Braimah, Milena Casado, Morgan Guerin & Matthew Stevens)” – Terri Lyne Carrington & Christie Dashiell
• “March On Selma” – Blue Mitchell
• “Freedom Jazz Dance” – Harold McKinney*
• “Someday I’ll Find You” – Sonny Rollins
• “Martin Was a Man, A Real Man” – Oliver Nelson
• “Freedom Day” – Max Roach
• “Wild Women Don’t Get the Blues (Arr. by PUBLIQuartet for String Quartet)” – PUBLIQuartet
• “Ghost Dancers” – A. Spencer Barefield*
• “Martin Luther King, Jr. I Know Love” – Cecil Payne
• “Why? (The King of Love Is Dead)” – Nina Simone
• “Fireworks” – Irreversible Entanglements
• “Alabama (Live At Birdland Jazzclub, New York City, NY, 10/18/1963)” – John Coltrane
• “I Have a Dream” – Herbie Hancock

* indicates Detroit artists

Each year, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered through a narrow lens. A quote. A speech. A dream, often stripped of the urgency, conflict, and radical clarity that defined his final years. This MLK Weekend edition of The Progressive Underground resists that flattening. Instead, the playlist traces King’s full moral and political arc, from spiritual grounding and collective grief to economic justice, cultural resistance, and the unfinished work he left behind.

Martin Luther King Jr. was not only a civil rights icon. He was a strategist under surveillance, a critic of capitalism and militarism, and a leader willing to lose popularity in order to tell the truth. The music selected here reflects that complexity.

Across six carefully sequenced and curated sets, this special moves through gospel-rooted endurance, protest music that forced America to confront itself, songs that examine dignity and self-worth, and contemporary voices carrying King’s questions forward. From Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone, and Curtis Mayfield to Kendrick Lamar, D’Angelo, and Kamasi Washington, the playlist treats music as historical witness and moral record. It also honors Detroit’s role in shaping King’s legacy, particularly through Stevie Wonder’s campaign to make Dr. King’s birthday a national holiday.

This is not a nostalgia set. It’s a listening experience designed to engage King as he actually lived and evolved, challenging, demanding, and unfinished. 

Check the playlist below and listen to the episode for two weeks after it airs using the player above.

1st Hour

• “Let the Sunshine In”–Jimetta Rose & The Voices of Creation
• “Why? (The King of Love Is Dead)”–Nina Simone
• “People Get Ready”–Curtis Mayfield
• “Wholy Holy”–Marvin Gaye
• “Someday We’ll All Be Free”–Donny Hathaway
• “A Change Is Gonna Come”–Sam Cooke
• “Strange Fruit”–Billie Holiday
• “Winter in America”–Gil Scott Heron
• “A Dream”–Common feat. Will.i.am
• “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”–Gil Scott Heron
• “In the Name of Love”–U2
• “Compared to What”–Roberta Flack
• “Respect Yourself”–Staple Singers
• “Thinkin’ About Your Body”–Bobby McFerrin
• “Happy Birthday”–Stevie Wonder

2nd Hour

• “Alright”–Kendrick Lamar
• “The Charade”–D’Angelo
• “The People”–Common
• “6 Summers”–Anderson Paak
• “We The People”–A Tribe Called Quest
• “Everybody Loves the Sunshine”–Roy Ayers
• “I Am the Black Gold of the Sun”–Rotary Connection
• “Think of You”–Terrace Martin
• “Better Than I Imagined”–Robert Glasper
• “Faith, Courage & Wisdom”–Indie.Arie
• “Expansions”–Lonnie Liston Smith
• “Journey in Satchidananda”–Alice Coltrane
• “Truth”–Kamasi Washington
• “The Creator Has a Master Plan”–Pharoah Sanders
• “You Take Me Higher”–Fertile Ground