How The Beatles Song 'Blackbird" Took Flight from Racism

In April 2016, Paul McCartney welcomed two special guests backstage at his show in Little Rock, Ark. They were more than just Beatles fans – they were the inspiration for one of the band’s most distinctive songs, “Blackbird,” and they inspired the song by simply trying to go to school in the '50s.

It was the era of segregation and the beginning of the civil rights movement. Following the Second World War, in which black people had been called up to fight for their country’s future with as much dedication and bravery as white people, there was a rising desire for change. 

It didn’t come easy; one of the most infamous moments came with the Little Rock Crisis of 1957, when nine black students enrolled in a previously whites-only school. The resulting images still sting today – white adults shouting threats and throwing objects at young black girls, including Elizabeth Eckford and Thelma Mothershed Wair, who are accompanied by government bodyguards to protect them from the disgrace.

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