We Insist!

Max Roach’s landmark album We Insist! – Freedom Now Suite stands as a powerful fusion of art and activism. Created in collaboration with lyricist Oscar Brown Jr., the suite captures the urgency and defiance of the civil rights era through its bold compositions and charged performances. Originally released in 1960, the album was conceived around the same time Roach and Charles Mingus staged a “rebel festival” in protest of the Newport Jazz Festival’s treatment of African-American artists.