ODETTA (Singer, Civil Rights Activist): (Singing)</s>ODETTA (Singer, Civil Rights Activist): Sometimes I feel I'm a motherless child Sometimes I feel I'm a motherless child</s>TONY COX, host: She was one of the most treasured voices of the civil rights movement.  A voice that rang out over the March on Washington and inspired the generation of activists.  The folk singer Odetta died Tuesday from heart disease. She was 77.  Her Birmingham, Alabama childhood shaped her life and her rich sound. She performed for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, and had hoped to sing at President-elect Obama's inauguration.  In 2005, I had the great pleasure to talk with Odetta.  She told me about her early days in the segregated south.</s>ODETTA (Singer, Civil Rights Activist): I was a little black girl growing up in the United States, a country that had Jim Crow in the South with signs, and Jim Crow in the North without signs. And we knew where we were to go and where we should not attempt to go.  I studied classical voice, but when I got into the folk music area, the area started addressing the fury and frustration.</s>TONY COX, host: She channeled that fury into what she called liberation songs.  Rosa Parks was once asked, what music meant the most to her?  All the songs Odetta sings, she said. Odetta continued to perform right up to her death.  The passion of her voice will continue to shine as the embodiment of the civil rights struggle.</s>ODETTA (Singer, Civil Rights Activist): (Singing)</s>ODETTA (Singer, Civil Rights Activist): I have stockings of silk Shoes of fine green leather Combs to buckle my hair in the rain
The folk singer Odetta was one of the most treasured voices of the Civil Rights Movement. Her voice rang out over the March on Washington and inspired a generation of activists. Odetta died Tuesday from heart disease at the age of 77. NPR's Tony Cox pays tribute.