Song of the Day 6/19: The Rascals, “People Got to Be Free”

How does an old white guy celebrate Juneteenth? I’m going with blue-eyed soul from some of its early practitioners, the Rascals.

The sentiment sounds hokey today — they don’t play this one much even on oldies radio — but it was widespread in 1968, when this song spent five weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 and reached No. 14 on what Billboard then called its Soul Singles chart.