Sam Cooke’s Anthem “A Change Is Gonna Come” Finds New Life As A Children’s Book

When Sam Cooke recorded “A Change Is Gonna Come” in 1964, he gave the world more than a song, he offered something that has carried through the decades. The lyrics, rooted in his own experiences and the turbulent reality of the Civil Rights Movement, spoke to a collective longing for justice and a belief that progress—though slow—was inevitable. Six decades later, the song’s message has been reborn for a new generation through a children’s picture book that carries the same name.

Released on September 2 through Little Bee Books/Simon & Schuster in partnership with the Sam Cooke Estate and ABKCO Music & Records, A Change Is Gonna Come pairs the legendary lyrics with sweeping illustrations from acclaimed artist Nikkolas Smith. The story follows a young Black boy in the 1960s who discovers photography as a way of navigating life, documenting moments of hardship, resilience, and joy. The boy’s journey parallels the song’s enduring message—that while oppression and struggle are undeniable, hope and >The 1619 Project: Born on the Water had already made him a sought-after voice in blending art with activism. “To be honest with you, as soon as I saw his pictures, I saw the depth in the words,” Cooke-Johnson says. “I saw that these are visuals that someone can feel. And so it was just really kind of blind faith that we went on that eventually worked.”

Smith approached the book by placing a camera in the hands of the story’s young protagonist, who he imagined as “literally born by the river.” Through this lens, the child bears witness to the highs and lows of the Civil Rights era, appearing at the funeral of Medgar Evers, alongside the Freedom Riders, and even in moments echoing Cooke’s own circle, such as the famous night in Miami with Malcolm X, Jim Brown, and Muhammad Ali. “I thought that maybe photography could be that vehicle that could allow him to experience the highs and lows of the civil rights era,” Smith explains. “So I thought maybe through this lens you can see the lows, but then you can see the flip side of the hope and the change.”

The art >Gordon Parks, the legendary photographer and close friend of Sam Cooke. Smith notes that Parks’ ability to capture both the dignity and the daily struggles of Black life became the blueprint for how he wanted to tell this story. “There was still this kind of regal quality to everyday Black life,” Smith says, “despite all that they were going through, all of the injustices, all of the systemic racism.” One of his favorite spreads draws directly from a Parks image of a mother with her children outside their home; in Smith’s reimagining, those same children later graduate from historically Black colleges, a testament to resilience and progress.

The challenge for Smith was to strike a balance between depicting injustice and offering hope, a task made more difficult by the current social climate. “It’s just kind of ironic that this book is coming out right now, and I think it’s extremely timely because we’re in a time where they’re literally trying to roll back the clock to 60 years ago,” he says. “I hope this can be another one of those markers to where at any age, the entire family can gather around and look at this story and try to get a sense of where we came from and also how far we still need to go.”

Looking back at 1964’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” the heaviness of struggle and the insistence on optimism is what Cooke-Johnson believes made the record so powerful, and is also what makes this book necessary now. “In our community, when you heard those horns, the intro to the song, you knew it was time to be serious,” she says. “Something important had happened, something major was getting ready to transpire. You leave it feeling better now than when it started. No matter how hard things get, anything is possible.”

Decades after Sam Cooke sang about a shift on the horizon, his family and supporters are making sure that promise remains alive. For Smith, who signs the book with a dedication “to the next generation of revolutionary change makers,” the hope is that children will see themselves not only in the story but also in the song’s enduring message. 

“We live in a world of beautiful, unique, and diverse colors, and so we can hide from that or we could embrace it,” Smith notes. “We should be on the side that’s fighting to unite and defeat racism. Hopefully this book can help children see that even in the hardest times, change is always coming.”

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