The song is a musically upbeat but impassioned plea for tolerance and freedom: In the song's coda, Felix says in a half-sung, half-spoken voice, that the "Train of Freedom", is "about to arrive any minute now", that "it has been long, long overdue", and that it's "coming right on through", before the song's fade with Felix saying "Chug" repeatedly.

It became a big hit in the turbulent summer of 1968, spending five weeks atop the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, the group's longest such stay.

[2] "People Got to Be Free" was RIAA-certified as a gold record on August 23, 1968,[3] and eventually sold over 4 million copies.

While "People Got to Be Free" was perceived by some as related to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and of Robert F. Kennedy earlier that year, it was recorded before the latter's death.

[6] The song is clearly a product of its times; however, two decades later writer Dave Marsh included it as number 237 in his book Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles of All Time, saying in reference to, and paraphrase of, the song's lyric, "Ask me my opinion, my opinion will be: Dated, but NEVER out of date."