Why Our Movements Need to Start Singing Again [View all]

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/12/04/why-our-movements-need-start-singing-again

Why Our Movements Need to Start Singing Again

Music is making a comeback in movement spaces, as organizers rediscover how song culture strengthens the capacity to create social change.

PAUL ENGLER
December 4, 2022

by Waging Nonviolence

Social movements are stronger when they sing. That's a lesson that has been amply demonstrated throughout history, and it's one that I have learned personally in working to develop trainings for activists over the past decade and a half. In Momentum, a training program that I co-founded and that many other trainers and organizers have built over the last seven years, song culture is not something we included at the start. And yet, it has since become so indispensable that the trainers I know would never imagine doing without it again.

The person who taught me the most as I came to appreciate the impact that song can have on movement culture is Stephen Brackett, an activist and hip-hop MC known on stage as Brer Rabbit.

A tall Denverite with abundant dreadlocks and an easy-going presence, Stephen started rapping for fun in the fourth grade. As a high school student in the 1990s, he and his friend Jamie Laurie started the Flobots, a group they have dubbed a "band with an agenda." Stephen's stage name, Brer Rabbit, came to him one day during a college freestyle, when he picked up a ceramic rabbit from a countertop. In an "act of divine accidents," as he calls it, he named himself after the figure in folklore "that represents most what a rapper is and can be"—namely, "a trickster who succeeds by his wits rather than by brawn, provoking authority figures and bending social mores as he sees fit."

Because his off-stage persona is so warm and humble, it can be startling to watch Stephen transform into Brer Rabbit when he takes the mic in a show, firing off rhymes that denounce destructive state and corporate power while celebrating human potential. Perhaps best known for their viral 2005 single "Handlebars," which went to number 3 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks and has racked up more than 80 million views on YouTube, Jamie and Stephen's sharp phrases can be found throughout the Flobots catalog. In their 2007 song, "Rise,"

…more…

https://www.barnesandnoble.com › w › the-little-red-songbook-gary-blanchard › 1118959987
The Little Red Songbook: A Brief History of the Wobblies and Their ...

When a person joined the IWW, they were given a union card and a copy of the Little Red Songbook. The songs in the book, set to familiar tunes of the day, were a great organizing and educational tool. ... Part songbook and part history book, this is a great resource for those interested in the story and song of the American labor movement ...

Available on line

https://store.iww.org/shop/little-red-songbook-38th-edition/


Look for the Union Label 1981 classic ad

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(What’s your favorite action song?)