{"id":35086,"date":"2014-12-13T01:45:37","date_gmt":"2014-12-12T17:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=35086"},"modified":"2014-12-12T23:43:17","modified_gmt":"2014-12-12T15:43:17","slug":"demonstrators-raise-voices-in-song-to-protest-police-killings-of-unarmed-black-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/12\/13\/demonstrators-raise-voices-in-song-to-protest-police-killings-of-unarmed-black-men\/","title":{"rendered":"Demonstrators raise voices in song to protest police killings of unarmed black men"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Thousands<\/a>
Thousands of New Yorkers responded to Anonymous’s call for a Day of Rage march & rally to demand justice for the police-related deaths of Michael Brown & Eric Garner. a katz \/ Shutterstock.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BERKELEY, Calif.\u2014Stop. Hey, what\u2019s that sound? Protest songs are taking their place alongside chants of \u201cI can\u2019t breathe\u201d and \u201cHands up, don\u2019t shoot\u201d as demonstrators raise their voices to condemn the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police. There\u2019s something happening here.<\/p>\n

The killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown have inspired a musical outpouring perhaps unseen in the U.S. since Pete Seeger helped make \u201cWe Shall Overcome\u201d a civil-rights standard in the 1960s. Older songs are being redeployed for a new generation. New compositions are being widely shared, including some from major-label artists. And holiday classics are being rewritten, such as a barbed spin on \u201cWhite Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFacts aren\u2019t fueling this fire. Feeling is what is fueling this fire, and until we express those feelings and those feelings are understood, we aren\u2019t going to get too far,\u201d said Daniel Watts, a Broadway performer who starred in a professionally choreographed Times Square flash mob in response to Eric Garner\u2019s death on Staten Island. He\u2019s also written two more spoken-word pieces about police brutality that others set to music.<\/p>\n

One of the tunes gaining a following on the streets and social media was penned six weeks ago by Luke Nephew, a 32-year-old Bronx poet who also has composed event-specific cantos for protests at immigration detention centres, foreclosure auctions and other demonstration sites. It has four lines, starting with \u201cI still hear my brother crying, \u2018I can\u2019t breathe.\u2019 Now I\u2019m in the struggle singing. I can\u2019t leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hundreds of people sang those words last week as they blocked bridges and got arrested in New York on the night after a grand jury declined to indict the white officer who used a chokehold on Garner. That so many knew the hymn-like song, and the way it has caught on since then, might owe as much to savvy preparation as the power of the lyrics.<\/p>\n

Nephew first introduced the song at an early November meeting of activists preparing for the grand jury\u2019s decision. The participants agreed to share it with their members so as many people as possible could join in when the time came. A recording was posted on YouTube and links made the rounds on Facebook and Twitter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe said, \u2018Make sure you are taking this back to your organizations. Make sure you are learning this,\u201d\u2018 recalled Jose Lopez, an organizer with the social service and advocacy group Make the Road New York.<\/p>\n

Gospel singer and radio host Darlene McCoy, founder of a group called Mothers of Black Sons, heard the protesters in Manhattan singing as she watched the news at home in Atlanta. She was so taken with the images of people raising their voices in unison while being handcuffed that she replayed the broadcast to write down the words.<\/p>\n

Unaware of its origins, McCoy immediately recorded herself singing Nephew\u2019s composition, posted the file on Instagram and challenged other singers to do the same. At least 45 people have done so, including Catrina Brooks, a former \u201cThe X-Factor\u201d contestant from Michigan, whose rendition has been viewed nearly 750,000 times.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe funny thing is, you have to do it in 15 seconds,\u201d McCoy said, referring to the site\u2019s maximum video length. \u201cAnd that\u2019s a challenge for some artists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some protesters find fresh relevance in popular music of the past\u2014Sam Cooke\u2019s \u201cA Change is Gonna Come\u201d or Michael Jackson\u2019s \u201cThey Don\u2019t Really Care About Us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nephew is a bit baffled by how seldom contemporary music has been a part of American social movements in recent decades. He thinks it\u2019s partly because people are no longer accustomed to singing together in public, partly because younger Americans are turned off by traditional folk and gospel tunes that do not speak to their experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing how much of a vacuum there is,\u201d he said. \u201cGod bless Pete Seeger. But where is his children\u2019s generation?\u201d<\/p>\n

Questlove, drummer for the hip-hop band the Roots, urged fellow musicians via Instagram and Twitter last week \u201cto be a voice of the times that we live in,\u201d noting that \u201cprotest songs don\u2019t have to be boring or non-danceable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several professionals have already released home-produced tribute songs to Brown and Garner, including Alicia Keys, Long Beach rapper Crooked I, Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morelo and hip-hop producer J. Cole.<\/p>\n

Amateurs have gotten into the act too. A group in St. Louis disrupted a symphony performance of Brahms\u2019 Requiem by singing a \u201cRequiem for Mike Brown\u201d and scattering confetti hearts from the balcony.<\/p>\n

Other protests adopt a seasonal theme with \u201cjustice carols\u201d that reimagine holiday classics\u2014\u201dAll I Want for Christmas Is An Indictment\u201d and \u201cO Little Town of Ferguson.\u201d<\/p>\n

But whether any of the songs come to crystallize recent events in the way Buffalo Springfield\u2019s \u201cFor What It\u2019s Worth\u201d came to symbolize the Vietnam War era, well, it ain\u2019t exactly clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt often takes time for ideas to percolate through and for people to step back and take a breath and write meaningful tunes,\u201d said Ian Peddie, an English professor at Georgia Gwinnett College who studies the intersection of popular music and human rights. \u201cThere has to be that period of incubation.\u201d<\/p>\n