Songs of Resistance
By Kim Harris
From Paul Robeson to Woody Guthrie, Mahalia Jackson, and Pete Seeger, history is filled with examples of musicians who devoted their talent to protest and opposition to injustice. We asked Kim Harris to tell us more.—The Editor
1. Harriet Tubman
(1822–1913)
Tubman used sung musical codes on her many clandestine journeys with the Underground Railroad. The spiritual “Old Ship of Zion” sent secret signals to her enslaved brothers Robert, Ben, and Henry and others, of her imminent arrival in Poplar Neck, Maryland. She led them north to freedom beginning on Christmas Day 1854.
2. Joe Hill
(1879–1915)
Hill was a Swedish American labor activist, union organizer, poet, and songwriter for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). He was convicted of murder and executed on Nov. 19, 1915, after a controversial trial in Salt Lake City, Utah.
3. Bernice Johnson Reagon
(1942–2024)
At a mass meeting supporting the civil rights actions in Albany, Georgia, in 1961, Johnson Reagon began singing “Over My Head.” When she came to the lyric “I see trouble in the air,” she substituted the word freedom for trouble. She later joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Freedom Singers. In 1973, she formed Sweet Honey in the Rock, an all-women, African American a cappella group that seeks to effect change through music.
4. Victor Jara (1932–1973)
Chilean singer-songwriter Victor Jara, a key figure in the Nueva Canción (New Song) movement, championed indigenous musical traditions and sang about working class experiences and social justice. During the 1973 Chilean military coup, Jara was arrested, interrogated, and tortured. Five days after the coup, he was shot and killed.
5. Pat Humphries
(1960–present)
Humphries composed “Never Turning Back,” the unofficial, widely sung theme song of the United Nations Fourth Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. She and singing partner Sandy O. (Opatow) make up Emma’s Revolution, who musically respond to critical issues, including the experience of sexually abused persons.
6. Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez
(1951–2016)
Sanchez, a San Diego-based Chicano musician, was a folklorist, teacher, and activist. He formed Los Alacranes Mojados (The Wetback Scorpions), performing and organizing for the United Farm Workers and the Chicano movement. Sanchez composed “Chicano Park Samba” to commemorate the successful protest and building of what became Chicano Park in 1971, now a National Historic Landmark.
7. Kurbasy
Mariia Oneschak and Natalia Rybka-Parkhomenko, Kurbasy’s artistic directors, believe in music as a form of resistance. During the current Ukraine-Russia war, Kurbasy has performed from the front lines of occupied Eastern Ukraine to concert halls in Western Europe and the United States, often featuring traditional recruitment songs.
8. Magpie
Partners in life and music, Terry Leonino and Greg Artzner, sing about the wellbeing of our living planet and the peoples, plants, and animals that call it home. Founded in 1973, Magpie honors environmental icons such as Rachel Carson, promotes the preservation of rainforests, and proclaims with indigenous sisters and brothers that “water is life.”
9. Jake Blount
(1995–present)
A scholar of Black traditional folk music, Blount is a storyteller, historian, and activist. He uses banjo, fiddle, electric guitar, and synthesizer to highlight the creativity of his musical ancestors and foregrounds the often and necessarily hidden queer identities and histories of many composers and performers.
10. Singing Resistance
Singing Resistance is a nationwide community singing movement that arose in response to the acts of violence committed by ICE agents, especially in Minneapolis. Participants are committed to nonviolence and are steeped in the tradition of protest music. The LMU Singing Resistance group is organized by Jennifer Owens-Jofré, who teaches theology in the LMU Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts. To join or learn more, contact her at
[email protected].
Kim Harris is a professor in the Department of Theological Studies who teaches African American Religious Thought and Practice in the LMU Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts. She is a cantor, liturgist, composer, and recording artist who also lectures on the experience of Black Catholics.