Traditional forms of expression used as vehicles for responding to social injustice.
Members of social groups constituted by ethnicity, nationality, religion, class, ideology,
gender, sexual preference, occupation, region, and other aspects of common identity have
drawn upon shared expressive traditions to voice dissatisfaction with social, economic, or
political conditions. Social protest through traditional expressive behavior may be
individual (graffiti) or collective (parades), and may assume a variety of forms, both
verbal and nonverbal. The message may be explicit, or it may be “coded,” with hidden
meanings understood largely by the subject group.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas have responded to their subjugation by Europeans
through such vehicles as traditional oratory (for example, Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief, on
the fate of Indians of the Northeast: “They have vanished before the avarice of the White
Man, as snow before a summer sun”) and ritual (such as the Ghost Dance of Plains
Indians, both a revitalization movement and a form of passive resistance against
genocide). In recent decades, powwows—festivals featuring ritual dance, craft, and
native foods—have been held throughout North America to promote unity among Native
Americans and to present a collective response to the continued adverse treatment of
indigenous peoples.
The American Indian Movement (AIM), an activist group formed in the 1970s, has
adapted and applied traditional spiritual teachings and practices in the pursuit of social
justice. Leonard Peltier, an AIM leader in prison as the result of a confromation with FBI
agents at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in the 1970s, has a symbolic presence at many
pow-wows, where his guiding spirit and message of unity and resistance are publicly
acknowledged (a portrait of him is often seen hanging over the drummers’ tent during
performances).
African Americans have a tradition of social protest reaching back to their initial
forced migration to the Americas. In the Old World, musician-bards, such as the West
African griots, offered praise but also sharp social criticism; even drummers injected
biting commentary into their rhythmic messages. Prohibited from such overt cultural
practices, slaves developed new forms of expression, such as Christian sermons drawing
liberally from the biblical account of the Exodus and the sayings of the prophets, and
spirituals, which similarly carried covert messages of social protest such as “Let My
People Go.” Later on, these songs formed the basis for more direct exhortation during the
civil rights movement that began in the late 1950s. The lyrics to such spirituals as “We
Shall Not Be Moved” and “We Shall Overcome” were adapted, with topical verses sung
for particular occasions.
In some African American communities, parades and festivals commemorating the
Emancipation Proclamation (such as Juneteenth, celebrating June 19, 1865, the day the
Proclamation was announced in Texas) have been, and still are, conducted, both
celebrating enfranchisement and protesting its incomplete realization.
Trade-union and political movements in North America have a well-documented
history of enlisting traditional expressive forms, especially song, in the service of social
protest. King George III’s restive colonists broadsided the loyal troops of the mother
country by throwing back a popular British army tune to them in the form of the satirical
“Yankee Doodle.” This parody appeared in coundess incarnations, serving collectively as
a weapon of protest against the Tories, as well as a vehicle for verbal attacks among
competing factions of the Revolutionists.
The broadside, or topical folksong, dating back at least to the 16th century in England,
has been one of the most popular vehicles for social protest among labor song-poets of
the 19th and early 20th centuries, and peace activists in more recent times, who produced
songsheets and booklets of lyrics, with instructions “to be sung to the tune of” a wellknown song. The IWW (Industrial Workers of the World, or “Wobblies”) Little Red Song
Book, first issued in 1910, achieved among the widest circulation of such collections.
One of the most popular bards of social protest in the 20th century, Woody Guthrie,
commonly penned topical lyrics and set them to well-known traditional tunes, a practice
followed by his spiritual protégé Pete Seeger, who continues to employ folk music as an
instrument for social change. An informal periodical titled The Broadside, started by
activists in the early 1960s, was published for nearly three decades. The magazine Sing
Out!, a successor to the People’s Songbook of the 1950s, began as a vehicle for
disseminating topical and protest folksongs; while no longer primarily political, it still
occasionally publishes songs of civil rights, peace, environmental, and other activists for
whom folk music remains an important vehicle for social protest.
In the “internationalist” spirit of the political Left, many songs of one group were
adapted in form and content to become universal odes to social justice. One of the bestknown instances of this crossover is that of African American spirituals, such as “We
Shall Overcome,” which has become an anthem not only for the civil rights activists, but
for tradeunion, women’s, peace, environmental, and other groups as well (Spanishspeaking farmworkers sing it as “Nosotros Venceremos”).
Forms of social protest among working people in North America have reflected both
the diversity of occupational cultures and the multiethnic character of many workplaces.
The vast body of labor lore has included veiled criticisms of management communicated in songs, drama, occupational jargon, ritual slowdowns (creative modification of the
work process by stylized movements, gestures, and the like engaged collectively in a
workplace to slow down the pace of production, often in response to a “speed-up”
ordered by management) or sabotage of the work process.
Festivals and parades have often served as stages for labor and political protest. In
Europe, tradespeople have for centuries organized such public events, both to display
pride in their craft and to protest their treatment in the workplace. Such public
demonstrations often involved rituals adapted from ethnic and religious practices of the
groups to which the artisans belonged. These traditions were carried over into the New
World, where artisanal processions were conducted as early as the 17th century.
Workers’ parades often parodied local customs, as in Philadelphia, where the popular
mummers’ processions provided part of the inspiration for the costumes and ritual antics
of strike parades.
Song-poems have been among the most popular mediums of labor protest. In form and
content, they have reflected both the class and the cultural background of their
composers. Commonly set to traditional tunes, they were recited at the workplace and
performed by workers’ choruses. These choruses were organized not only by trade, but
often within ethnic sections of trade unions and political organizations.
Traditional ethnic and religious rituals have also been transformed by workers into
expressions of social protest. As an instance, members of the Jewish labor movement
adapted the Passover Seder, which commemorates the Exodus, and to also pay tribute to
contemporary struggles for liberation.
In the fields and orchards of the Southwestern United States, migrant workers have
used traditional expressive forms in the service of the farm workers’ movement, which
was long headed by the legendary labor leader Cesar Chavez. Farm workers of Mexican
ancestry have chronicled their plight, as well as efforts to unionize agricultural workers,
in corridos, sung newspapers whose form may be traced back to the medieval Spanish
ballads or romances. El Teatro Campesino (farm workers’ theater) has employed the folk
drama and song of rural Mexicans and chicanos to portray the lives and struggles of
migrant farm workers.
The “unfinished revolution” of women for full equality has been reflected in direct and
indirect forms of protest. Sometimes a contrary voice may appear as a subversive message in traditional expressive forms. Women have historically carried on a covert protest
against inequity through their activity in the socially assigned realm of the “domestic”
arts. A primary example of this is quilt making. Designs stitched into quilts have not only
represented traditional patterns, but have sometimes reflected a “quiet protest,” as in the
crazy-quilt “epidemic” of the late 19th century. Partly a rebellion against rigid design
standards, it was also, by extension, a protest against constricting social codes for
women.
Another way that quilts have provided a social voice for women is through their use as
commemorative documents. Historical scenes and commentary were often sewn into the
fabric of these decorative, yet functional, artifacts. As North American women took part
in social movements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—such as abolition,
temperance, and suffrage—they employed their traditional skills in making quilts that
raised consciousness (and funds) around issues of social injustice. The tradition of
“protest quilts” has been updated by such projects as the “Peace Quilt” and the “AIDS Quilt.” The NAMES Project has enlisted relatives and friends of people who died of
AIDS to sew memory patches, which are then stitched into large sections that are often
presented at gay and lesbian civil rights demonstrations; the AIDS Quilt, when displayed
in its entirety, has covered several acres. Within the nuclear disarmament movement,
images and messages of peace have been sewn into sections by women and men from
throughout North America and displayed at various public actions; as an instance, in the
1980s pieces of the Peace Quilt were held up by members of a human chain encircling
the Pentagon in Washington, DC.
David Shuldiner
References
Carawan, Guy, and Candie Carwan, eds. 1990. Sing for Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights
Movement through Its Songs. Bethlehem, PA: Sing Out Publications.
Davis, Susan G. 1985. Parades and Power: Street Theatre in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Ferrero, Pat, Elaine Hedges, and Julie Silber. 1987. Hearts and Hands: The Influence of Women
and Quilts on American Society. San Francisco: Quilt Digest Press.
Greenway, John. 1953. American Folksongs of Protest. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
Halker, Clark D. 1991. For Democracy, Workers, and God: Labor Song-Poems and Labor Protest,
1865–1895. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Kornbluh, Joyce L., ed. 1988. Rebel Voices: An IWW Anthology. Rev. ed. Chicago: Charles H.Kerr.
Wiggins, William. 1987. O Freedom! Afro-American Emancipation Celebrations. Knoxville:
University of Tennessee Press.