“Live Fully Until We Die” [from Ch. 9]
Arguably no person of recent memory has done more to resist and transform the sad legacy of segregation and racism in the …
Art and the Struggle Itself [from Ch. 4]
Onstage in Carnegie Hall in 1965, Phil Ochs, the extraordinarily gifted songwriter of the Civil Rights era, described an effective protest song …
Race and the Song Circle [from Ch. 1]
In the summer of 1988 at the tender age of 23, I packed up my belongings and left my hometown of Lexington, …
Ordinary Beautiful People [from Ch. 1]
There is nothing especially unique or profound about the following story. In fact, its significance may dwell more in its banality—the everyday, …