September 26
GUEST: Helene Byrne, author, publisher, and public speaker, talks about her latest campaign to bring the nation together against gun violence, the Requiem and Remembrance Day.National Sing-In Against Gun Violence on March 8, 2020
Can you have a revolution without art and music? Can gun violence be controlled by millions of people singing about the need to value life over death in our society?
Helene Byrne thinks that people singing together have a unique power. It is not an unusual idea. I remember singing against the Vietnam War in 1969, led by Pete Seeger. It seemed like a whole city block of protesters were suddenly joined together, and that anything was possible. We could sing down the war machine because we were emotionally and spiritually united.
Maybe social change comes when facts and figures are made to rhyme and put to banjo music. We did end the Vietnam War. The mindless militarism and brutality I had experienced in my two years of military "service" had suddenly been put in perspective. People didn't have to act that way. And if we sang together, we could not be moved.
