This Machine Kills Fascists
Streets of Minneapolis
Woody Guthrie wrote “This Machine Kills Fascists” on his guitar in 1941. “It was his way of using his guitar as a different kind of weapon. It was a declaration that music could fight hatred and ignorance just as powerfully as a gun.”1
Music and visual art are part of the American fight for freedom and justice.
In the 1860’s, Union soldiers marched into battle against pro-slavery forces singing “As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free. Working and poor people fighting for their enslaved brothers and sisters united by “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”.
In the 1950-60’s, Black, White and Brown people linked arms singing, “We shall all be free, we shall all be free, We shall all be free someday. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, We shall overcome someday.” The words of “We Shall Overcome” first used in working class struggles 1945-1946 by African American women on strike against American Tobacco in Charleston, South Carolina.2
In the 1970’s, students and workers marched to end the war in Vietnam singing “Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, We’re finally on our own, This summer I hear the drumming, Four dead in Ohio”. The words of Ohio written by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young after National Guard troops murdered 4 students at Kent State University on May 4, 1970.
Now in the streets of Minneapolis and every city in the US, we are marching, monitoring, and joining arm in arm to save our country singing
“Against smoke and rubber bullets, in dawn’s early light, citizens stood for justice, their voices ringing through the night.
And there were bloody footprints where mercy should have stood. And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets, Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
Minneapolis, I hear your voice singing through the bloody mist. We’ll take our stand for this land and the stranger in our midst.”
The American people are on the move and we will win!
Reference
- https://bluescentric.com/trivia-article/the-story-behind-this-machine-kills-fascists/
- https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/media-and-interactives/media/music/story-behind-the-song/the-story-behind-the-song/we-shall-overcome/
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