Dan DaranciangThe past five years have witnessed a resurgent protest movement and with it a renaissance of the music of protest. Spurred by two presidential debates and a grueling 19-day sit-in, protest music has returned to campus with a fury. The close ties between music and protest have been rarely discussed and infrequently reported during the recent major protests. This article, the third and final in the series, examines the relationship between music and protest from the perspectives of those involved.
Why music in the first place? What does hip-hop add to a protest of a presidential debate? What does a drumbeat do for a sit-in? Emiliano Huet-Vaughn, who graduated in 2005, was involved in dozens of protests during his time at Washington University. Most were through his work as president of Amnesty International and as a member of both the St. Louis Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression (CAPCR) and the Student Worker Alliance (SWA). During last year’s presidential debates, he was largely responsible for organizing the musical acts of the protest that occurred in Northmoor Park across from the South 40. Huet-Vaughn helped to bring in the nationally known leftist hip-hop artist JG of Over the Counter Intelligence, St. Louis singer Anna Roland and folk artist David Rovics. For a CAPCR demonstration, percussion was provided through networking to the student owner of Wydown Water and borrowing several jugs.
Part of the reason that music has been such a large component of Huet-Vaughn’s protest career is that the protests have been driven by a certain segment of the population. Whereas Catholic protests tend to be more of a “spirited act” or part of a larger “holy act,” most college protests are anarchic, loud and vivacious. Part of the reason for all the noise is the position that college protesters are in today.
“For a lot of kids in our generation, protest is not as natural as it was in our parents’ generation,” Huet-Vaughn admitted, adding that most of the protests college kids are involved in are on behalf of someone else. “Nowadays, there’s more of a cynical youth. Music can tap into more expressive sides, to make you more vehement. What music does is it kind of moves you, takes away some of the timidity.[and] some of the fear.”
Nowadays, however, the trouble with a university-based protest is that it is rarely, if ever, spontaneous. Instead, most protests are like last year’s sit-in, products of intense planning by a select few. For protest organizers, the issue then becomes making the event popular and accessible to larger crowds. This is often where music enters.
Senior Duncan Ward, bass player for the campus band Arms Akimbo, was asked by a member of SWA to play alongside two of his friends. Though ambivalent about the cause, Ward agreed to play. Asked about the motivation behind his invitation, Ward speculated that it was about popularity. “[The SWA] were looking for different ways to get people’s attention,” he said.
Senior Evie Haselden, an SWA member who invited Ward, agreed. “We wanted to have.music to gain more interest and more attendance,” she said.
Sometimes the music helped the cause. When Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul & Mary came to sing and to talk to the protesters, it provided a much-needed boost of morale in addition to the entertainment.
Whether today’s youth can muster the same music fervor as the 1960s-era protests is a recurring theme amongst current activists. Ward recalls his performance in light of past protests as less than riveting.
“It wasn’t like the folk concerts of old,” he said. “Maybe for Peter it was. For me, it was more of just a gig.”