Fifty years and counting

The activism and music of Peter, Paul and Mary are still pushing us forward

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Like millions of Americans who lived through the 1960s, my home was filled with Walter Cronkite’s nightly narration of the events of the day. It seemed the struggle for civil rights was at the center of every newscast only to be replaced at times by the bloody coverage of the Vietnam War and the growing anti-war movement here in the states.

Behind this world of young American soldiers lying dead or wounded in the rice paddies of Southeast Asia; the campus protests; African Americans being beaten by police, attacked by dogs, sprayed by fire hoses; and the multitude of political marches, there was a soundtrack. And the music that could be heard above the cries for justice included that of Peter Yarrow, (Noel) Paul Stookey and Mary Travers, better known as Peter, Paul and Mary.

These three friends and folk singers were the real deal. Cut from the same cloth as The Weavers, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, their music and their activism were and are inseparable.

While reading their newly released book — Peter, Paul and Mary: Fifty Years In Music and Life — I found it exhausting just contemplating what these folks have accomplished. They were there, marching and singing alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. at his “I Have a Dream” speech. They played hundreds of dates a year, each night risking their livelihoods to speak out on controversial issues including civil rights and their opposition to the Vietnam War. They were vocal in support of the women’s movement. Later they leant their voices and their influence to the anti-nuke movement. They began their fight for gay rights long before it was popular to do so. They made sure that injustices such as the murder of Mathew Sheppard did not go unnoticed and would never be forgotten. They have been tireless advocates for the environment, warning each new generation of the perils of global warming. And today, the dangers posed by fracking have been added to the mix.

In a recent phone call, I asked Peter Yarrow how he does it, how he’s managed to work so long and so hard on so many important issues without losing hope or growing weary.

“It takes a little skill to juggle all these balls,” he says. “Today I don’t have the stamina I used to have so I must be more judicious. Pete Seeger once told me, ‘You know the most important thing is to take care of yourself, because we need you for 30 or 40 more years.’” 

Seeger was clearly a little shortsighted when it came to Yarrow and his collaborators. It’s been 50 years and counting for Yarrow and Stookey and it certainly would have been for Travers as well had she not passed away in 2009.

I suspect his real secret to sustaining the fight for a better world came in the next thing Yarrow said: “When you are in the process of marching toward an objective, that is the antidote to feeling overwhelmed.”

And Yarrow has clearly never stopped marching in over five decades.

Today his march is driven by his passion for kids. He founded Operation Respect, a nonprofit whose mission is to “assure each child and youth a respectful, safe and compassionate climate of learning where their academic, social and emotional development can take place free of bullying, ridicule and violence.”

About his organization he says, “our message is, don’t fall into materialism and mean-spiritedness because that only intensifies animosity and hatred.”

His passion for kids is just another element in his quest to make the world a better place. He recognizes that children are our secret weapons to a brighter future.

“It’s 20 times more difficult today because of mean-spiritedness. Reality shows that spirit infects children; it’s why we have bullying. It’s the same reason we have gridlock in Congress.

“It use to be [in Congress] there were opposite points of view, but still civility. Now the goal is to injure your opponent and eliminate dialogue.

“This is a terrible time for democracy. There’s too many lobbyists and too much money that’s annihilative to the democratic process. We have terrible things like the Roberts decision. And this makes it hard to fix things like climate change where we have a very small window.

“I have never seen so much mean-spiritedness in society.”

That’s quite a statement coming from a man who spent his teenage years living in the world of Joseph McCarthy and seeing his own musical mentors blacklisted, their careers destroyed over their progressive political views and speech. The thought that things are worse today should get our attention.

But Yarrow isn’t giving up. He clearly doesn’t know what that means. Today’s challenges, both political and cultural, are just the next battle in a never-ending war he feels compelled to always be fighting.

He says that the real safeguard to preventing cultural catastrophes is to create hearts that are caring in people, especially children. “We need empathy,” he says. “If we don’t have that, we won’t care about healthcare, income disparity, survival, fairness. We’ll be left with only our own egocentric selves.

“We have to gather our spirits together. In every generation we are going to have to do this. In each age and each generation there are struggles. Certain injustices and certain realities will be eradicated but it will never be perfect.”

So what is Yarrow’s recipe for fighting injustice and never giving up? I should have seen it coming.

“Singing together,” he says. “Every time I sing, I become optimistic.”

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