When social movements need to march in beat, Dick Flacks gives them a song. What follows is a brief tour through influential songs and poems of protest and resistance in U.S. history, many with rural roots, with Flack’s extensive knowledge as a guide
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These lyrics were written by Abel Meeropol (who later adopted the children of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg) under the pen name Lewis Allen (1943); the music was composed by Earl Robinson. This 1947 cover by Paul Robeson includes all the original verses.
It is a song that turns the tragic tale it begins with into a veritable shout, for it concludes not as a somber dirge for one fallen fellow worker but as a soaring call for collective action and for all working people to stand up for their rights.
To some, patriotism means "my country -- right or wrong." To others, it means loyalty to a set of principles, and thus requires dissent and criticism when those in power violate those standards. Not enough Americans are aware that much of what we consider our patriotic culture, especially our iconic music, was created by artists and writers of decidedly left-wing sympathies.
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