‘Singing for Social Justice’: a look back at 1968

“Faca amor nao faca guerra.”

Make love not war, reads a graffiti-covered backdrop. A painted dove with an olive branch protests the war and violence.

No, it’s not 1968, and students aren’t protesting the war in Vietnam, but the memories of that era were in the air at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater during “Singing for Social Justice: 1968’s Legacy in the Americas,” a music-filled show Sunday evening.

The Latin American Music Center, Latino Studies Program, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the African American Arts Institute presented the show as a commemoration of the 40th anniversary of 1968. The show served as a link between the mentality of the time and today.

Starting off with a short video clip displaying a student rally in Mexico in 1968, the show then segued into clips from the television documentary “1968 with Tom Brokaw.” The audience heard Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” say: “The country as a whole had a much more shared conscious than now.”

The singers and musicians performed 12 songs throughout the two-hour concert. Professor Anya Peterson Royce started off each song with a reading of original poetry relating to the subject matter of the song and time.

Singers Krista Detor and David Weber opened the show with the song “Abraham, Martin, and John,” with Detor on piano and Weber on guitar.

Written in 1968 by Dick Holler and first recorded by Dion, the song pays tribute to heroic leaders Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. Images of these men flashed across the screen during the song, adding a visual element for the audience.

Next, vocalist Yuriria Rodriguez, with Omar Ruiz-Oliver on percussion, performed “Me Gustan los Estudiantes,” which translates to “I Sympathize with the Students.” Written by Violeta Parra from Chile, the song emphasizes the power of student activism against the status quo.

Other songs included an instrumental performance of John Coltrane’s song, “Alabama” by the Luke Gillespie Quartet; Bob Marley’s “Buffalo Soldier” sung by Curtis Cantwell Jackson; “Calice,” written by Chico Buarque and Gilberto Gil of Brazil; and “Universal Soldier,” sung by Detor and Weber.

Audience member and graduate student Sarah Dillard said the song “Calice” was her favorite.

“I really enjoyed the poetry as well,” she said.

Lyrics accompanied the images to songs not in English so the audience could understand the context. Vocalists Hallie Orgel and Priscilla Borges also sang, and members of the Latin American Popular Music Ensemble backed up the vocalists.

The evening ended with a performance of John Lennon’s song “Imagine.”
The piece, arranged by Paulo Dias, was a duet between Detor and Jackson. They were backed by Weber on guitar, Dias on piano, Guido Sanchez on bass and Ben Fowler on percussion.

Audience members were encouraged to sing along to the last verse of the song. The entire theater joined in unison as the house lights went up.

“It was heart-filling, and I just felt tears of joy as we all sang along to ‘Imagine,’” Bloomington resident Julianna Capshew said afterward. Capshew expressed her feelings of hope since Barack Obama’s election and said she thought the show displayed not only what we have overcome, but what we have yet to accomplish.
Jodi Pfingston, a professor at Ivy Tech, said she and Capshew came to see their friend, vocalist Priscilla Borges, in the show.

“I thought it was powerful using the poetry and images,” Pfingston said.

Pfingston expressed how hard it must have been for teachers to see their students shipped off to war. As a professor, she related with a particular image that showed a banner for Teachers Against the Vietnam War.

“I thought that was really touching,” she said.