BRATTLEBORO — With Peter, Paul and Mary's 1963 release of their version of “Blowin' in the Wind” playing, an area radio veteran told students at his alma mater how he has seen music help effect social change.
As part of the school's twice-a-year Diversity Day, Tim Johnson, a 1974 graduate of Brattleboro Union High School who works as news director of WTSA, was introduced by BUHS social studies teacher Bill Holiday, who projected the lyrics on a screen as Johnson played the songs.
“I was a disc jockey at a time when the DJ would choose the music to be played on the radio rather than a corporation doing it,” added Johnson, who started off his talk by taking the students back to the decade of the 1950s with Elvis Presley.
“This was the decade that I grew up in, and it was the first time the younger generation had their own music,” he said.
“This was also when the Supreme Court in Brown v. the Board of Education found it unconstitutional in the U.S. for public schools to educate people of color and white people separately.
“In the sixties, young people became aware that what their government did should not be accepted as gospel. Because of the music young people were playing, rumors were rampant that this music was a Communist plot to subvert the minds of America's youth and induct them into Communism,” Johnson said.
Johnson then introduced students to Robert Zimmerman - better known as Bob Dylan.
The iconic musician came on the scene in the early '60s - the Civil Rights Era - with such songs as “The Times They Are a-Changin.'”
Dylan's work - notably “Blowin' in the Wind” in 1962 - is said to have influenced African-American songwriter Sam Cooke.
As recounted in Rolling Stone, Cooke drafted “A Change Is Gonna Come” after encountering sit-in demonstrators in North Carolina. The song was destined to become a civil rights anthem.
“This was a “courageous departure from his polished image and light-hearted songs,” Johnson said.
In 1967, when Janice Ian was 16, she had her first hit single, “Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking),” which chronicles an interracial romance.
“The song's lyrical content was taboo for some radio stations, and they withdrew or banned it from their playlists accordingly,” Johnson said.
Johnson introduced Curtis Mayfield as “one of the first of a new wave of mainstream African-American R & B performing artists and composers to interject social commentary into their work.”
“'People Get Ready,' a gospel-influenced song Mayfield wrote for his band, The Impressions, became one of Martin Luther King's favorites and a standard used for demonstrations during the civil rights struggles in the 1960s,” Johnson said.
Johnson also played Grace Slick's 1967 song “White Rabbit,” in which Lewis Carroll's “Alice In Wonderland” stories are turned into a drug and pop-culture reference point with lines like, “One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small, and the ones that mother gives you, don't do anything at all.”
Johnson proceeded to describe what the draft was like in the Sixties, when a young man would receive a number by lottery.
“The higher your number, the less likely you would be drafted,” he told the students. “Even though we now have a volunteer army, it is still mainly poor people and people of color who end up serving.”
Johnson played “Fortunate Son,” released by Creedence Clearwater Revival at the end of 1969, which had a clear reference to class disparity in the military: “I ain't no senator's son. I ain't no fortunate one, no. I ain't no military son. I ain't no millionaire's son, no.”
“One of the very few songs of the 1960s to cast the military in a positive light was the 'Ballad of the Green Berets,' the Green Berets being an elite special force in the U.S. Army. It became a major hit in '66,” Johnson said.
“Before John F. Kennedy became president, [President] Dwight D. Eisenhower described how the military industrial complex will overtake this nation,” Johnson continued.
“The U.S. became involved in the Vietnam War anyway,” he said. “It wasn't until the 1970s, after 16 years of war and five presidents, that public opinion began to turn.”
Johnson then pointed to the 1970 hit song, “War,” written by Norman Whitfield with Edwin Starr as vocalist. The track's direct message, summarized by its chorus ('War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothin'!'), “resonated with Americans' growing opposition to the war in Vietnam,” he said.
“Good music can not only make you think, but also understand,” Johnson stated, referencing a group that would profoundly influence the musical tastes of a generation: The Beatles.
“The British invasion of four men from Liverpool - John [Lennon], Paul [McCartney], George [Harrison], and Ringo [Starr] - in the early 1960s with songs such as 'She Loves You' - began to push the envelope,” Johnson said.
Bill Holiday chimed in.
“Lyrics can be applied to any generation,” he advised the students. “See what's going on in the halls at BUHS. Don't say, 'It's not my problem.' It's everybody's problem.”
A long tradition
Organized by BUHS Diversity Coordinator Mikaela Sims, Diversity Day has a long tradition of more than 11 years at Brattleboro Union High School. The practice was started in the late '90s by Janaki Natarajan and continued by Naima Wade.
“This celebration of diversity relies on the cooperation of community members, staff, students, faculty and administrators,” Sims said. “As the pressures of high-stakes testing and race to the top increase, Diversity Day becomes more important to bring the world and our town community into the classroom.”
“Through this work we help to create a global outlook and we continue to build community within the school and in our towns,” she said.