‘Songs in the Key of Resistance’

Song circles with Kairos Center leave no one behind

September 4, 2024

“Kairos is an ancient Greek word, describing a time of great change when the old ways of the world are dying and new ones are struggling to be born,” said Pauline Pisano, organizer for the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice. “It’s clear we are living through exactly such a time today.” Pisano called this time “full of grave danger and rare opportunity” and described the work of the center in lifting up leaders and activists to take bold, prophetic and imaginative action to break free from the “intolerable conditions of poverty, systemic racism, militarism, ecological devastation and more.”

Ciara Taylor and Pauline Pisano introduce the “Songs in the Key of Resistance” songbook at the Wild Goose Festival 2024. (Photo by Beth Waltemath)

Pisano spoke to a crowd under “The Tent of Make Believe,” a venue sponsored by PC(USA)’s 1001 New Worshiping Communities movement and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary at the Wild Goose Festival, a four-day event rooted in progressive Christianity that celebrates “spirit, justice, music and art.” Pisano was joined by other cultural artists and colleagues from the Kairos Center and the Freedom Church of the Poor, who together conducted a song circle and lifted up stories of the role of song in their political actions and peaceful protests.

Pisano relayed how often the “unsung leaders emerging out of poor and oppressed communities have been the first to feel the pain of injustice and the first to strike out against it.” The Kairos Center works to raise up generations of these leaders and to form a community to help sustain their work.

One of the ways is by supporting the creative work of cultural artists in the movement. They share the work with other activists as they find connections in the struggles of the marginalized across the globe. Their “Songs in the Key of Resistance: A Movement Songbook” draws on a rich history of social movement music from spirituals, labor and freedom songs and celebrates the poetry and chants born out of human rights struggles today.

“In exchanging songs, we’re able to learn more about each other — build trust, build connection so that we can build strong communities,” said Ciara M. Taylor, strategist and educator for the Kairos Center.

Leaders of the Freedom Church of the Poor lead a workshop on protest songs at a tent sponsored by 1001 New Worshiping Communities and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. (Photo by Beth Waltemath)

Taylor and Pisano led the participants in songs written for various contexts. The songs are taught in a call-and-response style, with the overlap of vocals harmonizing as people find their voice within the collective.

“Just get in where you fit in,” Taylor said before introducing a song written on the way to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline. The songwriter, Te Martin, discovered how the song, “May This Body Be a Bridge,” resonated elsewhere when they were approached by a Palestinian comrade who made connections between the struggle of Gazans and that of Indigenous people to protect their lands and keep them sacred.

Other songs shared came from the “We Cry Justice Cultural Arts Project,” a companion piece to a book by the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-founder of the Poor People’s Campaign, called “We Cry Justice: Reading the Bible with the Poor People’s Campaign.” Some of the musicians are featured in special quarterly gatherings of the Freedom Church of the Poor.

The Freedom Church of the Poor is the focus of Dr. Adam Barnes, the director of religious faith and organizing for Kairos Center, who said the church takes inspiration from the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of poor people coming together from all parts of the country across all lines of division as a non-violent core of a movement for human rights. Freedom Church meets online every Sunday at 6 p.m. Eastern and for Bible study on Wednesdays. Since its beginning five years ago, participants in the Freedom Church of the Poor have formed in-person communities that respond with activism to the pleas for justice in their communities. Barnes said art and culture are essential to their work. “The forces we are up against use art and culture to reinforce and justify poverty and all kinds of injustice,” said Barnes. “We have to do our art and culture work to be able to expose that and lift us up past the divisions.”

The “Songs in the Key of Resistance” songbook is available here.

Beth Waltemath, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Today’s Focus: Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Eva Rebozo, CLC Consultant/Database Administrator, Office of the General Assembly 
Martha Reisner, Director, Affiliated Markets Relationships, Board of Pensions  

Let us pray

Loving God, guide our paths that no matter where we are, we will seek to follow the paths that Christ would walk, to reach out with Christ’s love in caring for our neighbors. Amen.