I’d Hammer Out Love

I’d Hammer Out Love January 19, 2014

It may be blasphemous to highlight a song performance by privileged White performers on Martin Luther King Day, but I love this song and this performance so much I will risk it.

Peter, Paul, and Mary were one of several musical acts that performed during the March on Washington on 28 August 1963 (Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and others also performed).   The Hymn of Social Justice that they chose to sing was Pete Seeger’s “If I Had a Hammer”.  The song, written by Seeger and Lee hays in 1949, became a major anthem of the Civil Rights movement and was performed at many rally’s, concerts, march’s and events throughout the 1960’s.

All though over 60 years have passed since it was written, and over 50 years have passed since this performance, the message of “If I Had a Hammer is just as applicable and important today as it was then.  In a time when the fight for complete civil and economic rights for all people continues, the message of “hammering out” love and justice for all needs to ring out louder than ever before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBUPr8oDRL8

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