Today in the Mission Yearbook - ‘Songs in the Key of Resistance’

Song circles with Kairos Center leave no one behind

September 30, 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.”

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.

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)

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.

Taylor and Pisano led the participants in songs written for various contexts. Most recently, these same songs have been used for peaceful actions taken by Kairos Center affiliates around the country to protest the war in Gaza. 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.

Another story Taylor shared was about a song written on the one-year anniversary of Michael Brown’s killing in Ferguson, Missouri. Taylor said the Flobots penned the song “We Remember You” to remind oppressed communities how important they are and “how important it is for us to struggle for one another. Those who are taken from us due to state violence, militarism and poverty, we will never forget them.” Taylor then recited the poem “In Jerusalem” by the late Palestinian poet laureate emeritus, Mahmoud Darwish as Pisano led those gathered in the simple lyric, “We, we remember you.”

“It’s important to ground ourselves in who we are struggling for,” said Taylor. “There are still people alive whom we have to be fighting for.”

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.

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
Nicholas Skaggs, Record Archivist II, Presbyterian Historical Society 
Eva Slayton, Mission Specialist, 1001 New Worshiping Communities, Presbyterian Mission Agency 

Let us pray

Father, thank you for the joy of being shared by you, in all our diversity and brokenness, with those you love. Grant us grace to embrace your blessings as we journey with others in this amazing adventure of life. Amen.