Tag Archives: activist

Celebrating Dr. King: DJ General Strike’s Top 40 Martin Luther King Day Protest Songs

January 15, 2024 Shouts - Music from the Rooftops! Leave a comment

Photo filed under a CC0 1.0 Deed Creative Commons.

Greetings comrades, and happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day, today. I’m DJ General Strike, host of the weekly protest music radio show, Protest Tunes on 91.3 KBCS FM in Seattle. In celebration of MLK Day I’ve compiled an extensive list of protest songs about, inspired by, that mention, quote or sample Dr. King, and broadcasted two distinct 2 hour MLK Day shows. You can listen to my most recent MLK Day show on the KBCS archive here.

For readers outside of the US, Martin Luther King Day, celebrated annually on the third Monday of January, honors the legacy of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., who advocated for racial equality and justice through nonviolent resistance during the American civil rights movement, until he was assassinated in April 1968. Martin Luther King Day, established in 1983, commemorates the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This day, observed since 1986, not only celebrates Dr. King’s contributions but also calls attention to the ongoing pursuit of justice and equality for all, urging activists to carry forward his legacy.

Musicians of all genres have been writing protest songs about and inspired by Martin Luther King since the 1950s. I’ve compiled over 150 MLK-themed protest songs, most of which you can hear in this Spotify Playlist. I’ve narrowed that down to my top 40 MLK themed protest songs, which I’ve organized by genre below.

Folk

Mike Millius & The Spiritual Warriors – The Ballad of Martin Luther King
Mike Millius is a singer, songwriter and producer from Bedford, New York, best known for writing the song “Lord Only Knows” which Beck reinterpreted on his album “Odelay”.. Millius wrote The Ballad of Martin Luther King, in 1968 immediately after Dr. King’s assassination. Pete Seeger, Brother Kirk covered the song for the Sesame Street album Pete Seeger & Brother Kirk Visit Sesame Street in 1974.

Anne Feeney – Have You Been to Jail for Justice?
Anne Feeney was a singer-songwriter, political activist and attorney from Pittsburgh. She began her music career in 1969 as a student activist playing a Phil Ochs song at a Vietnam War protest. Her business cards described her as “Performer, Producer, Hellraiser.” Feeney sadly passed away last year from Covid 19, at age 69. This 2001 song celebrates the history of nonviolent civil disobedience.

Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick & Jimmy Collier – You’re Just a Laughin’ Fool
Singer-songwriters and civil rights activists, both Jimmy and “Kirk” worked with Dr. King in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and were on the streets with KIng organizing the Poor Peoples’ Campaign until Dr. King’s assassination. They released their civil rights album Everybody’s Got a Right To Live in 1968, which included this song, just after King was assassinated, a month before the Poor People’s March on Washington.

Pete Seeger – Take It from Dr. King
Pete Seeger, a legendary American folk singer and social activist, played a pivotal role in shaping the folk music revival of the 20th century. Seeger, who helped popularize the Civil Rights movement’s protest anthem “We Shall Overcome,” first met Dr. King in 1957 at Highlander Folk School, a social justice leadership training school and cultural center located in New Market, Tennessee.

Grace Petrie – Farewell to Welfare
Grace Petrie is a socialist-feminist folk singer-songwriter from Leicester, England. She was hailed in The Guardian as “a powerful new songwriting voice” in 2011. She wrote this song in 2010 about the advent of the Conservative-led coalition government following the (UK) general election. This song is about the erosion of the anti-poverty programs which Dr. King fought for.

Country

Old Crow Medicine Show – Motel In Memphis
Old Crow Medicine Show, an Americana string band based in Nashville, that has been recording since 1998. Bluegrass musician Doc Watson discovered the band while its members were busking outside a pharmacy in Boone, North Carolina. They wrote this song in 2008 for the 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination.

Iris Dement – How Long
Iris Dement is a legendary folk, country and gospel singer-songwriter and musician from the Arkansas delta, now based in Iowa. This gospel song, off her 2023 album Working on a World, is based on an MLK quote, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

Kris Kristofferson & The Borderlords – They Killed Him
Kris Kristofferson is a retired country singer, songwriter, and actor, best known for writing songs for other artists. This track was originally written by Kristofferson for Johnny Cash who released it as a single in 1984, then Kristofferson recorded it himself in 1986 on his album Repossessed and Bob Dylan covered it a few months later on his album Knocked Out Loaded.

Rock

James Taylor – Shed a Little Light
This six-time Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter and guitarist, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 100 million records worldwide. This Dr. King tribute track is off Taylor’s thirteenth studio album New Moon Shine released in 1991.

Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros – Johnny Appleseed
The legendary frontman of pioneering punk rock band the Clash wrote this metaphorical song about the struggle for freedom in 2001 with his backing band The Mescaleros. The song tells the story of how 18th century environmentalist Johnny Appleseed and Martin Luther King Jr. both used nonviolent means to achieve social change. It had a second life as the theme song of 2007’s HBO series “John from Cincinnati.”

Stevie Nicks – Show Them The Way
Legendary singer, songwriter, and producer Stevie Nicks is best known for her work with the band Fleetwood Mac, and also as a solo artist. In this autobiographical 2020 single Nicks sings about her political experiences in the 1960s, including when she sang for Martin Luther King Jr.

The Entrance Band – M.L.K.
The Entrance Band is a band started by Guy Blakeslee, from Baltimore, Maryland. Blakesley said about this 2008 song, “The reason I wanted to make a song about Martin Luther King is because I felt that, even in a time when we have an African-American president and that’s a revolutionary thing for this country, it’s still a president that’s sending so many people to war and is, I believe, kind of just a much more charming, much more intelligent face of the same system that still has yet to change.”

U2 – Pride (In the Name of Love)
The best selling, 22 Grammy winning, Irish rock band from Dublin, released this MLK tribute track in 1984. The song was intended to be a critique of Ronald Reagan’s pride in America’s military power, but on reading the book Let The Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Stephen B. Oates’s, Bono was inspired to rewrite the lyrics to make the song about MLK.

R&B

Lenny Kravitz – Black and White America
Born in New York City to TV news producer Sy Kravitz and actress Roxie Roker, Kravitz was exposed to the entertainment industry at a young age. Kravitz won the Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, four years in a row from 1999 to 2002. This song is the title track of his 2011 funk album, Black and White America is about the insults endured by his interracial parents in the 1960s.

Ben Harper – Like a King
Ben Harper is a three-time Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. The lyrics of this 1994 song draw parallels between the experiences of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rodney King, African American man who was brutally beaten by LAPD officers in 1991, to highlight the lack of racial progress in American society.

Cameron Forbes – If I Was White
Chicago-raised, Los Angeles-based R&B singer & hit songwriter Cameron Forbes has written songs for Tyga, Carrie Underwood, Sean Kingston & G-Eazy among others. He wrote “If I Was White” about police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement. Forbes, his co-writers and his label, donated a portion of all proceeds from “If I Was White” to Mother’s Against Police Brutality and Campaign Zero.

Calypso

The Mighty Stalin – The Immortal Message of Martin Luther King
The Mighty Stalin AKA Black Stalin was a prominent Trinidadian calypso musician, known for his lyrics against European colonial oppression. He brought his unique style and social commentary to the genre, addressing issues of politics, inequality, and Caribbean culture. He wrote this MLK tribute song in 1968 not long after King’s assassination.

The Mighty Sparrow – Martin Luther King for President
Trinidadian calypso vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist, known as the “Calypso King of the World”. Sparrow paid tribute to MLK not once but twice, advocating for the civil rights leader’s election to higher office in this 1963 track, and then again shortly after King’s 1968 assassination in the song “Martin Luther King.”

Reggae

Max Romeo – Tribute to Martin Luther King
Max Romeo is a Jamaican reggae and roots reggae artist formerly of the rock steady group The Emotions. This song was written in 1978, 5 years before MLK Day was established. While the hook “No one remembers Martin Luther King” sounds rather dated now, it was poignant at that time.

Morgan Heritage – Black Man’s Paradise
Grammy-winning Jamaican reggae band formed in 1994 by five children of reggae artist Denroy Morgan. This song from 2000, addresses the ongoing struggle for equality, justice, and freedom for black people, reflecting on historical figures and movements, like Martin Luther King Jr., Marcus Garvey and Nelson Mandela..

Burning Spear – I Stand Strong
Burning Spear is a Grammy winning Jamaican roots reggae singer-songwriter, vocalist and musician, and one of the most influential and long-standing roots artists to emerge from the 1970s. This 1993 track is about standing strong against the oppressive system as his heroes Martin Luther King and Marcus Garvey demonstrated.

Gospel/Soul

Brother Will – Hairston Alabama Bus
Brother Will Hairston was a gospel singer and preacher in Detroit, Michigan, called “The Hurricane of the Motor City”. In 1956, Hairston wrote and recorded “The Alabama Bus” with Washboard Willie on percussion, about the Montgomery bus boycott. Hairston’s recording, was the first song to reference by name the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Nina Simone – Why? (The King of Love Is Dead)
Nina Simone, “The High Priestess of Soul” was a 4 time Grammy winning singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist. She first performed this song just 3 days after King’s assassination at the Westbury Music Fair.

Rap/Hip Hop

The Last Poets – Blessed Are Those Who Struggle
These forefathers of hip-hop were founded in Harlem in 1968, named after a poem by the South African poet Keorapetse Kgositsile. This 1977 song honors MLK as well and other historical figures who were assassinated while fighting for black liberation.

Common & John Legend – Glory
Conscious rapper, actor, and activist Common, and singer, songwriter, pianist, and actor John Legend wrote this song with Rhymefest in 2014 as the theme song from the 2014 film Selma, which portrays the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches. This song was awarded an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a Grammy in 2015.

The Game – Letter to the King (feat. Nas)
This 2008 hip-hop duet by West Coast rapper The Game and East Coast rapper Nas was written on MLK Day as a tribute to MLK. The Game said about it “‘Take me back to ’65. Martin Luther King is getting dressed in the morning. Coretta Scott King is dusting his shoulders off. He’s about to go out. The dude waiting in the car, I’m him. I don’t know if I’m his homie; I’m just gonna drive him to where he’s going, and I’m gonna talk to him.’

Three Times Dope – Increase the Peace
Three Times Dope was an American hip-hop group from Philadelphia, consisting of EST, Chuck Nice and Woody Wood. They released this conscious track about nonviolent social change, in 1989 as part of their album “Original Stylin’.” The song starts with a powerful introduction, featuring a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.

King Dream Chorus – King Holiday
This song was composed by Phillip Jones, Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Melle Mel and Bill Adler, and spearheaded by Martin Luther King Jr.’s youngest son, Dexter Scott King. It was released in honor of the first Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which was first celebrated as a national holiday in the US on January 20, 1986. All proceeds from the single were donated to the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change.

Big Daddy Kane – Word to the Mother (Land)
Big Daddy Kane, is an American rapper, producer and actor who began his career in 1986 as a member of the Juice Crew. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential and skilled MCs in hip-hop. This 1988 song about African American pride and history is off BDK’s debut album Long Live the Kane.

Vic Mensa – Go Tell ’em
Vic Mensa, a conscious rapper and singer from Chicago, was a member of the group Kids These Days, which broke up in 2013, and a founding member of the hip-hop collective Savemoney and the rap rock group 93Punx. This track is off The Birth of a Nation: The Inspired by Album, the companion album to the 2016 movie The Birth of a Nation, about 1831 slave rebellion leader Nat Turner.

Talib Kweli – All of Us
Talib Kweli is a conscious rapper from New York, best known for being half of the hip-hop duo Black Star with Mos Def. This 2017 anti-police brutality track, features Jay Electronica & Yummy Bingham. It highlights the struggles that people of color face in America and calls for unity and solidarity in the face of oppression as Dr. King did.

Run-DMC – Proud to Be Black
Run-DMC, founded in 1983, in Hollis, Queens, New York, was the first hip hop group to achieve a Gold record and a platinum record, the first hip hop act to have their music videos broadcast on MTV, the first hip hop act on the cover of Rolling and the first hip hop group to be nominated for a Grammy Award. This 1986 track is a powerful affirmation of Black identity and history.

Micah Bournes – All Hands on Deck
Micah Bournes is a musician and poet born and raised in Long Beach, California. His work centers on themes of culture, justice, and faith. This 2018 track is a cipher that links the civil rights movement and Black Lives Matter movement and features Izzie Ray, Jackie Miclau, Liz Vice and Lucee.

Jasiri X – Dr. King’s Nightmare
Jasiri X is a Pittsburgh-based conscious rapper and net-neutrality activist. This 2010 song is written from the perspective of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in response to conservative political commentator Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor rally at the Lincoln Memorial, on the 47th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, in which Beck was accused of co-opting Dr. King’s legacy to spread his racist right-wing ideology.

Run the Jewels – Thieves
Run the Jewels are a Super-duo composed of Brooklyn-based rapper and producer El-P, and Atlanta-based rapper Killer Mike, taking their name from a lyric in the LL Cool J song “Cheesy Rat Blues” This song about the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, Missouri was inspired by the MLK quote “riot is the language of the unheard.”

Public Enemy – By the Time I Get To Arizona
Political hip-hop group founded by Chuck D and Flavor Flav in 1985. By the Time I Get to Arizona” is a song from their 1991 album Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black, written by frontman Chuck D in protest of the state of Arizona, where Governor Evan Mecham had canceled Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the people voted against its reintroduction.

Punk/Metal

Rage Against the Machine – Renegades of Funk
RATM was known for melding heavy metal and rap music with punk rock and funk influences, as well as their radical leftist views. This track is a cover of a 1983 song by Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force, off Rage’s 2000 cover album Renegades. The song draws a connection between historical activists and revolutionaries like MLK to present-day social movements.

Good Riddance – Shadows of Defeat
GR is a punk rock band from Santa Cruz, California. They released seven full-length studio albums then disbanded 2007 and reformed in 2012. This 1999 track from their album Operation Phoenix begins with a sample of Martin Luther King’s 1964 Poverty of the Soul speech.

The Vernon Walters – M.L.K.
The Vernon Walters was a punk band from Hoorn, Netherlands founded in 1986. The band’s lead vocalist and guitarist Hans Engel was murdered in Spain in 2003 and in 2007, the Hoorn Culture Committee campaigned to have a Hans Engel street named after him. This song was the title track of their 1988 Martin Luther King tribute EP, MLK.

Anti-Flag – 911 for Peace
Political punk band from Pittsburgh, formed by Justin Sane and Pat Thetic in 1988. The band is well known for its left-wing political activism. This post-911 anti-war song off their 2002 album Mobilize features excerpts from MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Happy MLK Day! I hope listening to these protest songs inspires you to carry on Dr. King’s legacy. Peace Out!

Essay, History

Music Retrospects #1: Sister Souljah, ‘360 Degrees of Power’ and the unapologetic radicalism of Black women

March 9, 2023 Shouts - Music from the Rooftops! Leave a comment

These series were written by Cedric McCoy and republished here with the author’s and publisher’s consent. The 3-part series were originally published on The Michigan Daily webpage on Feb. 8, 21 and 23.

For Black History Month 2023, I will be publishing a mini-series of short music reviews under the title “Protest Music Retrospects.” The aim of this series is to both revisit some of the most pivotal moments in Black protest music history and to shed light on overlooked Black figures and musics, specifically those of Black women, that have contributed to the socially-conscious popular culture of today. The reviews will be a mix of musical critique as well as historical and historiographical analysis of the works and their responses in media. For the first entry, I will be starting off with Sister Souljah and her 1992 album, 360 Degrees of Power.

Lisa Williamson, known professionally as Sister Souljah, is an activist, writer, film producer and musician. She first garnered attention as a campus activist while at Cornell University, before becoming a performing artist in the music industry. She was also a member of Public Enemy for a short period of time in the 1990s, serving as their minister of information.

360 Degrees of Power is raw, aggressive and confrontational. Sister Souljah’s delivery is somewhat arhythmic and doesn’t quite fit into the popular rhythmic and rhyme-informed styles of rap of the era; her lyricism is best understood as a continuation of the musical poetry of the ‘60s and ‘70s, popularized by The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron.

Sister Souljah engages with a multitude of difficult and nuanced topics by making direct commentary on white power structures, as well as the complacency of some Black people in systems of their own oppressions. The album produced two singles –– The Hate that Hate Produced and The Final Solution: Slavery is Back in Effect –– a satirical skit that imagines the re-institution of slavery in the 20th century. Both works encapsulate Sister Souljah’s militancy and Black-nationalistic philosophies. The first single yields this powerful stanza, framing the overarching messages of the album:

Souljah was not born to make white people feel comfortable

I am African first, I am Black first

I want what’s good for me and my people first

And if my survival means your total destruction

Then so be it!

You built this wicked system

They say two wrongs don’t make it right

But it damn sure makes it even!

Throughout the album’s tracks, Sister Souljah tackles the issues of domestic abuse, alcoholism and sexism within Black communities. For example, in the fifth track, “Nigga’s Gotta,” she includes another short skit wherein a Black man sexually abuses his young daughter. The interlude is hard to listen to even today, but serves to make real and audible an often shared experience of Black women. Sister Souljah further uses the track to problematize Black masculinity and its simultaneous attraction to materiality and dismissal of political education. She mirrors the form and cadence of The Last Poets’ Niggers are Scared of the Revolution, speaking to Black men through indicting and ironic third-person references.

Sister Souljah also addresses American militarism and imperialism globally and domestically in her lyrical presentation, while holding absolutely nothing back. In the song Killing Me Softly: Deadly Code of Silence, she begins with this scathing critique that continues to reflect Republican leadership in the 21st century:

George Bush is a terrorist / He creates terror in the minds, hearts and neighborhoods of Black people.”

Later in the album, on the song titled Brainteasers and Doubtbusters, she includes the still-relevant reflection:

They give you scholarships to their schools / So you can learn to think and act like them / So they can use you against your own people / Like these weak pitiful Black mayors and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

All of these examples demonstrate Sister Souljah’s unique positionality within the Black experience: she combines her personal perspectives with her politically informed commentary to craft a narrative that both draws upon an intellectual tradition and pioneers a new space for Black women to participate in cultural critique. I find her lyrics potent even today, as we navigate conservative “anti-woke” movements and rejections of Black voices (especially Black feminist voices) in the teaching of Black histories.

Despite only publishing one studio album, Sister Souljah has had a prolific creative career. Shortly after the release of 360 Degrees of Power, she began a career as a writer and novelist. Her memoir, “No Disrespect,” was released in 1994, and her first work of fiction, “The Coldest Winter Ever,” was published in 1999. Sister Souljah remains an activist and author, having written five other novels and contributing to various journals and newspapers.

Under normal circumstances, a project such as 360 Degrees of Power would have been lost to obscurity: not only was it a debut from a widely unknown artist, but it also came at a time when Black women rappers were often disregarded for their political commentary and critique. However, in a 1992 interview with The Washington Post, Sister Souljah gave her now-infamous critique of American policing in response to the LA riots:

“If Black people kill Black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?”

The comment was widely and harshly received by the media (and largely white America). Bill Clinton — at the time a presidential candidate — criticized her language and sentiment, comparing her approach to that of David Duke (“had the words ‘white’ and ‘Black’ be reversed”) spawning the “Sister Souljah Moment” phenomenon. Sister Souljah’s “Sister Souljah Moment” forced her to the front of contemporary rejections of rap and signaled a new beginning in the respectability politics of the neoliberal ‘90s: an epoch where racially-charged political thought was reduced to “extremism” and dismissed by the conservative hegemonic culture.

Despite her short stint in the music industry, Sister Souljah represents the end of an era of protest music. The dominant cultural structure had already begun resisting the profane and deeply assertive messaging of political rap with Public Enemy, N.W.A. and others in the leading years. The early ‘90s did not bring an end to politically conscious rap; however, subsequent years were filled with more avant-garde, music-focused approaches to the medium that ultimately would remain at the forefront of the genre. Still, her contribution to the movement was unique and worth remembering and reflecting upon: so often are the voices of radical Black women ignored in favor of the hero-worship of their male contemporaries. Though overlooked, 360 Degrees of Power has earned its spot in the canon of 20th century Black protest music.

MiC Assistant Editor Cedric Preston McCoy can be reached at cedmccoy@umich.edu.

News

Local Musician Shares Her Story Of Activism

September 9, 2022 Shouts - Music from the Rooftops! Leave a comment

This article was originally published by Jersey Shore Online and written by Bob Vosseller.

JACKSON, USA – Kaleigh Brendle, 19, has headed back to Villanova University and either wants to be a disability rights attorney or a musician and with her energy, she could probably do both.

The teenager hasn’t let her visual limitations stop her love of performing music but it did inspire her to fight for proper accommodations for those who are visually impaired.

Brendle, a resident of Brick, and a high school graduate from Howell Township, worked to secure appropriate accommodations for those like herself from the College Board.

She also performed at the White House with a choir and also created a choir at the age of 14 for visually impaired singers. Brendle recently performed some of her own music as well as several cover songs during a Saturday afternoon program that was sponsored by the Jackson Friends of the Library.

Prior to her library appearance she spoke to Jersey Shore Online.com about how she responded to an unfair issue and beat the odds. During her presentation she would integrate music with an appropriate song related to the chronology of her story.

Kaleigh Brendle, 19, sits at the piano, left, as her mother Heather Brendle looks on prior to a performance the teen made at the Jackson branch of the Ocean County Library. (Photo by Bob Vosseller)

“The songs supplement the story,” she said. The two stories she shared included one from 2020 which was an issue with the College Board regarding AP (advanced placement) exams. “They refused to provide blind and deaf test takers braille and other critical accommodations during the COVID-19 pandemic and other test takers and I stood up against that and ultimately won that struggle and secured the braille that we needed.”

She said Jackson Librarian Christine Mecca asked her to talk about another advocacy project she undertook a year later as part of her senior thesis. “I went to a specialized program at a high school and so they required a capstone project where you can’t just write the presentation you actually have to start to institute change about whatever you are discussing.

“I want to be a disability rights attorney and what I ultimately chose was representation of disability in children’s media.” This included situation comedies, cartoons and some Disney programs.

“I was curious because growing up I’d never seen a disabled character on any of those outside of an episode. A blind character was on a Sesame Street episode, actually, a fraction of one. Is there something to that?” Brendle pondered.

Brendle made some sad discoveries. “The visual impairment representation that is awarded has a rate of one percent right now for children’s media for disability. It doesn’t give disabled kids someone to look up to when they are watching that. One in five Americans have some kind of disability now.”

“It is a pretty large group and to see it, they are either tokenizing or vilifying,” she added. She gave an example of tokenizing as the Sesame Street episode she referenced. “Where the character was only there for a fraction of an episode as if to check off a box.”

As for as vilifying, “a lot of villains in cartoons have some sort of defect or disability and that is a really bad angle to take and a consistency that is really troubling as it casts in a kid’s mind that being different are the bad ones and the ones to look out for,” she added.

Brendle released a video on social media that explained some of her research in a basic manner. “I started a campaign called ‘Out of Sight Out of Mind’ and it definitely got some attention. Unfortunately, I couldn’t advocate for it as much as I wanted to because I had to go to college right after that but any chance I get to talk about it and bring the issue to light, I definitely do that.”

She intends to contact Nickelodeon and Disney in the future “to see what is possible because that still is an existing issue.” She noted that Sheldon in the Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon shows representation in having “autism or asperger’s and I believe there was a character on Modern Family who has something. There is more adult oriented programming that does have representation.”

She was joined by her mother Heather Brendle for the program who provided her some tips. Her mother said she was very proud of her daughter and her bright spirit even as she fought unsurmountable odds to make positive change.

The story selections she made to punctuate her saga included the songs “Rise Up,” “That’s What Friends Are For,” “Smile,” the theme song from the animated film “Pocahontas” and “At Last.”

She was diagnosed with a condition commonly known as LCA. “It feels like I am extremely near sided when I have my very strong prescription glasses on. I don’t have any peripheral vision. I don’t have any depth perception. I can’t read print for long periods of time without getting substantial headaches.

“I have had it since birth and my brother who is totally blind has the same condition,” she added.

Her musical interest began at an early age as well. “My first memory of singing was my dad holding me up and me singing Sesame Street songs to passersby on the porch. I watched people stop and listen to me. It was one of those things that was always there. I don’t know quite how it began.

“When I watched my cartoons in the morning, I was addicted to PBS Kids which I think also fostered my love of reading too,” she said.

She noted how difficult the conditions of the COVID-19 shut down were during her senior year in high school. “I was completely remote for it and had very little contact with my peers and was exclusively in my house for 17 months and that can be really isolating for somebody. Music is how I really coped with it.”

“I am very much split on my two career interests of being an attorney and singer,” she said. She recently released an album, performed at the Algonquin Art Theater and won the Diane Turton Talent Show in 2018 where she performed a song off her album in front of 500 people.

Her first of several White House appearances with the Princeton Westminster Children’s Choir was quite memorable. “I had the honor of being the featured soloist and performing there is incredible. It is one of those things where you can’t believe it is actually happening. It is magical and we went during the Christmas holidays.

“We were performing for not only the diplomats but for their families and there were a lot of little kids and it was so, so cute,” the performer said.

She formed the Sing for Serenity Choir “which is my pride and joy. It is an international online choir for the blind and visually impaired which I started five years ago. We have our own YouTube channel. We have members from over a dozen countries.”

“I’m creating a type of activism major at my college as there is an option to design your own major and what I am looking to create is using the legal system and using the media to advocate for positive change,” she added.

For further details about Brendle’s activism and musical journey visit her Choir for the Blind’s YouTube Channel.

Her link to the Twitter Video about her challenge with the College Board issue.

The link to the Twitter video about her Capstone Project (Disability Representation in Children’s Media).