NORTHAMPTON — Hundreds of miles away from the demonstrations that flooded many Washington, D.C., streets Friday evening after Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president, songs of hope, peaceful resistance and determination flooded a community room at Friends Meetinghouse.
Robin Weingarten, of Easthampton, said she organized the event via Facebook to bring members of the community together who wished to demonstrate peacefully but didn’t have a means, or even necessarily a desire, to go to Washington.
“We will gather to raise our voices in song … to inspire unity, hope, healing and action,” the event page reads. “While many will be en route to D.C. or Boston for the big marches, our gathering is for those of us who are staying local — to show solidarity with the thousands who will be demonstrating on Saturday.”
Admission to the event was free, though attendees were able to make donations to cover cost of the space as well as to benefit the American Friends Service Committee.
Weingarten said she took to social media in the weeks leading up to the inauguration and created a group called “United We Sing.” Within the group, she said, the objective was to corral support from around the country and inspire others to create similar sing-alongs for the same purpose.
Now, on the weekend of the inauguration, similar events — some of which were inspired by Weingarten’s efforts, she noted — have emerged in cities like Indianapolis, Boston and Chicago.
“I think some people were looking for stuff to do,” Weingarten said. “I think everybody’s feeling really upset and scared and wanted to do something … I thought ‘a lot of people aren’t going (to the march in Washington), and we need to do something today.’”
At the Northampton event at the Center Street meetinghouse, the 70 or so people who came out sang and danced and clapped to tunes by local folk singers and activists, including the likes of artists Ben Grosscup, Marcy Gregoire and Peter Blood.
“I wrote this song during the Obama administration, believe it or not,” Grosscup said with a chuckle. “There were protest songs then, too, you know.”
The song he referenced was “This Changes Everything,” which was a piece he wrote inspired by a book by the same name, written by Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein.
You buy the president and you write the laws/
You send drilling rigs where the sea ice thaws/
People are gonna rise like the floods you caused/
This changes everything.
Michael Majchrowicz can be reached at mmajchrowicz@gazettenet.com.