Joan Baez to sing for Occupy Wall Street on Veteran's Day
Despite the coldness on Veteran's Day of 2011, Occupy Wall Street is heated up for a rally and concert featuring folk singer Joan Baez, who has been impressed by the movement as a human rights activist and protest singer.
On Friday, the Foley Square in downtown Manhattan will see Occupy Wall Street protesters holding their first permitted event in the city. Originally planned for Washington Square Park, the concert was moved to the Foley Square as city officials' compromise.
The event is dubbed Honor the Dead, Fight Like Hell For the Living, featuring artists and speakers including Joan Baez, Sergent Shamar Thomas, Ryan Harvey, Max Rameau from Take Back the Land, a speaker from OWS Direct Action, and a speaker from the Iraq Veterans Against The War, according to an announcement on Occupy Wall Street website.
Hundreds, if not thousands, are expected to pack the tiny square, said the organizers.
Prior to the protest singer Baez, David Crosby and Graham Nash had put on a show for the Occupy Wall Street protestors earlier this week.
Baez has been interested in making a visit to the downtown venue from which the protesters have voiced their anti-Wall Street sentiment for the past two months.
I don't want to go in toting my guitar. This has a very different tone, Baez said. I am going to want to talk to the people.
Baez was born in New York, and deeply influenced by Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech on civil rights, Baez marched and demonstrated with him alongside her music career. She sang about freedom and civil rights, and performed her civil-rights anthem We Shall Overcome frequently at rallies and protests, including King's 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
In 2011, Amnesty International inaugurated Joan Baez Award for Outstanding Inspirational Service in the Global Fight for Human Rights in her honor, as Baez herself was crowned with the first award.
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