Elizabeth Hall International Elementary School students from Minneapolis Public Schools, under the direction of music teacher Rebecca Totzke, recorded three original songs written with Larry Long at the Minneapolis Media Institute.  This was a wonderful opportunity for young people to work in a historic studio, formerly known as Flyte Tyme Studios, owned by Grammy Award Winning producers Jimmy Jam Harris & Terry Lewis.

Paul Peterson, Program Chair for Recording and Music Technology at Minneapolis Media Institute, oversaw the arranging, recording, and production of these three original songs with assistance from Anthony Galloway and Caleb James (a.k.a. K.B.), who programmed & created beats for each of the tunes!

These original works will be released at the first annual Youth & Elders’ Circle, April 30, 2013, North Community YMCA Youth and Teen Enrichment Center.

Elizabeth Hall students at MMI

 

 

 

 

 

 

100% of the proceeds from these recorded works will go to support arts in education at Elizabeth Hall International Elementary School.

 

 

Larry Long and Elders’ Wisdom, Children’s Song are featured on the front page of The Circle, March 2013.  The article talks about honoring Anishinabe Ojibwe elder Pat Bellanger on February 12th at Sanford Middle School in Minneapolis.

Read the article: EWCS HONORS PAT BELLANGER WITH SONG

For more information on the upcoming celebrations, visit the Community Celebration of Place website.

– See more at: http://www.thecirclenews.org/Sanford Middle School, 2/13

From the History Theatre’s website:

With Labor organizations and Unions under attack on the political battlefield, now is the perfect time to reflect on the life of one of Minnesota’s most important labor activists and civil rights leaders! Nellie had played an important part in Hubert H. Humphrey’s history, on both the local level and the national stage, and made a tangible difference in the lives of those she worked with and all of the people of Minnesota.

For more information:

Passport to History events:
http://www.historytheatre.com/event

On Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/152916948194808/?notif_t=plan_edited

MLK day Inaugural Celebrating

The Martin Luther King Day Celebration will celebrate Inaugural of the President , the election of the 113 new members to Congress, the new members to Senate and the House of Representatives, and the defeat of the two state amendments.

Will include Food, cash bar. Entertainment, Dancing, and highlights of the Inauguration. There will even be cut-outs of the President and Vice-President for pictures

Ticket Prices:
Pre-Sale  $20
At the Door $25
College Students  w/student ID $10 (At the Door)
Groups of 10 or more $15/ticket (Pre-Sale Only)
No Charge for children 0 – High School Seniors accompanied by parent or guardian

On November 15, 2012, the Okemah city council voted to make the song Okemah Waltz the official city song. Speaking before the council voted, Larry McKinney, who worked with Larry back in 1988, spoke about his first conversations with Larry, who was looking to come to Okemah and teach the children about Woody Guthrie.

Initially hesitant, he eventually agreed, and Larry spent three years in Okemah working with the schools and children. Larry’s album It Takes A Lot of People (Tribute to Woody Guthrie), came out of that work as did the new official Okemah song, Okemah Waltz.

Read the article from the Okemah Leader here.

Download Okemah Waltz notation (PDF)

Larry joined Dale Connelly in the KFAI studio this Wednesday to talk about his song, Water In the Rain, which honors the 38 Dakota men who were hanged on December 26, 1862, following the US-Dakota War of 1862. To listen to the interview and hear Larry singing Water In the Rain, you can visit the KFAI website. Fresh Air will be replaying the interview on December 26, between 7:00 – 9:00 am, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the hanging.

“Since I was young, at an early age, no one seemed to care what I had to say. If they only knew what we’ve been through, they would say, oh my god, what can I do?”

The above excerpt is from “Freedom,” a song written and recorded by two young girls imprisoned in a children’s detention center, with the help of Larry Long.

The Southern Poverty Law Center works to ensure that our children’s rights advocacy is informed and shaped in collaboration with the youth for whom we work. Despite the fact that the children we work with are frequently neglected by their schools or abused by juvenile justice systems, these youths possess an incredible resiliency and have profound insights about the systems that impact their lives.

During the Spring of 2010, the SPLC worked in collaboration with youth from the Gulf Coast Region and professional musicians to use music to give a voice to these children’s realities, hopes and dreams. Through the SPLC Youth Voices Music Project, over a few short days, these children wrote, sang and recorded seven original songs. The children demonstrate remarkable gifts and talents, as well as profound depth and thoughtfulness about life as a child in the Deep South in their music and lyrics.

Several of the children participated from behind the walls of a youth detention center in Mississippi. We were only able to work with them by passing through secured, metal doors to enter their world of imprisonment. As in most places, in Mississippi over 70 percent of the youth behind bars are accused of non-violent offenses like shoplifting, disorderly conduct or school-related offenses. At times, children as young as ten years old are locked up for a school-yard fight or for misbehaving at home.

Despite the harsh circumstances in which they are forced to exist, several children in this Mississippi detention center turned pain into beauty and sorrow into art by translating their experiences of being incarcerated into powerful songs. The sensitivity, brilliance and youthfulness of these children, as demonstrated by their art, directly challenges the grotesque practice of locking children in cages. While listening to their music, we are forced to wonder why we allow children to live in these conditions. What act could a child commit that would make him or her worthy of growing up in a cage? Could a cage ever help a child thrive and develop into a responsible adult?

This paradox is made even more obvious when confronted with the children’s hopes, dreams and acute awareness about the trajectory of their lives and possibility of a lifetime spent in prison…. As one incarcerated child stated, “We know more than what we put on the outside.  You got [kids in prison for the rest of their lives] that could have been presidents. That’s one thing I lay in my bed and worry ’bout, man.  Am I going to be next….Cause I know I’m smarter than what I put on the outside….Sometimes there ain’t no hope”.

Then, they say something that breaks your heart and forces you to remember that they are children. Just children. Living in cages. One child described his cellmates:  “Some of the boys in here, they just want to hear their family say they love ’em.  My boy in here, he was telling me… all…all I want is to hear my mama say “I love you.”

What would help these children realize their tremendous potential? How do we prevent more children from ending up behind bars? One of the major challenges facing children in the Deep South is the education system. Too many schools have become hostile environments for children instead of a refuge in which to learn.

Public school students are pushed out of school for minor misbehaviors at dramatic rates. Already, many children live in distressed communities, in which poverty and violence are prevalent. Schools could provide a safe place for children to learn and receive guidance and support instead of punishing them. When a child is repeatedly discouraged or reprimanded by educators, or suspended or expelled from school, they are more likely to drop out of school and not earn a high-school diploma. This is a tragedy of epic proportions that our nation can no longer afford to ignore.
In New Orleans, the SPLC Youth Voices Music Project worked with approximately 20 public school children, ranging from grades 5-12. These youth came together to talk about their city, their schools, their community and their future.

We began with an inter-generational dialogue circle, in which several community leaders and life-long New Orleans residents spoke of growing up in New Orleans, in segregated schools, when times were different…or so we thought.  As the students asked questions and shared their experiences, we began to notice parallels between current public school conditions and those of two generations ago.  In fact, certain things have become worse, such as the rate at which children are pushed out of school through the use of school suspensions and expulsions.

People both young and old reflected on the deterioration of public schools, the disintegration of community, and the need for people to unite to support and care for each other. People spoke of the continued impact of Hurricane Katrina, how it continues to cripple entire communities, including individuals who are unable to return or who return to a drastically changed city. They spoke of the international promise of support to rebuild New Orleans in the wake of Katrina, in contrast to the still broken and vacant houses and dilapidated school buildings that were flooded by the storm. They spoke of the violence plaguing children in the New Orleans schools and streets, how there are no safe havens anymore, and how children are too often brutalized by police officers, school security guards and other children.

Over two days we created three original songs, which included writing lyrics, developing melodies and recording live performances. One of the songs collaboratively written by the children, “Change These Ways,” declares that it is “time to build up unity, time to rebuild our community.” One 15-year-old boy arrived on the second evening to share a beautiful, searing melody that he had written that morning, titled “Dreams.” The chorus of another song, “This is Life,” cries out: “This is life, let me tell you how it is, grown folks problems in the thoughts of little kids.”

These new songs written by children through the SPLC’s Youth Voices Music Project have yet to stand the measure of time. Most assuredly, however, they are anchored in the same proud tradition of earlier songs of Justice and Freedom. The melodies, rhymes, and words all move from the same heartbeat. Now it’s time for these songs to be sung – so the voices of the children can be heard. For, as we do unto the least, we do unto ourselves.

Youth Voices Project participants:  Children imprisoned in a Mississippi youth detention center, New Orleans Youth Artists Alexis Burnside, Teal Mitchell, Kendrick Crain, Alfred Banks, Denise Pittman, Re’Jeanne Badreaux, Ranjae Cornin, Gerelyn Mitchell, John Baumbach, Cory Burd, Chrishawn DeBose, Knowledge is Born, Isaac Bourgeois, Cassandra Tran, Daylin “Tizz” Bolding, Ladonna Bryer, Jerron Fournett, Jeremy Mitchell, Venecia Mitchell.

New Orleans Community Leaders: DJ Markey, Ted Quant, Yvette Thierry

Consulting Musicians: Skipp Coon (epk.tibbitmusic.com/tibbit_epk.pdf), Chuck “Lyrikill” Jones (www.thesoundclash.com), Larry Long (www.larrylong.org), Truth Universal (www.truthuniversal.com),

To hear these songs, please visit: www.splcenter.org/voices

Elders Circle 2012

This year, Community Celebration of Place’s Elder Circle will be held on April 26, 2012, 9am – 1pm, at the North Community YMCA.

Featuring Jazz Legends Irv Williams & Jeanne Arland Peterson with Billy Peterson; Harold Mezile, President & CEO, YMCA of Metropolitan Minneapolis; C. Bennice Young, Principal, Elizabeth Hall International Elementary School, Community Elders, Tonia Hughes, Youth from the North Side, Round-Table Discussions led by Dare 2 Be Real Student Leaders and a free Soul Food Lunch with vegetarian option.

For more information, visit the Community Celebration of Place website.

Celebrate the centennial of Woody Guthrie’s birth with a program featuring folk singer Darryl Holter, a former labor education director for the Wisconsin AFL-CIO and labor educator at UCLA, who has developed a “Woody Guthrie in Los Angeles” presentation/performance, and renowned Twin Cities labor troubadour Larry Long, who assembled the first hometown tribute to Woody Guthrie in Okemah, Oklahoma in 1988 and has applied and extended Woody Guthrie’s aesthetics and energies for the past four decades.

Thursday, April 19, 7 pm
St. Paul Labor Centre
411 Main St., Saint Paul

Visit www.thefriends.org for a full listing of events

Download flyer for event >

Marv changed my life. It was because of Marv that I met my future wife, Jacqueline.

When I was asked to sing at a demonstration against Honeywell, I told the organizer, Marv Davidov, that I would, but I would not be participating in any nonviolent action, which might lead to arrest. But when I saw the four McDonald Sisters sitting down on the steps of the entrance to Honeywell, I felt called to sit down with them in memory of my close friend Max Siegrist, a Vietnam Veteran against the war, who died tragically in a tractor accident not long after returning home.

The next thing I knew I was in the paddy wagon being hauled to jail for civil disobedience. The McDonald Sisters represented themselves at the trial, but I enlisted the help of attorney, Doug Hall. Doug was the founder of the Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis, who fought on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised in the city. He had a long ponytail with a gray receding hairline. Doug was one of those quiet warriors in the courtroom, who drew little attention to himself, but highly respected by all of the public defenders and progressive lawyers. Jacqueline was both.

When I tired to sing on the witness stand the judge stopped me in mid verse and said, “There will be no singing in my courtroom.” It was at that moment I looked down from the witness stand and noticed Jacqueline in the backroom with my Lakota, Vietnam Veteran friend, Rick McArthur, who worked at the Legal Rights Center as a field worker for the First Nation community. It’s important to note that the Legal Rights Center was located on Franklin Avenue, where the American Indian Movement (AIM) got started in response to the overreach of law enforcement against the large exodus of native people moving from their homes on the reservations into the city. The Legal Rights Center grew out of the need to represent many of these cases and Doug Hall was one of their lead lawyers.

Though the McDonald Sisters and I truly believed we were operating by a higher law than man, we were found guilty of trespassing. We had a choice of doing a hundred hours of public service or three days in the workhouse. I righteously, or self-righteously chose the later.

The only book I took with me to read in jail was Gandhi An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth. For years I had tried to read it, which I successfully did in my steel woven jail cell on the first day.

Before going into the workhouse I asked Jacqueline if she would like to go on a date after I got out. She laughed and said, “Yes.” “Great!” I said, “Let’s go to Puerto Escondido, Mexico.” Without missing a beat, Jacqueline said, “Sure!”

It was on one of the best surfing beaches in North America on the south edge of Puerto Escondido, Playa Zicatela, which means ‘place of large thorns’ with a strong undertow, where I proposed to Jacqueline with a bottle of rum.

This year we celebrate our twenty-seventh year of marriage. Together, we now have three grown children and a granddaughter.

Who says there’s not love in the movement? We owe it all to Marv.

Don't Stand Still in MoroccoMy good friend, David McDonald, at the age of 55 just joined the Peace Corp and is now serving in Morocco. David produced two documentaries from two songs on my new sound recording, Don’t Stand Still. (You can see them on YouTube). Last Monday David dropped by before flying out to northwest Africa and I gave him a signed copy of Don’t Stand Still to give as a gift to the Ambassadors to Morocco, Sam & Sylvia Kaplan, who are also friends. Three days later  I received this wonderful photograph of beloved David with Ambassadors Sam & Sylvia Kaplan in Morocco. It is such a small and wonderful world. Peace!

Larry Long and Robert Robinson have teamed up to create a musical card featuring the beautiful “Mother’s Song,” written by Long as a tribute to his mother and appearing on his latest album, Don’t Stand Still. Along with the beautiful artwork from Ron Germundson, this card makes a wonderful gift for any mom.

Listen to a sample:

I created For My Mother singing cards in remembrance of my own mother, Roberta. The words on the card are the first and last verses to a song I wrote for her called, Mother’s Song. I sang it for my mother when she grew ill and while she passed in hospice care.

Though she has now passed I feel her presence daily. As the first verse sings:

You were there when I first spoke
You were there when I first stood
You are there to give me hope
You are there in all that’s good

My mother cared a lot for people. She was a community volunteer, who was honored at the White House for the time she gave to help others even in better health than she.

I asked “Minnesota’s Master Male Vocalist” Robert Robinson to sing on this card, as a gift to all mother’s. Especially for Mom’s who are going through a life transition, as a means for their children to express their love to their mother.


The cards are available for sale online and through Soderberg’s Floral (wholesale orders). For more information:

www.larrylong.org

www.robertrobinsonmusic.com

Soderberg Florists /Kym Erickson
3305 East Lake Street
Minneapolis, MN 55406
wecare@soderbergsflorist.com
(612) 724-3606

“I see change coming, and I’m really glad about it.”

Young Dylon Frei spoke these words after their victory this Tuesday over the neutrality position of the Anoka Hennepin School District regarding the bullying of GLBT Youth.  Dylon’s words inspired I See Change Coming, which we sang together on Tuesday night in celebration!

I See Change Coming

I see change a coming (repeat)
And it makes me glad (repeat)
There’s a change a coming (repeat)
And it makes me glad (repeat)
You can’t be neutral when it comes to love
That’s one thing I’ve been thinking of
Love has the power (repeat)
To make things right (repeat)
Love has the power (repeat)
To change your life (repeat)
I see change a coming (repeat)
And it gives me joy (repeat)
I see change a coming (repeat)
For every girl and boy (repeat)
You can’t be neutral when it comes to love
That’s one thing I’ve been thinking of
Love has the power (repeat)
To set you free (repeat)
Love has the power (repeat)
To be all you can be (repeat)
I see change a coming (repeat)
And it’s right on time (repeat)
I see change a coming (repeat)
Time to be kind
You can’t be neutral when it comes to love
That’s one thing I’ve been thinking of
Love has the power (repeat)
To reconcile (repeat)
Love has the power (repeat)
To make you smile (repeat)
To walk that extra mile for someone else
To make that someone smile, not just for yourself
To treat that someone how you want to be treated yourself
To love someone else!
Love has the power to set you free!

I see change a coming and it’s here right now!

Words & Music by Larry Long
© Larry Long 2012/BMI