Singing is a common cornerstone of nonviolent protest. I’m sure most of us can think of songs with messages of social change and justice. However, the idea of protest music takes on a whole new meaning when the simply act of making music is rebellion, regardless of content. For many Native Americans, this aspect of culture has been banned, punished, and forcibly erased throughout America’s history of colonization. In exploring articles from the journal “Akwesasne Notes,” I have found a few examples of protest music in the context of the Native American civil rights movement as nonviolent resistance, an expression of identity, and a method to raise awareness.

The first newspaper article, written by Linda Champagne of the New York City Martin Luther King Jr. Institute of Nonviolence in June of 1990, details a days-long attack on a barricade that was put up around Akwesasne, the Mohawk nation, during sovereignty disputes between factions and involving the government. It was striking to me that even in the face of bombs and gunfire, survivors of this attack turned to music as nonviolent resistance. The author writes,

“The automatic weapon fire began to increase sometime before midnight. The women who were leaders in nonviolence were trying to decide what action they might take that would be helpful. The firing was too close to risk any show of bodies as a statement of nonviolent interaction in recent weeks, starting singing a song (…) ‘We are gentle angry people and we are singing for our lives.'”

The context of this situation is complex — anti-gambling groups and the Warriors society were at odds and the police got involved with an occupation of sorts– but the role of music as nonviolent protest is apparent.

The second article I found covered a protest at Mt. Rushmore National Park in August of 1970 against the government’s ongoing treaty violations with the Sioux people, including failure to pay for land acquisition and the creation of the Mt. Rushmore sculpture on a sacred site. Of the role of singing and dancing, the article reads,

“In addition to the occupancy, the singing and dancing protest program was continued in the area of the upper parking lot Sunday, with tourists being handed statements of it’s purpose and also being invited to join in the dancing or to support the movement through donations.”

This example reveals how singing and dancing can be a way to build bridges and invite people to experience Indigenous culture. In this scenario, tourists could be drawn in by the art and may be more likely to learn about and support the movement. Song and dance are peaceful, yet this expression of identity and resistance despite profound injustice is powerful, especially considering the painful erasure and disrespect that is symbolized in the Mt. Rushmore monument: the faces of four white men carved into a scared site on stolen land, hailed as a shrine to democracy.