Peace Poets

The Peace Poets are a group of song leaders and trainers, songwriters of popular anthems for many social movements, and performance rap crew. The foremost grassroots movement song group in the United States, they will engage the audience, teach songs, and share their mix of singing, hip hop, and spoken word for a better world. The Peace Poets wrote “People Gonna Rise Like the Water” a popular anthem of climate justice and water protector movements. They wrote the song, “I Can’t Breathe,” about the death of Eric Garner. The actor Samuel Jackson heard the song, invited via Youtube celebrities and others to record their own versions of it, and it went viral, becoming an anthem of the Movement for Black Lives, widely sung in demonstrations. The Peace Poets have similarly worked with immigration rights, indigenous, and environmental justice groups to develop music as part of their political practice.

Arts Making

Arts Organizers David Solnit (art.350.org) will travel with art supplies to screen print and paint flags and banners for each community to use in the Rise march as well as their ongoing work.

Street Mural Training

At each city we will teach how to plan, coordinate, and paint a street mural, and actually design and paint one with our host groups. This will prepare each group or community to paint one on Sept 8th.

Song Leading

Peace poets will teach songs to be sung in the streets and train song leaders with tips on how to lead songs and sound strong.

Tour Visit

A Tour visit to your community might include a ½ day arts-making and street mural training session, a song workshop for song leaders, and a performance by the Peace Poets, with a local speaker or performer talking about Rising for Climate Jobs and Justice.