Dan Blake Interviewed by the NY State Poor People's Campaign

MEET OUR LEADERS In this issue we profile Daniel Blake. Daniel is Co-Coordinator of the statewide Arts & Culture Team along with Jamel Coy Hudson. He is also a member of the State Coordinating Committee. Interview by Susan Karbiner, Newsletter Team.

SUSAN: So tell me, how did you hear about the Poor People's Campaign and first become involved in it?

DANIEL: Well, I first heard about the Poor People's Campaign when I was involved for a brief time with Extinction Rebellion, doing some work on a music subcommittee. And the idea came about to do some cross organizing with the Poor People's Campaign, and there is an online event. This is towards the beginning of 2020. And we did an event with Pauline Pisano and Charon Hribar, who you all know, I'm sure. And the subject was music and and organizing and create creative solutions and approaches to organizing around kind of environmental or ecological devastation, which I was learning at the time, and I learned was one of the main planks of the Poor People's Campaign. And during that session, I was exposed to kind of the breadth and completeness and my view of the Poor People's Campaign platform. Also I was exposed to the songbook that we discussed on this meeting. And it came, it was a part of the session. But I never forgot just the clarity, the accessibility of this songbook, the way it compressed historical narratives, you know, older songs going back to the abolition struggles of the 1800s to songs written like last year by groups like the Peace Poets. It was colorful with photo documentation of movements with clear lyrics and links to YouTube links, so people can easily learn the song regardless of musical training, previous musical training. And it was just a really wonderful inspiration for me as an educator myself.

I called Charon up after that and we did a series of workshops with my students together. She was kind enough to join us for a workshop during that summer. Might have been the summer of 2021, the following year. And then I just got more and more involved with art and culture. It was just kind of a gravitational pull. I just felt pulled to do that work.

And so that's basically the short story of how I came became involved with Poor People's Campaign.

SUSAN: You mentioned that you have students.

Where and what do you teach?

DANIEL: So I'm an adjunct professor. That means part time contingent faculty at the Eugene Lang

College of Liberal Arts, the New School. And there I teach a few courses related to the intersection between social justice and music. So a good fit for the Poor People's Campaign work.

SUSAN: Yes. And the songbook that you mentioned, there is a link to that on the National Poor People's Campaign website. Correct?

DANIEL: There is.

And I highly recommend that everyone who hears this goes and downloads that.

It's free, so distribute it and use it. It's a great learning tool and it's something that I believe I can speak about here. I mean, that we hope to continue to fill one of our goals. I think we'll get to this later in the talk. But we would like to continue to build out the historical narratives and add descriptions, add more information. There was a chant sheet for the June 18th action, for example, that had some of that those those stories behind each song. And so I think the songbook will only grow with time.

fessional music musician is fairly blurry in my mind.

Like throughout my life, I've encountered musicians that only think about money but that's fairly rare. Most every musician I know, originally at least, and most often, is continuing to practice music for some reasons besides simply making money. If one only approached music just to make money, it would be better to pick a different profession, frankly.

There are some other reasons that people practice music and theomusicology, as far as I understand it.... Now, there are people in the campaign that can speak to this term, I think, better than I. It was coined by John Michael Spencer in a book written about 30 years ago, I think.

I think it has the name Theo Musicology in it. And that has a much broader exposition into the term. But as far as I understand it, Theomusicology gets into what is that deeper kind of human connection that's behind, that's being expressed by playing music and being an artist.

Most every musician I know, originally at SUSAN: WonDANIEL: You could go beyond least, and most often, is continuing to music to, say, the arts more broadderful.

Daniel, practice music for some reason besides ly. So musicians sometimes you've worked simply making money. approach music for religious as a professional reasons, for other spiritual reasons, musician for just for communal living reasons to commune with some time. How does being a Theomusicologist fellow human beings. I think where the Poor Peodiffer from your work as a traditional musician? ple's Campaign comes at the term, as far as I DANIEL: That's a great question. I think in my understand it, is from the ethical perspective. So experience, when we say professional musician, the Theo or the theological implications of music have to do with the ethical connection with social that means to me very strictly speaking, being paid money to perform a certain service which could be justice and the way that human beings interact on an ethical perspective. So when there is an injusperforming music or teaching music and the expectation of financial remuneration. So profes- tice occurring, how can music and creativity be sional to me simply means that it doesn't necessar- brought to bear and to enliven movement organizing, provide creative solutions for how to organize ily talk about any style of music or even any particular training or background. It simply means that I better and deeper and more clearly, how to take cues from other movement organizers to respond expect to be paid money. So the division between what you're calling a traditional musician and a pro- to what's going on and have a broader conversa-

tion outside of people who are just musicians.

So musicians become part of a movement and speak to that social movement through their creativity and vice versa, to receive input from movements and to inform their creative work. I think that’s kind of like deepening dialogue again. So theomusicology doesn't only have to do with social movement organizing, but in this case, I think obviously because we're talking

about the Poor People's Campaign, it does. So that's how I understand it. It's not so much a difference, but merely an awakening or raising of the consciousness of what I think already is a part of being an artist for most people.

SUSAN: Okay. I think you've partially answered this next question, but I will ask it. Maybe you want to say more. How has being on the Arts and Culture Team helped you express your creativity and your passion for justice? And what do you most enjoy about being on the team?

DANIEL: So I think I could sort of say it a little differently, that there's a certain level of collaboration that I think happens. You know, isn't it nice to be in relationship with people where certain things don't have to be said. Like there's a mutual understanding around everything that I just said. You know, it's just understood that there's a group of artists that exists to explore this sort of, we'll call it a theological question or maybe an ethical question of what

does it mean to be an artist in our society today?

So on some of our open meetings, we kind of frame that question and we explore it. But much of the time, we don't have to because it's already understood that this group approached this team and wants to be a part of this team because they're also are interested in exploring that question. And let's start from there. So I enjoy that sort of like spiritual relaxation I can experience being in a group like that. If that term makes any sense, I just sort of made that up. But there's also, you know, that kind of collaboration can lead to a deepening of one's artistic practice and it can lead to a deepening of one's spiritual practice as well. When you can be in dialogue with all these exciting and very passionate people that care really deeply about this work and want to do it, it's an energizing force. And so that's what I think helps me to express my own creativity and what I enjoy most about working with art and culture team.

SUSAN: The Poor People's Campaign produces many statements, studies, lists of demands and other written material, and its leaders make powerful speeches. There are various products of the Arts and Culture Team. We've been talking about musicology because you are a musician, but can you also tell us what else the Arts and Culture Team does? How do these contribute to the Poor People's Campaign message?

DANIEL: So we have a few different kinds of expressions that will kind of emanate from the Art and Culture Team. We have song challenges, they're called, which has to do with a broad outreach to as many musicians as possible from in and outside the campaign to create versions of sort of movement songs. So you'll get, you know, 15 to

itself. So work that's going on outside the campaign. Like it's just a good time, when the situation presents itself, people can come and say, hey, this is what I'm working on. If it pertains to the movement work or even if it doesn't, it could just be a place to share a poem or share a new piece of choreography and just get inspired by each other's work. And that can just be a good place to share artistic projects that are going to that are going on right now.

SUSAN: How does the work of the Arts and Culture team fit in with the strategy of the New York State Poor People's Campaign? The strategy of changing the narrative by changing the narrator.

And developing and uniting leaders most affected by the five evils.

20 or more versions of Which Side Are You On? for example. Lyrics can be changed. That's one of the beautiful, beautiful things about freedom songs is that you can change the lyrics to adapt for whatever situation. So in the fall of 2021, we had a a direct message: “Which side are you on” to particularly targeting Joe Manchin when the campaign was in West Virginia a lot trying to help pass the Build Back Better plan. We had the Songbook, which we spoke about.

We have art builds that occur before actions where there's a lot of support materials that instruct people on how to go about doing art builds. This can be a way to work for people to design new signs for protests, to do graphic design for the campaigns, digital platform and so on. It can also be a way to learn new skills like silk screening if someone hasn't done that before. And also on our meetings we often will hold up the work, independent work of the arts team

DANIEL: So I would say that, first of all we can reflect in the Art and CultureTeam on the precarity facing artists in our society. So one thing we've talked about with Pauline and with others, other leaders that I've learned so much from Jamel and Charon and all these great leaders that I feel so blessed to join, is that musicians, artists are part of the 140 million and are precarious and stratified. And by establishing that kind of consciousness and linking up in solidarity with so many millions of other people. That, getting back to an earlier question, can change the narrative about what it means to be an artist. So it's not like telling people what to think about themselves necessarily. It's more, you know, through political education and through just merely being in dialogue with one another we can raise a certain consciousness among artists as a unique subset of this 140 million, that the Poor People's Campaign does

such a great job of talking about. So that's one sort of part of the answer, changing the narrative within the artistic community. Then there's the demonstrating, the work itself. There's a certain like magic that can happen through the arts, at least in my experience and in my view, where what a powerful thing to Sound the poor people's

SUSAN: And you're listening to a speech. You're just listening. I guess it engages a different part of the brain and gets people more involved.

DANIEL: Yeah. Yeah, we experienced that on the bus down to D.C. just as soon as we started singing everyone is up and ready. Ready to go.

SUSAN: Okay. So what kind of new members would you like to have on the Arts and Culture Team and how would they join the team?

DANIEL: Let's start with the second part. First, You can learn about our activities and join our monthly meetings by going to the Learn and Participate in Arts and Culture link on the NYS Poor People's Campaign's website: www.nysppc.org .

campaign, you know, like wordlessly intone it somehow. Like, is that possible? Let's find out.

Let's check that out. Can we dance the Poor People's Campaign. To say something of course you need to have the words too, you need to have the speech speechifying and the testimonies, the powerful testimonies and all the concretizing of the message. Of course, you must have that, too, but what a powerful thing to be able to think about or contemplate this other component as well. And I think that's how it fits in with the strategy, because it adds a certain power to any movement to have sound that's really being dreamt and thought about and ruminated, you know, in the ways that we've been talking about.

SUSAN: It speaks to the emotions and brings people in. And people can participate by singing along and chanting along as well.

DANIEL: That's right.

As far as the kind of new members, this is anyone who considers themselves to be a creatively curious or creatively minded that is interested in exploring these deeper ethical questions about what it means to be an artist and wants to do that in a group of amazing, kind and deeply creative people that are ready to explore this question fearlessly and with a fire of compassion. I mean, that kind of a person. And I think that would catch a lot of people. And we are happy to have anyone join us that's interested in exploring. You could drop in for one meeting, we're always looking for new leaders, new song leaders and on from there, you can get involved as deeply as you wish. Educators with students. Yeah, we love when students come along for the ride. We love when people that are in the middle of a career in whatever come along. And we love people who are retired and looking for a new start, a new chapter to come along. Everybody's welcome.

SUSAN: Maybe we can get some people from the various regions to come to your meetings and get inspired to start arts and culture committees on their own, in their own regions.

DANIEL: Yeah, that would be great I would say, because like most of our meetings, we do political ed, we learn a song. We talk about organizing strategies from the perspective of I guess from artists, but it's not unlike any other organizing meeting one might encounter. It's not as if we're

talking about some academic music theory class or something like that. We're just a bunch of artists that are kind of trying to figure out these questions. And so, you know, it really can be anyone that feels like learning a song and on from there.

SUSAN: Wonderful. You've explained a lot and I appreciate it. Thank you for coming.