A “Battle Cry” Against Political Backlash

From the current vantage point, there is little doubt that the presidential election of 2016 has inflicted the most damage to the very concept of a “United States of America” that has emerged since the country was torn apart by Civil War. Writing as one born shortly after the end of World War II, it would be fair to say that the better part of my life has experienced a series of advances in the social world as well as the scientific world. Like many, I saw the election of President Barack Obama as a sign that the country had finally chosen open-mindedness to social diversity over fundamental convictions of hate directed towards “otherness.”

What we learned in November of 2016 was that significant social progress must always be on guard against regression to nativist prejudices. Under the current circumstances the scientific world is now taking as much of a beating as the social world. It has been as if rationality could not see the backlash coming, just as no one could see that the dissolution of monarchy in Germany after World War I would ultimately lead to the rise of the Nazi Party and the outbreak of World War II.

In that global context it is probably more than a little immodest to cite music as a channel through which fundamental issues of human rights and liberties can be expressed. However, they were expressed through music in this country going all the way back to the days of the Declaration of Independence and advancing through the Civil War and the Great Depression. In other words the album Battle Cry, available in both physical and digital form since the beginning of this year, is based on an extensive foundation of music committed to basic human rights.

courtesy of Kate Smith Promotions.

The album was produced by Atlanta-based jazz vocalist Virginia Schenck, who was dubbed “VA” by a local disc jockey and chose to adopt the moniker. The album’s title is taken for Schenck’s only contribution as a composer, a song entitled “Hear My Battle Cry.” Nevertheless, none of the remaining selections are explicitly militant. Rather, they reflect examples of progress and change, sometimes just hoped for but other times achieved. In other words, each of the eight other tracks (which include the texts of both the Pledge of Allegiance and the Gettysburg Address) provide musical reflections on how we have advanced and where advance as not been achieved.

At the end of the day, this album neither heals nor takes up arms in defiance. Rather, VA offers up her selections as a foundation for reflection. To the extent that reflective practices are currently on the rocks, it is clear that any “new beginning” will require such a foundation as a prerequisite. The tracks of Battle Cry may encourage at least some of us to set about laying that foundation.