Though protest music has long been associated with American civil disobedience, it is experiencing a resurgence, particularly since Renee Good of Minneapolis<\/a> was killed by an ICE agent while demonstrating against federal immigration raids in Minnesota. In the aftermath of Good\u2019s killing on January 7, Singing Resistance was formed and spread to other cities, including Sacramento.<\/p>\n Then Bruce Springsteen wrote \u2018Streets of Minneapolis\u2019 in Good\u2019s honor<\/a> and a movement was set to music.<\/p>\n By late January, Northern California singer-songwriter Richard March performed Springsteen\u2019s song before a packed outdoor crowd at SacYard Community Tap House.<\/p>\n \u201cMy guitar player … saw like 40 phones go up and just start filming us,\u201d March said. \u201cAfterward, during the break, people were like, \u2018Man, I\u2019m so glad you played that song.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Eli Conley, a 40-year-old singer-songwriter, signed up early for a virtual Singing Resistance training and began working with other Sacramento locals to launch a chapter.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just that we have to hold on and things will get better inevitably, but that through the act of singing, of protesting, of organizing together, that\u2019s what\u2019s going to bring the dawn,\u201d Conley said.<\/p>\n Shana L. Redmond, a Columbia University professor who studies protest music and movement culture, said protest music spikes during periods of political unrest and violence, especially when such events are facilitated by the state. Protest music aims to mobilize those already \u201con board,\u201d but it\u2019s also trying to grow the base, Redmond said<\/p>\n From internet feed to folk hero<\/p>\n Hunger for this music has propelled a largely unknown artist to unlikely heights. Jesse Welles, 33, vaulted from relative obscurity<\/a> after his satirical songs \u201cUnited Health\u201d and \u201cJoin ICE\u201d went viral. He earned four Grammy nominations and appearances on late-night TV after a period where he considered quitting music.<\/p>\n Another millennial artist, Carsie Blanton,<\/a> expanded her following to a younger demographic after she listened to her conscience and began writing more songs \u201cabout our shared political life.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m connecting to something in the zeitgeist,\u201d Blanton said. \u201cThere\u2019s a great longing for that feeling of solidarity right now, so I\u2019m trying to write songs that allow people to feel that. And it is bringing a lot of people to my songs.\u201d<\/p>\n Her fans are unusually engaged in leading change: When she asks, \u201cWho here\u2019s a political organizer, works for a nonprofit or does social work?\u201d she estimates it\u2019s \u201cprobably 60% of the crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n Songs for a fractured moment<\/p>\n Blanton said she\u2019s now a socialist rather than a Democrat. Last October, she accepted an invitation to join the Global Sumud Flotilla, a collection of activists seeking to provide aid to Gaza before the Israeli Navy intercepted them.<\/a> The group was treated as enemies of the state, Blanton said, strip-searched, zip-tied and deprived of food and sleep. Her U.S. touring schedule was interrupted while she was detained in Israel.<\/a><\/p>\n But while on the flotilla, Blanton played her song, \u201cLittle Flame,\u201d with her boatmates, and they shared videos of them all singing it together. Within days, she said, they learned musicians around the world were performing the song in support of them.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would wake up on the boat and look at our phones,\u201d she said, and feel buoyed by people covering her song. \u201cIt felt … like a folk song.\u201d<\/p>\n The track stitches Johannesburg to Palestine, Wounded Knee to Tulsa \u2014 what Blanton calls a \u201ccontinuous thread of solidarity through time and space.\u201d The \u201clittle flame,\u201d she said, represents the spirit of revolution, the belief that food, housing and liberation must be for everybody.<\/p>\n If protest music is a barometer, it suggests the Democratic coalition is shifting. Blanton said she isn\u2019t plucking words like liberation, solidarity and revolution out of the air but rather reflecting what she is hearing in her circle and from her fans.<\/p>\n Polling suggests a sizable share of Democrats and young adults are willing to entertain economic language that used to be politically radioactive. A 2025 Gallup survey<\/a>, for instance, found that, \u201cDemocrats are the only partisan group of the three that views socialism more positively than capitalism \u2014 66% to 42%, respectively.\u201d<\/p>\n A revival no one is marketing<\/p>\n Sacramento has been a cradle of expression in the protest movement. In the late 1960s, a group of Latino artists and activists formed the Royal Chicano Air Force, which promoted the cause of justice for farmworkers.<\/p>\n Juan Carrillo, co-founder of the Royal Chicano Air Force, said protest music comes from \u201ca failed promise\u201d \u2014 the gap between what America says it is and what it delivers. That\u2019s why, he asserted, a performance like Bad Bunny\u2019s Super Bowl<\/a> halftime performance can land as \u201cin-your-face protest,\u201d even for people who don\u2019t understand every lyric.<\/p>\n K.C. Shane, a Sacramento-area singer-songwriter, regularly fields requests to perform his protest songs at rallies and demonstrations. His song, \u201cSomeday,\u201d written for a Trans Day of Remembrance memorial, imagines a future \u201cwhen we\u2019ll all be safe, no more bodies slain.\u201d<\/p>\n Carrillo and Blanton said it\u2019s the people who are demanding protest music, seeking a kind of social glue at a moment of collective stress.<\/p>\n Concert promoters \u201chaven\u2019t figured it out yet,\u201d Blanton said, but the crowds have.<\/p>\n When institutions feel brittle and politics feel stalled, people reach out for culture \u2014 and culture is answering back in song.<\/p>\n \u201cWe collectively are in the battle of being able to be liberated and be free to be who we are,\u201d Shane said. \u201cThe powers-that-be have created division between all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Singer-songwriter](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/SAC_3099_KCShane_HA_260306.JPG\" "\\"SAC_3099_KCShane_HA_260306.JPG\\"")
Singer-songwriter K.C. Shane, who has performed protest songs at local rallies and demonstrations, warms up his guitar to play an original song called \u201cSomeday\u201d in Sacramento on Friday. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com <\/p>\n
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