Joan Baez

   

The Lowell Milken Center For Unsung Hero as:

One who has created positive change in history by improving the lives of others and has yet to be recognized. The individual’s impact must have stood the test of time.

She is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician, and activist whose contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest or social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 55 years, releasing over 30 albums. Fluent in Spanish  and English, she has recorded songs in at least six other languages. In addition to supporting civil rights as an artist and worker, Baez participated in university free-speech efforts led by students and the antiwar movement, calling for an end to the conflict in Vietnam. Beginning in 1964, she would refuse to pay part of her taxes to protest U.S. military spending for a decade. Baez was also arrested twice in 1967 in Oakland, California, for blocking an armed forces induction center.Baez continued to be active politically and musically in the 1970s. She helped establish the west coast branch of Amnesty International, a human rights organization, and released numerous albums, signing with A&M and branching out beyond folk.

 Baez inspires me because she is a singer and an activist in the civil rights and defending the civil rights of others, although that could affect her as singer, often includes songs of protest or social justice  and because she helped establish a human rights organization and that inspire me.

Artist's Statement     

I choose Joan Baez as my unsung hero because she help many people. Joan Baez she born in the united states but her descendants was Mexicans, she are an American folk singer, songwriter, musician, activists. In 1956 Baez heard for the first time Martin Luther King Jr, talking about nonviolence, civil rights and social change, years later Baez and King became friends and she participated as singer in several marches on the civil rights organized by King.

Baez recorded of the song "Birmingham Sunday" composed by hers brother in law, was used at the beginning of 4 Little girls a documentary about the 4 girls who died in an attack on the 16th Baptist church. Baez she participated in many marches for the civil rights, also she protest for the war in Vietnam, and founded a the Institute for the study of nonviolence