KKFI/Foolkiller lead sing-along

By Kristin Scheer

Bill Clause, center, leads the sing-along while other performers and the audience wait to join in.

On July 20, about 50 people gathered at the Kansas City Oasis with Foolkiller Folk radio program and KKFI for a sing-along fundraiser for PeaceWorks KC. Bill Clause, a 10-year KKFI staff member and long-time KKFI volunteer, organized the event as part of the KC Fringe activities. It was an hour of storytelling, sharing the joy of song, and power-to-the-people type of inspiration those songs gave us. Bill said world peace depended on our gathering our voices in song. After a good chuckle, we did just that.

Foolkiller Folk radio hosts linked the labor movement, civil rights movement, and peace movement to gospel spirituals. We heard stories of broken soldiers, enslaved folks escaping to freedom, freedom riders registering people to vote, and women and minorities joining the unions in the rainbow class. We sang songs of the working folk of our nation, bums, “the broken people of our society” just getting by, and activists working for a more just society.

Sitting next to me, AP (Adrianna Schoonover) said, “I’ve never been to a sing-along, this is fun!” Then Bill Clause called her to the stage. “I am a leader in Peace Works KC and Physicians for Social Responsibility KC,” she said. “Recently, I’ve been organizing and working on anti-nuclear issues. I went to Washington, DC, to speak to some of our representatives about anti-nuclear policies that should be happening.” She was received with great applause. Then she performed a poem that she shared at an Alliance for Nuclear Accountability awards ceremony while in DC.

"To do anything, you need power," she started. Then: 

"They pulled hell from the middle of the Earth 
and delivered it to our doors, 
called it discovery, called it winning ...
uranium mined out of the sacred. 
What's a windmill to a war?
But we listened to the wind anyway, 
heard her warnings, heard her prayers, 
and we decided on a different future. 
But to do anything, you need power ...
(so) we fight with our people power, 
a living supernova, we let our power rise, 
sink our teeth into a new horizon without mushroom clouds ..."

AP's performance raised the audience to a standing ovation. 

We won't know the funds raised until the receipts are tallied and the bills are paid, but it was a lovely, inspired event. We had a great time and we are grateful!