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Queen of Folk Joan Baez on the Power of Political Art

The legendary activist and folk singer discusses feminism, Trump ("a scoundrel in every possible sense of the word"), and the importance of taking political action.
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It's difficult to find a word to describe Joan Baez. In a press conference in the 60s, she begrudgingly tried to do so herself: "If we have to put labels on me, I would prefer the first label to be human being, the second label to be pacifist, and if we have to have a third, it can be folk singer," she said.

It may seem strange that Baez, an internationally celebrated artist widely considered to be the "Queen of Folk," would position her musical career as almost an afterthought. But for her, activism and art have always been inextricable; since the start of her career, she's been merging the two.

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In 1962, the year she appeared on the cover of Time magazine, Baez decided to tour the South, but only under one condition: She would not under any circumstances perform for a segregated audience. At this point, however, her music was still less known among black communities in the South, meaning she often had to recruit black attendees. "It was like homework for these kids to have to go and listen to me," she says, but after she'd perform, "we kind of won each other over." The following year, Baez sang songs of solidarity like "We Shall Overcome" to a crowd of over 200,000 people at the March on Washington, on the day that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I have a dream" speech.

Fifty years later, black activists are still working tirelessly to realize that dream, battling the same forces of virulent, state-sanctioned violence and discrimination. I ask Baez if it's frustrating to, in many ways, still be fighting the same fight. "There's this wonderful expression: 'For us, there's only the trying. The rest is not our business,'" she replies, referencing a line from T.S. Eliot's "East Coker."

After a life dedicated to battling bias and bigotry, one learns that societal transformation doesn't happen overnight—or in this case, over a half century. Baez says she has learned not to have high expectations for people. "If you track the record of human rights, it's really pretty awful," she says, but "you have to do what you think is right and stick with it if you're going to be involved, whether you think it's going to work out or not."

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You have to do what you think is right and stick with it if you're going to be involved, whether you think it's going to work out or not.

It's particularly difficult to feel hopeful knowing that Donald Trump—whom Baez calls "a scoundrel in every possible sense of the word"—is our president-elect. Immediately after the election, she released a statement telling her supporters how she will cope with the news in the coming years. "I will get my hands in the earth, pray, watch things grow," she wrote, because "many beautiful things we have created may not survive the process of 'making our country great again.'" Though Baez, like many of us, was hoping for a Hillary win, she could not support her with the same fervor with which she supported Bernie Sanders. "I have mostly political issues with her: the death penalty, not recognizing Palestinians, and all that kind of stuff," she says, before adding with a sigh, "If Hillary's power machine hadn't been so well oiled, he'd probably be our next president."

A Hillary win would have, of course, made history and marked a grand achievement in the feminist movement—one that once had a bit of subtle tension with Baez. During the Vietnam War, Baez shifted her focus from civil rights to the draft resistance; as a means of encouraging men to refuse the draft, Baez appeared on a poster with her sisters, Mimi and Paulina, which read, "GIRLS SAY YES to boys who say NO." The women's movement argued—and continues to argue—that the message promoted the idea of women and their sexuality as a commodity, that by servicing the draft resistance movement in this way Baez was simultaneously doing a disservice to women.

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"I know I was criticized," she says. "There was a time when I was really sort of fed up with the women's movement really early on." Looking back she sees the poster's fault, but laughs at her younger self: "I didn't even know they were angry."

Photo by Marina Chavez

A few hours after our interview Baez, calls me back to offer some additional thoughts on her relationship to the feminist movement. "I was so used to being around people who thought I was terrific," she says, explaining that she never really saw sexism as the most pressing issue and found feminism "hard to identify with." In addition, like many women of color at the time who felt alienated by a movement that focused primarily on white women's needs, she was more interested in ending racial inequality—she recalls an old neighbor using racial slurs against her family, and children in her school calling her a "dirty Mexican."

But even if she never engaged in direct activism around women's liberation, many of Baez's fans regard her life itself as a feminist achievement. She's a half-Mexican woman who has not only held her own among some of the world's most revered male musicians, but surpassed their accomplishments time and time again. This year she was nominated for the 2017 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a nomination many, including Rolling Stone, believe should have happened decades ago.

Baez has also won both a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a Grammy Hall of Fame Award, and, in 2011, Amnesty International created an award in her name; in 2015, she received the non-profit's top honor, the Ambassador of Conscience Award. When the Obamas held a celebration for music from the Civil Rights Movement, she was invited to perform "We Shall Overcome" in front of the First Family. Baez has never been one to shy away from voicing her opinions, having once famously said, "I've never had a humble opinion. If you've got an opinion, why be humble about it?"

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"I think I've lived my life and attempted to live it as a strong person," she says.

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Perhaps the greatest irony in Baez's life is that despite her personal activism and life achievements, there is always something—or rather someone—that everyone is all too eager to ask her about: a man by the name of Bob Dylan. It is Baez who is largely credited with putting Dylan on the map after seeing him play at Gerde's Folk City in New York City and consequently inviting him to open on her tour. Their love affair reportedly inspired songs like "To Ramona" and her most successful song to date, "Diamonds and Rust."

I ask Baez if it ever upsets her to be asked about Dylan so consistently or to be written about as if her career were somehow subservient to his. She takes a moment. "No, but it was hard for years because it made me feel small," she finally replies. Now she looks at things a little differently: "Little by little that superficial stuff has to slough off because there are bigger issues, like staying healthy," she says. "All I feel [now] is proud to have known him, to do his songs, to be connected with him."

Today, Baez is still making music, performing, and staying politically active. Last month marked the end of a tour in which she partnered with the Innocence Project, an organization that works to exonerate the wrongly convicted through legal action. After visiting the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota earlier this fall, she penned a piece for the San Francisco Chronicle in which she condemned the US for their historically poor treatment of Native American communities and advocated for the halt and removal of all pipeline construction.

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Baez considers our current political climate "a wakeup call." For young activists today, she offers a piece of solid advice: "Try to do something practical, something that's going to make a difference—but there's a risk. Without taking the risk, you won't ever get anywhere, whether that risk means your reputation, your job, your kids, whatever."

It's intimidating, she acknowledges, but still: "You're going to have to do it."