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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
On Monday, over 2,000 people packed into the historic Riverside Church here in New York to celebrate 30 years of Democracy Now! Speakers and performers included Angela Davis; Patti Smith; Michael Stipe; V, formerly Eve Ensler; Hurray for the Riff Raff; Mosab Abu Toha; and a surprise appearance by Bruce Springsteen. We’ll be airing excerpts all week.
But we turn now to Patti Smith, the acclaimed singer-songwriter, award-winning author and artist. She recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of her landmark debut album, Horses. In 2010, she won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for her memoir Just Kids. Patti Smith performed alongside her daughter Jesse Smith and Tony Shanahan. She began, though, by reading an excerpt from her new memoir, Bread of Angels.
PATTI SMITH: I’m going to read a little passage from Bread of Angels while Tony is tuning up. Will I distract you?
TONY SHANAHAN: No.
PATTI SMITH: On October 26th, 2002, International ANSWER organized a protest of the planned attack on Iraq by the Bush administration in Washington, D.C. We performed “People Have the Power.” I looked out at an estimated 200,000 people gathered from all over the country, looking back from the Constitution Gardens near the Vietnam War Memorial. The Mall was carpeted with people calling for peace, chanting “no war.” We met again in January, performing again in the freezing cold and joining forces with Reverend Jesse Jackson. On February — blessings upon him.
On February 15th, the largest global antiwar protest in history was waged. In England alone, nearly a million protested. In Italy, a staggering 3 million. I marched in Paris in the Palestinian section, and they gave me a flag.
Sadly — sorry. Sadly, the collective voice of the people was not heeded. On March 16th, 2003, Rachel Corrie, a young nonviolence activist, was protesting the Israeli demolition of homes in the Gaza Strip. Bulldozers had already destroyed surrounding houses in Rafah, where she was based. They targeted the family home of Professor Nasrallah, where she was staying. Corrie, wearing an orange vest, bullhorn in hand, called for them to cease. She stood on a raised mound in the path of an Israeli bulldozer. But it kept going. Her fellow activists cried out, and the Nasrallah children watched in horror as she was crushed to death. The loss of Corrie, a bright, altruistic force, just two years older than my own son, haunted me.
At the same time, on the first day of spring, it was obvious that all the marches, pleas and protests of millions of people worldwide were not going to halt the Bush administration’s plan to attack Baghdad.
That was 23 years ago, when Tony Shanahan and I wrote the song. We wrote it to comfort the family of Rachel Corrie and to send a small — a small message of hope to the Palestinian people.
PATTI SMITH, TONY SHANAHAN and JESSE SMITH: [performing “Peaceable Kingdom”]
Yesterday I saw you standing there
With your hands against the pane
Looking out the window at the rain
And I wanted to tell you
All your tears were not in vain
But I guess we both knew
We’d never be the same
Never be the same
Why must we hide all these feelings inside?
Lions and lambs shall abide
Maybe one day we’ll be strong enough
To build it back again
Build the peaceable kingdom
Back again
Build it back again
Why must we hide all these feelings inside?
Lions and lambs shall abide
Maybe one day we’ll be strong enough
To build it back again
Build the peaceable kingdom
Back again
Maybe one day we’ll be strong enough
We can build it back again
Build the peaceable kingdom
Build it back again
Build the peaceable kingdom
Build it back again
I was dreaming in my dreaming
of an aspect bright and fair
and my sleeping it was broken
but my dream it lingered near
in the form of shining valleys
where the pure air rarefied
and my senses newly opened
’cause I awakened to the cry
that the people have the power
to redeem the work of fools
upon the meek the graces shower
it’s decreed the people rule
AMY GOODMAN: That was Patti Smith, with her daughter Jesse Smith and Tony Shanahan, performing “Peaceable Kingdom” at Democracy Now!’s 30th anniversary celebration at Riverside Church Monday night.
