you missed this morning’s NPR’s Morning Edition.

 “Let’s write a song about a woman telling a guy off.”

Ulaby, Neda. “‘You Don’t Own Me,’ A Feminist Anthem with Civil Rights Roots, Is All About Empathy.” June 26, 2019
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/26/735819094/lesley-gore-you-dont-own-me-american-anthem

“Many have taken up the song [You Don’t Own Me] as a symbol of women’s empowerment — like when the female cast of Saturday Night Live sang ‘You Don’t Own Me’ with actress Jessica Chastain the night of the 2018 Women’s March — but this fiercely feminist anthem was written by two men. David White died earlier this year, but John Madara, now 82 years old, says the two songwriters were disgusted by how much music written for female singers in the early 1960s centered on mooning over guys and decided to try something: “Let’s write a song about a woman telling a guy off.

“Madara says the song’s sensibility was also shaped by his upbringing in a multiracial Philadelphia neighborhood and his participation in the civil rights movement. ‘I saw how black people got treated,’ he says. ‘It was horrible, horrible, horrible. My friends and I got locked up in Philadelphia and Mississippi, and they treated us like gangsters. And my black friends got hit more than I got hit. [The police] had billy clubs and hit you across the legs, but the black guys got hit across the body. Those are things you don’t forget.'”

And while we’re talking about empathy, please join

“Lights for Liberty:  A Vigil to End Human Detention Camps”. 

Lights for Liberty is calling for communities around the country to join them in holding an event called:  “Lights for Liberty:  A Vigil to End Human Detention Camps”.  The event will take place on Friday, July 12.  To find out more about the organization and their plans for this national vigil you can go to their website – https://www.lightsforliberty.org/