logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Honk! If You Love Political Street Musicians

Aine Creedon
October 10, 2012
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

HONK!

October 8, 2012; Source: New York Times

More than 670 street performers flooded the streets of Somerville, Mass. over the weekend, transforming the Boston-area city’s Davis Square into a blur of outrageous costumes, gorgeous hand-painted tubas and New Orleans-style second line get-ups for the Honk! Festival, a five-day nonprofit event that embodies the generally liberal-leaning area’s culture of community support. At the seventh annual festival, marching bands promoted individuality.

Some street performers voyaged all the way from Europe for the event, such as the Pink Puffers Brass Band, which flew in from Rome. Ensembles chanted politically charged messages like “Change comes from within!” into megaphones. The New York Times exclaimed, “It was hard to tell where the politics ended and the party began.” The culture of Honk! Festival is focused on the collective, with bands encouraging their audiences to get involved and bring their own instruments to join in on the musical fun.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

This writer attended said parade as it wound its way from Davis Square to Harvard Square, where the streets were already filled with people for the annual Oktoberfest, an event which has been going on since 1969 but now has been undeniably and happily transformed by the addition of the Honk! parade. All welcomed the performing musicians, including roller derby girls, Amnesty International (Free Pussy Riot), Veterans for Peace, a local Haitian group and the local Masons, among many, many others. Who knew so many elderly people could play tuba and how many young kids could dance on stilts?

Matt Arnold, a member of the Rude Mechanical Orchestra—an activist band which has been involved in numerous antiwar and Occupy Wall Street protests, said “We enjoy the opportunity to get together with other bands and exchange ideas and songs and tactics.”

Thousands of local residents and businesses offer financial support to the festival, neighbors accommodate hundreds of performers, and local restaurants generously provide food for the bands. Somerville’s Honk! Festival, which began in 2006, has inspired additional Honk! Festivals to spring up in Seattle, New York City, Austin, Texas and Providence, R.I.

As someone once said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be a part of your revolution!” –Aine Creedon

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aine Creedon

Aine Creedon is Nonprofit Quarterly's Digital Publishing Coordinator and has worn many hats at NPQ over the past five years. She has extensive experience with social media, communications and outreach in the nonprofit sector, and spent two years in Americorps programs serving with a handful of organizations across the nation. Aine currently resides in Denver, Colorado where she enjoys hiking with her pups Frida and Tucker. She enjoys volunteering in her free time and also serves on the advisory board for the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network Denver and is the Marketing Liaison for YNPN Denver's Professional Development Committee.

More about: ActivismCommunity OrganizingNonprofit NewsPolicy

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

NPQ_Winter_2022Subscribe Today
You might also like
Building Trust: How to Put Bottom-Up Organizing Principles to Work
Ramón Cruz
Fight and Build: Envisioning Solidarity Economies as Transformative Politics
Penn Loh and Boone W. Shear
How do water shutoffs impact low-income communities?
Iris Crawford
Eliminating Biphobia Through Breath, Brotherhood, and the Arts
H. “Herukhuti” Sharif Williams
Fair Wages Come to Washington DC
Rithika Ramamurthy
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda

Upcoming Webinars

Group Created with Sketch.
February 23rd, 2 pm ET

Worker Power in the Social Sector

Register Now
Group Created with Sketch.
March 15th, 2 pm ET

Remaking the Economy

Caring for the Care Economy

Register Now
You might also like
Building Trust: How to Put Bottom-Up Organizing Principles...
Ramón Cruz
Fight and Build: Envisioning Solidarity Economies as...
Penn Loh and Boone W. Shear
How do water shutoffs impact low-income communities?
Iris Crawford

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.