By Celena Glaghassi, Staff Writer
On Tuesday, Oct. 28, the History Department welcomed the director of public history at LaGuardia & Wagner Archives, Stephen Petrus ’95, to give the annual History Alumni Lecture. His lecture, “Where Have All The Protest Songs Gone?” was about political music in modern social movements. The event ran from 4—5 p.m. in the Joseph Theater.
Professor of History Michael Birkner ’72 began the event by introducing the speaker, Stephen Petrus.
“He (Pretus) is, first and foremost, a nationally recognized expert in the field of 1960s music— but he’s also a scholar of wide-ranging interests,” said Birkner.
Petrus was a history and philosophy double major at Gettysburg College. He then attended the University of Alabama, where he received his Master’s degree in history. From there, he moved to New York to finish his PhD at The City University of New York. He also received an Andy Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at the Museum of the City of New York and the New York Historical Society, where he curated an exhibit entitled “Folk City: New York and the Folk Music Revival.” Outside of his studies, he worked as a guide for Big Onion Walking Tours, leading over 1,000 tours before he started working at LaGuardia & Wagner Archives.
Petrus opened his talk with the story of what first drew him to history in 1992. He and a few other students had lunch with renowned historian Eric Foner in the College Union Building. When someone asked Foner what it was like to be a historian, he replied simply: “Lonely.” That word stayed with Petrus. In his speech, Petrus reflected, “By definition, you write, you research and you read in solitude.”
He then turned to the central question of the lecture: “Where have all the protest songs gone?” His answer: They didn’t disappear — they simply changed form.
“Music that was essentially integrated— not as window-dressing, not in a cosmetic way— but it becomes essential in these freedom songs to have political meaning and symbolism behind them,” said Petrus.
He explained that while the 50s and 60s had record-breaking artists like Bob Dylan– who famously hated that he was seen as a political singer— Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, that protest music is still around, just in different forms. For example, Green Day’s “Holiday” was an anti-war song that “ridiculed the American invasion of 2003,” said Petrus.
He also explained that Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright,” released in 2015, was a direct statement regarding police brutality. He said that many of Lamar’s songs, specifically the ones that focus on hope, resilience, and strength, became “anthems” during the Black Lives Matter movement.
He also connected Billie Eilish’s “Your Power” to the #MeToo movement for its critique of powerful men who take advantage of vulnerable women. Through all of the examples he provided, Petrus emphasized that although protest music has changed from the straightforwardness of Green Day’s “Don’t Want to Be an American Idiot. One Nation Controlled by the Media,” protest music is still all around us; we just have to look for it.
“This is a digital world of echo chambers that reinforce existing beliefs. We don’t have singing movements like we used to, and maybe… the civil rights movement was the gold standard. It was an anomaly in the venerable tradition of modern protest music,” said Petrus in conclusion.
