In this lesson, we will investigate ways in which artists including George Harrison, Bob Geldof, and others drew on the experiences of the 1960s to harness the inherent power of musical performance to promote awareness and encourage activism. Students will look at the messages, methodologies, and historical contexts of both the Concert for Bangladesh and Live Aid and will refer to these events to develop a proposal for a benefit performance of their own.
Procedure: Here's what you have to do.
1. Among the most celebrated examples of protest events is the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. View the clip of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivering the “I Have a Dream” speech. The March on Washington was one of the largest political rallies for human rights in the history of the United States. Estimates of the number of participants varied from 200,000 to 300,000. Based on the clip, and your knowledge of history, answer the questions below, in your notebooks.
- Why was the March on Washington such an effective and memorable protest event?
- How do you think attending an event like this would have felt? How would it have felt watching it on television?
- Do you think most of marchers and speakers shared a similar set of values?
2. Carefully study the images of the March on Washington (1963) and the Woodstock Festival (1969). Then, answer the questions below in your notebooks.
- What do you notice about these images?
- What do they have in common?
- What are some reasons people might have attended the March on Washington?
- What are some reasons people might have attended Woodstock? How might their reasons have been different than those of the marchers?
- Think back to the phrase used to advertised the festival – “Three Days of Peace and Music.” What kind of political values do you think the attendees of Woodstock might have shared?
- What does the photo of the Woodstock suggest about the popularity of live Rock and Roll music in 1969?
3. Carefully watch the railer for the Concert for Bangladesh (1971). George Harrison was a former member of the Beatles. This video is from a year after the Beatles broke up at the height of their popularity in 1970. Discuss as a class:
- At the beginning of the clip, how does George Harrison respond to the reporter who asks “Of all of the enormous problems in the world how did you choose this one to do something about?”
- While not shown in the clip we just watched, Harrison also said the following statement at the press conference announcing the Concert for Bangladesh:
“Ravi [Shankar] came to me and he said if he was to do a concert, maybe play to so many thousand people, but to the size of the problem, the money, the funds that would be made would just be so small. So that’s where I came on. I can generate money by doing concerts and by making albums.”
- As a former Beatle, why was Harrison such a valuable spokesperson?
