02/28/2026
This is a call to action! I invite the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus & the entire network of GALA Choruses to stand up & sing. We know the power of music to change hearts & minds! We must become leaders for the cause of freedom, democracy and the power of people! 🎼🫶🗽⚖️👍
https://www.facebook.com/share/1GgQKn99VT/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Singers are rising up against ICE and standing with their neighbors. This weekend, they're taking the movement nationwide with their first weekend of action!
Singing Resistance -- a group born out of grief, rage, and a stubborn insistence on love -- has grown from a few hundred Minnesotans singing on frozen streets to a movement with over 120 city chapters across the U.S. and one in Canada. Their mission, as they put it: "We are building a mass movement of singers to protect and care for our communities in the face of rising authoritarianism. We are grounded in love, nonviolence, and solidarity."
It all started on the frozen streets of Minneapolis in early January, just days after the fatal shooting of Renée Good by federal agents. A few hundred Minnesotans gathered for a walking vigil in the Phillips neighborhood -- not to shout, but to sing. The group called itself Singing Resistance, and within weeks, it had exploded.
By early February, a video of 2,000 bundled-up Minnesotans singing outside a Residence Inn housing ICE agents went viral. "It's okay to change your mind / Show us your courage / Leave this behind," they sang.
Afterwards, the organizers wrote on social media: "Under federal occupation, Minneapolis has been going through immense pain, rage, and grief. But when they come at us with violence, we fight back with love. We still have space in our hearts for ICE agents who are willing to walk away from the path of violence and take accountability for harm they've caused. We paid ICE agents a visit today to call them home."
The approach is rooted in history. Singing Resistance drew direct inspiration from Otpor!, a Serbian civil resistance movement that helped overthrow dictator Slobodan Milošević in 2000 by urging defection among officers carrying out authoritarian orders. As the group's songbook explains, in the final hours of that revolution, Milošević ordered police and military to fire on massive crowds of protesters -- and they refused, choosing to be on the right side of history.
But the roots go even deeper. Singing has always been central to resistance movements in the United States, most powerfully during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and '60s. Martin Luther King Jr. called freedom songs "the soul of the movement," saying that they gave "people new courage and a sense of unity" and kept "alive a faith, a radiant hope, in the future, particularly in our most trying hours."
Singing Resistance is tapping into that same tradition -- and it has resonated far beyond what anyone expected. Last weekend, Grammy-winning singer Brandi Carlile renamed her sold-out Minneapolis Target Center show "Be Human: A Concert for Minneapolis" and invited Singing Resistance on stage for the finale. Together, they sang "It's Okay To Change Your Mind" for a crowd of more than 12,000. The concert raised over $600,000 for The Advocates for Human Rights, a Minneapolis-based organization that provides free legal representation for people detained by ICE.
"Last night was something I'll never forget," Carlile wrote on Instagram afterward. "Minnesota is so deeply inspiring to me and the whole country. I can't believe I got to sing for you and WITH you last night."
That energy is quickly spreading beyond Minnesota. The movement has grown to churches, interfaith groups, and community centers from New York to Whidbey Island, Washington. In New York City, hundreds packed a church for a resistance song training. "We choose love, not ICE!" organizers posted afterward. On Whidbey Island, a local organizer described the pull: "Our music is heartwarming, and a way to be engaged without being dragged down. It is connecting to a bigger picture of people singing around the country as a way to speak out."
This weekend, it all goes bigger with their first nationwide weekend of song -- coordinated sing-in protests at sites of ICE-related violence, including government buildings where ICE is operating and corporate locations complicit with ICE, as well as community sing-alongs in churches and public spaces across the country.
One site in particular is drawing national attention: the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the nation's notorious concentration camp for children and families. Singing Resistance is partnering with the group Free Families to lift up the families detained inside Dilley during this weekend's actions and to demand an end to family detention.
Wherever they gather this weekend, the message will be the same: "We are loving people, and we are here to bear witness to the violence that has occurred or is occurring at this site. We won't be silent while this violence occurs."
And to their growing community of singers, they proclaim: "We belong to each other. We stand in solidarity with every one of our family members, community members, neighbors who is targeted by the authoritarian state. If you come for one of us, you come for all of us."
In Minneapolis and beyond, the songs are serving a purpose that resistance movements have always understood -- giving people a sense of solidarity, of connection, in a time that feels unrelentingly dark. And all of our ancestors, as the group reminds us, "have had songs to hold us in grief, love, hope, joy, solidarity -- and we have songs that can hold us today."
--> To find a local Singing Resistance chapter near you, a directory of groups is available at https://docs.proton.me/sheet?mode=open-url&token=9REKWNXF24 -- AND is also printed at the end of this post
--> To learn more about Singing Resistance nationally, you can find them on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/singingresistance/
--> To view their songbook, visit https://docs.proton.me/doc?mode=open-url&token=407BQZDEPG
--> You can also view the Weekend of Action toolkit at https://docs.proton.me/doc?mode=open-url&token=GHMK83P1KR
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For a powerful book about how Marian Anderson used her incredible voice to help advance the Civil Rights Movement, we highly recommend "The Voice That Challenged a Nation" for ages 9 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/the-voice-that-challenged-a-nation
For an inspiring picture book about the Jubilee Singers, who used song to fund the first permanent schools in the American South for Black students, we recommend "A Band of Angels" for ages 5 to 10 at https://www.amightygirl.com/a-band-of-angels
For a picture book about the transformative power of a single protest song, we recommend "Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday and the Power of a Protest Song" for ages 7 to 10 at https://www.amightygirl.com/strange-fruit-billie-holiday
To inspire children and teens with more true stories of girls and women who fought for change throughout history, visit our blog post, "Dissent Is Patriotic: 50 Books About Women Who Fought for Change," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=14364
For more books about courageous girls and women of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, check out our post on "50 Inspiring Books on Girls & Women of the Civil Rights Movement" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=11177
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SINGING RESISTANCE GROUPS (as of 2/26)
Location / State / Instagram Account / Email
Little Rock, Arkansas
IG:
Claremont, California
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Grass Valley, California
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Lompoc, California
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Los Altos, California
Email: [email protected]
Los Osos, California
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Manhattan Beach, California
Email: [email protected]
Marin County, California
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Petaluma, California
Email: [email protected]
Pomona Valley, California
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Sacramento, California
IG: .sac
Email: [email protected]
San Francisco, California
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Santa Ana, California
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Santa Barbara, California
Email: [email protected]
Sonoma County, California
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Thousand Oaks, California
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Denver, Colorado
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Western Colorado
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Hartford, Connecticut
Email: [email protected]
Washington, DC
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Washington, DC
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Washington, DC
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Gainesville, Florida
Email: [email protected]
Jacksonville, Florida
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Atlanta, Georgia
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Savannah, Georgia
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Boise, Idaho
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Chicago, Illinois
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Naperville, Illinois
Email: [email protected]
Oregon, Illinois
Email: [email protected]
Palatine / NW suburbs, Illinois
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Quad Cities, Illinois + Iowa
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Evansville, Indiana
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Goshen, Indiana
IG:
Indianapolis, Indiana
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Dubuque, Iowa
IG:
Grinnell, Iowa
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Iowa City, Iowa
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Council Bluffs / Omaha metro, Iowa + Nebraska
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Louisville, Kentucky
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Bangor, Maine
Email: [email protected]
Baltimore, Maryland
Email: [email protected]
Frederick, Maryland
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Greater Boston, Massachusetts
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Leeds, Massachusetts
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Arlington, Massachusetts
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Detroit, Michigan
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Grand Rapids, Michigan
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Holland, Michigan
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Washtenaw County (Ann Arbor), Michigan
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Ypsilanti, Michigan
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Apple Valley, Minnesota
Email: [email protected]
Bemidji, Minnesota
Email: [email protected]
Bloomington, Minnesota
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Duluth, Minnesota
Email: [email protected]
Eagan, Minnesota
Email: [email protected]
Eden Prairie/Chanhassen, Minnesota
Email: [email protected]
Mankato, Minnesota
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Minnetonka, Minnesota
Email: [email protected]
Northfield, Minnesota
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Plymouth, Minnesota
Email: [email protected]
Saint Paul, Minnesota
IG: .paul
Email: [email protected]
Stillwater, Minnesota
Email: [email protected]
Twin Cities, Minnesota
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Kansas City, Missouri
IG:
Email: [email protected]
St Louis, Missouri
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Missoula, Montana
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Denville, New Jersey
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Frenchtown, New Jersey
IG: Resistance Hunterdon
Email: [email protected]
Albuquerque, New Mexico
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Buffalo, New York
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Centereach, New York
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Central New York
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Great Neck, New York
IG: .resistance.great.neck
Email: [email protected]
Ithaca, New York
IG:
Email: [email protected]
New York City, New York
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Newburgh, New York
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Rochester, New York
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Syracuse, New York
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Troy, New York
Email: [email protected]
Asheville, North Carolina
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Greensboro, North Carolina
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Hendersonville, North Carolina
Email: [email protected]
Morgantown, North Carolina
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Fargo + Moorhead, North Dakota + Minnesota
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Cincinnati, Ohio
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Cleveland, Ohio
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Bluffton, Ohio
IG:
Columbia County, Oregon
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Corvallis, Oregon
Email: [email protected]
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Portland, Oregon
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Berks and Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Doylestown, Pennsylvania
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Honesdale, Pennsylvania
Email: [email protected]
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
IG: Resistance Lanc
Email: [email protected]
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
IG:
Email: [email protected]
State College, Pennsylvania
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Susquehanna River Valley, Pennsylvania
IG:
Email: [email protected]
West Chester, Pennsylvania
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Chattanooga, Tennessee
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Knoxville, Tennessee
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Nashville, Tennessee
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Austin, Texas
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Dallas, Texas
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Fort Worth, Texas
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Provo, Utah
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Salt Lake City, Utah
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Burlington, Vermont
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Richmond, Virginia
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Bainbridge Island, Washington
IG: Resistance North Kitsap
Email: [email protected]
Bellingham, Washington
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Chehalis, Washington
IG: Resistance Lewis County
Email: [email protected]
Seattle, Washington
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Snohomish, Washington
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Spokane, Washington
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Tacoma, Washington
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Appleton, Wisconsin
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Green Bay, Wisconsin
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Madison, Wisconsin
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Menomonie, Wisconsin
IG:
Email: [email protected]
Superior, Wisconsin
Email: [email protected]
Toronto, ON, Canada
IG:
Email: [email protected]
