{"id":10781,"date":"2022-07-13T08:18:44","date_gmt":"2022-07-13T07:18:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=10781"},"modified":"2022-07-13T08:22:25","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T07:22:25","slug":"woodys-education-centre-legacy-phil-ochs-fellowship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2022\/07\/13\/woodys-education-centre-legacy-phil-ochs-fellowship\/","title":{"rendered":"WOODY\u00b4S EDUCATION CENTRE LEGACY<\/strong>& Phil Ochs\u00b4 Fellowship<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Norman Warwick examines<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WOODY\u00b4S EDUCATION CENTRE LEGACY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

& Phil Ochs\u00b4 Fellowship<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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photo 1<\/strong> His archive of work<\/a>, housed at the Woody Guthrie Center\u00ae, consists of more than 100 notebooks, correspondence, and many other documents that show his mission to speak for the disenfranchised. Woody wasn\u2019t simply a writer of protest songs; he was a committed activist who lived by very humanist principles. Activism wasn\u2019t something Woody did. It\u2019s who he was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woody\u2019s message continues to change the world as he inspires a new generation of artists and activists to take a stand. Without contemporary forms of communication, the bards brought stories to people. That\u2019s what Woody did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He spoke up for the Dust Bowl migrants, bringing attention to their plight in a way that the listeners to his radio show, The Woody and Lefty Lou Show,<\/em> were able to understand. He travelled with his African American friends and fellow musicians, breaking a colour barrier during a time when that wasn\u2019t readily acceptable. Woody was fearless and always ready to fight for those who needed help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woody\u2019s empathy allowed him to insert himself into the stories of others, and he shared those narratives through music, prose, and artwork. He often wrote \u201cI ain\u2019t dead yet.\u201d We feel his presence and see his influence when people everywhere speak out for those who need a voice and shine a light on injustice in our world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Named after President Woodrow Wilson, Woody was born on July 14, 1912, in Okemah, Oklahoma. Okemah was one of the first oil boom towns and was bursting with activity at the time of his birth. Okemah is in the heart of the Muscogee-Creek Nation, and near Boley, one of Oklahoma\u2019s largest and most prosperous Black towns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Okemah was a vibrant, bustling, and diverse city, that diversity did not mean equality for all members of the community. Woody did not emerge from the earth an enlightened human being; rather, he grew up in an era and in a region that actively promoted the mistreatment of non-Whites. Okemah was a \u201cSundown town\u201d \u2014 a term that came from signs posted that people of color had to leave town by sundown \u2014 near an area called \u201cLittle Dixie.\u201d His father was likely a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and young Woody absorbed the sounds of prejudice as well as the culturally diverse sounds around him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the Woody Guthrie Center<\/a>, these truths about his background are shared to show the potential we all have for change. As Woody travelled and broadened his world view, he turned away from those racist ideas and became one of our first and most vocal advocates for civil rights. His writings in the early 1940s and \u201950s are enlightened, powerful messages of equality and could have easily been written by activists during the American civil rights movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fires were a constant issue in Woody\u2019s life. When he was 6, his older sister, Clara, died from burns suffered in a house fire. Several years later, his father, Charlie, was seriously injured in another house fire. As a result, Woody\u2019s father moved to Pampa, Texas, to be nursed back to health in his brother\u2019s home, while Woody\u2019s mother, Nora, was committed to a mental institution due to her battle with Huntington\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fire also plagued Woody in his adult life. Cathy, his first daughter from his second marriage, was burned in an apartment fire when she was four and died from her injuries. When Huntington\u2019s disease started affecting Woody himself, he suffered severe burns to his arm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We feel his presence and see his influence when people everywhere speak out for those who need a voice and shine a light on injustice in our world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woody\u2019s cousin Jack Guthrie lived in Los Angeles, and the two formed a radio show partnership in 1937. That show was short-lived, and when Jack left the show, Woody became radio partners with their friend Maxine (Lefty Lou) Crissman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Woody and Lefty Lou Show<\/em> was an almost immediate success, and the duo began receiving hundreds of fan letters. Woody knew that his voice was reaching the listening audience and that he could use that connection to speak for his people \u2014 the migrants who were simply looking for a good job to allow them to feed their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woody was never a member of any political party. His views weren\u2019t a political ideology; rather, they were a humanist perspective. In his own words, \u201cLeft wing, right wing, chicken wing, it don\u2019t make no difference to me.\u201d Instead of a communist, Woody thought of himself as a \u201ccommonist,\u201d fighting for the common people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Known for his opposition to fascism, in the early 1940s Woody painted the now-famous phrase \u201cthis machine kills fascists\u201d on his guitar, consequently inspiring many artists who came after him. He continued writing the phrase on his guitars after the end of World War II, because he still felt the threat from fascists who would oppress the rights of the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woody never \u201cmade it big\u201d during his lifetime. His goal wasn\u2019t personal wealth but to remain true to his ideals and work for the people. He walked away from many good jobs because someone in the corporate hierarchy tried to control what he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woody sang the songs and said the things that needed to be said, and those things didn\u2019t always work for a company\u2019s idea of commercial success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of Woody\u2019s most well-known songs are \u201cOklahoma Hills,\u201d \u201cPretty Boy Floyd,\u201d \u201cSo Long, It\u2019s Been Good to Know Yuh,\u201d and \u201cDo Re Mi.\u201d But by far his most famous is \u201cThis Land Is Your Land.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woody wrote \u201cThis Land is Your Land\u201d on February 23, 1940, in New York City, after traveling across the country from California. It was written as an observation piece about the country and the people he encountered, but it was also a protest against Kate Smith\u2019s idealized version of \u201cGod Bless America,\u201d which was constantly being played on the radio at the time. Woody also praised the beauty of the landscape, but rather than asking God to bless us again, his answer in the song that he originally titled \u201cGod Blessed America\u201d was to question how we were sharing and caring for those blessings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After Woody\u2019s death, his dear friend Pete Seeger (left)<\/strong><\/em> kept \u201cThis Land is Your Land\u201d alive and popularized as he shared with young people. When Seeger was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, he took the music of empowerment to schools, camps, and other youth gatherings to make sure that the next generation was ready to take the lead in the fight for freedom and equality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Woody Guthrie Center has the original handwritten lyrics of \u201cThis Land is Your Land,\u201d as well as videos of others\u2019 renditions of the song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Released in 1940, Dust Bowl Ballads<\/em> was Woody\u2019s first and most popular album. Sharing the human experience of the Dust Bowl and its effects, this album is considered one of the first concept albums. Dust Bowl Ballads<\/em> was later reissued by Folkways Recordings in 1950<\/a>, and you can listen to the songs at the Woody Guthrie Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woody had three wives: Mary, Marjorie, and Anneke. He married Mary in 1933, in Texas, and eventually they had three children: Gwen, Sue, and Bill. Woody named his first son after Will Rogers, a fellow Oklahoma native whom Woody greatly admired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woody and Marjorie married in New York in 1945, and they had four children together: Cathy, Arlo, Joady, and Nora. Woody would go on to have one more child, Lorina, with Anneke, whom he married in 1953. Of his eight children, three are still with us: Nora, Arlo, and Joady.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woody contracted the same illness that took his mother: Huntington\u2019s disease, an incurable genetic disorder that causes progressive breakdown of nerve cells in the brain. He spent most of his last 13 years in a hospital. At the time, the disease was not understood, nor were there treatments. His hospitalization was, like his mother\u2019s, in a mental institution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his hospitalization, friends and family would check him out of the hospital on weekends to provide him with a sense of normalcy. They shared music in their homes, listened to a new generation of musicians playing in Washington Square Park, and visited Coney Island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Huntington\u2019s disease took Woody from this world on October 3, 1967, in New York City. (His two daughters from his first marriage, Gwen and Sue, also succumbed to the disease.) After Woody\u2019s death, his second wife, Marjorie, followed up on her promise to \u201cdo something\u201d to fight this horrific disease. She retired from her career as a Martha Graham dancer and committed the rest of her life to advocate for research and treatment in the hopes of finding a cure. She founded the Committee to Combat Huntington\u2019s Disease, which later became the Huntington\u2019s Disease Society of America<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his song \u201cChanging World,\u201d<\/a> Woody Guthrie wrote, \u201cChange the pen and change the ink \/ Change the way you talk and think \u2026 Change the ways of this changing world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woody was an outspoken advocate for social justice and equality. Inspired by his words and his legacy, the Woody Guthrie Center\u00ae created the Oklahoma Changing World Prize to recognize those within the state who continue the fight for social justice. Equality and civil rights affect all of us because they reflect who we are as a people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSocial justice advocates, such as those honored with this award, are seeking equality not only for themselves, but also to positively impact our entire society as we continue to seek justice for all,\u201d says Woody Guthrie Center Executive Director Deana McCloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CHANGING WORLD PRIZE WINNERS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n