After building up these theoretical columns of my research, the second chapter offers first basic information about the biographical background of Joan Baez, emphasizing the importance of several occasions and developments during her childhood and youth for her later artistic and political future. One of the main instances in this regard was the fact that her parents turned to Quakerism when Baez was a little girl. The passionate and literal interpretation of Christian non-violence within this religious denomination is the topic of chapter 2.1, as this kind of understanding about non-violence tremendously influenced Baez for many years to come. Another aspect during her childhood, which turned out to become a significant factor for her later professional life, was an intense feeling of isolation, which—compared to other teenagers—was aggravated through her dark skin (an inheritance from her Mexican father), turning her into a victim of discrimination on an ethnical level. Her most successful way to overcome such minority complexes was to share her talent as a singer and ukulele player with her fellow pupils. Apart from these general religious and psychological facets of her early childhood and youth, Baez also underwent concrete immediate experiences, which turned out to become significant driving forces for her later political view of the world. In 1951, when she was ten years old, Baez accompanied her whole family to Iraq, where her father took over a one-year job to help building up a Physics Department at the University of Baghdad. Baez repeatedly referred to witnessing the poverty of the Iraqi nation as the birth for her social conscience. Only a few years later, back in the United States, she met one of her most influential heroes in regard to political activism and social conscience for the first time—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with whom she later was about to work together on behalf of the Civil Rights Movement. Another incisive personality, who entered Baez’s life on this relatively early stage, was Jewish scholar Ira Sandperl—he was to become her friend, mentor, and co-activist for decades to come. A brief sub-chapter about this friendship with an obvious political background concludes the second chapter about significant influences during Joan Baez’s early childhood and youth.
The third chapter presents a summarizing examination of the philosophical impetus behind Baez’s political view of the world. It outlines the tenor of Henry David Thoreau’s transcendentalist posture on a citizen’s duty to cling to acts of political disobedience when it comes to what is referred to as injustice in society. Thoreau points out the relevance of organized non-violent activities in order to be politically active. This approach was an authentic encouragement for Baez’s entire career as an activist. Thoreau’s stance on disobedience also formed a philosophical basis for the leader of the Indian Liberty Movement, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and enormously encouraged the leader of the later Civil Rights Movement in the United States, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Both of these influences were often referred to as inspirational by Baez—this is the reason why a closer observation of Thoreau’s arguments is a fruitful means of supporting an analysis of Baez’s synthesis of her artistic work with her political activism. The subsequent seven chapters then chronologically present this analysis, step by step focusing on each decade of Joan Baez’s musical and political career.
This considerable chronology starts with chapter four about the 1950s, when Baez, still a teenager, committed the first public act of disobedience and took her first steps as a local folk musician in the Coffee House scene in Boston during the end of the decade. It offers a short synopsis of culture and politics of the United States during the 1950s and describes the radical Cold War paranoia which was the background of Baez’s tender beginnings as an activist. It refreshes basic information about the Folk Music Revival during the end of the decade, which turned into the most relevant musical root for Joan Baez as a singer.
Chapter five about the most triumphant decade in the career of Baez starts with a summarizing outline of the most significant developments within American culture and politics during the 1960s, when more than ever since World War II, current moral, social, ethnical and political demarcations in a fragmented society were experienced with growing doubts by a majority of American citizens. The second sub-chapter continues the observation of Baez’s friendship with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and explains the contribution of her fame as a singer of national and international renown to the success of numerous demonstrations on behalf of the Civil Rights Movement—the famous March on Washington in August 1963 being just one example. Afterwards, a discussion of Baez’s commitment to the so-called Free Speech Movement highlights the fact that this movement started with just a few courageous students and teachers on American campuses and soon turned out to become the basis for the later massive anti-Vietnam War Movement. Baez also became a sincere spokeswoman for the anti-war protest activities, which were aimed to loudly articulate dissent against the American intervention in South East Asia and turned into a significant factor for ending the increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam.
Chapter six about the 1970s suggests a sharp cultural—and later also political—comeback of conservatism in the United States, particularly during the years after the military defeat in Vietnam. In such a tightening climate, no one wanted to talk about war or anti-war activities anymore and a politically active singer like Joan Baez increasingly had to face difficulties in getting the attention of the same audiences as during the successful first decade of her career. Nonetheless, Baez continued working with her very own combination of being a popular singer and a political activist at the same time. The next three sub-chapters explain how she adapted her activities to other political realities and started to focus on political developments in numerous countries abroad. A human rights organization like Amnesty International profited immensely from Baez and her fame during the 1970s, when she—as only one example—supported the process of freeing political prisoners in Latin America. Baez articulated another significant dimension of her social conscience when she publicly supported the first activities of the Gay Liberation Movement—outing herself as having had bisexual experiences and releasing several self-penned songs which explicitly dealt with the topic of homosexuality long before it became en vogue to be out and proud about it. The end of the decade found Baez returning to the topic of Vietnam, when she ignored the national suppression of the traumatic experiences in Vietnam and—against all odds—publicly protested against organized violence in South East Asia only four years after the end of the Vietnam War.
Chapter seven outlines Joan Baez’s most important musical as well as political endeavors during the apolitical times of the 1980s. Her musical career started to tumble over the prevailing ethos of the decade that commercial success was the one and only thing that counted for an artist. A politically active singer, who was increasingly seen as a remnant of times long gone by, had to face difficulties to keep up with a career in a climate which primarily propagated national economic and political narcissism. The first argumentative step of this chapter is again a synopsis about the then current cultural and political state of affairs in the Unites States, which offered nothing but this kind of collective bow in front of nothing else than profit. Baez, however, did not give in to these professional difficulties