In the '60s, when I was growing up, one of the great elements of

Hear, O keepers of song, the words of George Clooney, who remembered the fire of his youth: “In the ’60s, when I was growing up, one of the great elements of American culture was the protest song. There were songs about the civil rights movement, the women’s rights movement, the antiwar movement. It wasn’t just Bob Dylan, it was everybody at the time.” In this utterance lies both nostalgia and truth: that music, in that age, was not merely melody, but a weapon, a balm, and a torch.

For the protest song is older than nations. It is the voice of the people when the courts are closed, when the laws are unjust, when the streets are filled with unrest. In the 1960s, America trembled with upheaval: marches for civil rights, cries for peace amid the flames of Vietnam, and women rising to demand equality. The songs of that era were not idle art but living testimony—verses that carried sorrow, anger, and hope into every heart that heard them.

Consider the hymn “We Shall Overcome,” sung in the marches of Selma, Birmingham, and Washington. With each repetition, it bound strangers together as kin, giving courage to those who faced batons, fire hoses, and prison cells. Or think of Joan Baez singing in protest against war, her clear voice piercing the din of division. These were not mere performances; they were calls to conscience, songs that reminded the world of its duty to justice.

Clooney names Bob Dylan, but wisely reminds us that it was not one prophet alone. It was “everybody at the time”—from Pete Seeger to Nina Simone—artists who risked their careers and reputations to stand with the oppressed. Their songs flowed into the bloodstream of society, reminding all that change was possible, that art could be a weapon sharper than any sword.

Therefore, let this lesson be remembered: when politics divides and injustice reigns, the people will always find their voice in song. Protest music is the memory of a nation’s conscience, the fire that leaps from generation to generation. Clooney’s words remind us that art is not a luxury, but a force for truth, and that in every age, when freedom trembles, the songs of the people rise like thunder.