If you've followed my columns at all, you know they are less separate pieces than chapters in a story (and my thanks to the Zone page's handlers for leaving them up so they can be read together). So I suppose I can get away with addressing two in a row to Zone founder Danielle Nelsen's son, Kellan.

Kellan, when you get old enough, I hope you see a movie that's out right now called Snow Day, not just because it is a fun kid's fantasy but because it stars someone you have a lot in common with, the son of a visionary mom.

When you watch the movie, keep in mind that the star, Mark Webber, was featured in three movies with his mother when he was growing up. They were way different than the kind of Hollywood film he is in now; they were brutally realistic portraits of poverty and homelessness-1991's Takeover, the story of homeless people taking over abandoned HUD housing in 11 different cities; 1997's Poverty Outlaw, the story of an organization formed by a group of welfare mothers in the poorest neighborhood in Pennsylvania, and 1999's Outriders, the story of this same group of poor people chartering a bus and networking with other groups around the country. The story Skylight Pictures has told with these three portraits is the story of people going from surviving and fighting back on a local level to building a national and an international strategy to gain the basic human rights that are being denied to people in this country and around the world.

I just came back from my second Folk Alliance conference, this time in Cleveland, partially at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I was there to host a workshop that featured Mark's mother, Cheri Honkala. The workshop was called Music & Politics II: Breaking the Blackout, and it was a follow-up to a music and politics panel we held last year. This year the focus was on the connections between the panelists--Chris Buhalis, a deservedly acclaimed singer-songwriter; Dave Marsh, as famous a rock writer as there is; Ernie Perez, a brilliant performer, songwriter and producer who works with Rock-A-Mole in Los Angeles--and the rest of the Folk Alliance participants. We all have voices that need to be heard, and we all must fight media industries that profit by keeping most of our voices off the airwaves, particularly when we talk about uniting around our common interests.

A brilliant example of the Blackout took place the morning before our panel. Cheri's son, Mark, was going to be on Good Morning America to talk about Snow Day, of course, but also to talk about how his mother's strength and the struggles he experienced growing up informed his acting. Mark had his own goal for the interview. When taped, he pledged all of his income to support his mother's organization, the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, and its Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign. He used this pledge as a challenge to other actors to do the same. When Good Morning America aired the segment, they showed a couple of clips from Skylight Pictures, and they showed Mark and his mother talking together, but they never gave her name or the name of the organization she represented. GMA also cut out Mark's pledge and challenge, instead reporting that he planned to offer a free showing of Snow Day in his old North Philly neighborhood. Later that day on the panel, Cheri could not tell this story without tears coming to her eyes. Mark's bravest, boldest gestures had been left on the cutting room floor.

Such pain's to be expected, but this year's Folk Alliance conference was even more rewarding than last year's. A community is taking shape that is, at heart, musical but bound together by a deepened political understanding of our common fight. A musician friend of mine once commented that the only difference between poor people and musicians is that a musician thinks he's just about to get a record deal. The Folk Alliance, in the main, doesn't entertain such dreams so much as look for ways to strategize a space to survive.

A great example of this came up during a Saturday morning session on Musician's Local 1000, a union designed to organize musicians who have previously felt they had to choose between union scale and artistic survival (i.e. getting any real gigs at all). The meeting was largely about how important it is for musicians to find a way to stand up for their own rights, while working with organizations that may or may not have the money to pay them for their work. The meeting really came alive when representatives of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union discussed why they called themselves a union though traditional concepts of labor organizing (such as conventional dues collection) were not workable in their organization. KWRU's Willie Baptist made the point that we had to work together, "not just to find the best seat on the Titanic, but to get off the boat altogether." This led to animated discussion between the majority of the workshop participants, including distinguished veterans such as Pete Seeger and Tom Paxton.

I heard a lot of great music at the Folk Alliance, ranging from the psychedelic folk fiddle of Oliver Schroer to the hilarious psychedelic folk storytelling of Ray Wylie Hubbard to the infectious slap and tickle rock of Stacey Earle. But that Saturday night, I sat in a hotel lobby around 3:30 in the morning, listening to my old Oklahoma homeboy, Jimmy LaFave, share vocals with Austin songwriters, Michael Fracasso and the Burns sisters and Chris Buhalis from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Many other musicians, generally fine performers in their own right, came and went, joined in the songs or simply sat and listened. I did the same, singing along with some choruses and actively listening most of the time. An older man, no doubt from a traditional folk group of his own, came and stood next to me, adding a rich baritone to "I Shall Be Released." If God is love or truth or beauty, then this was church, and I felt right at home in this congregation.

I wanted all of my Kansas City friends to be there-to get beyond the words Folk Alliance or Kensington Welfare Rights Union or even Rock & Rap Confidential--and just see this community for what it is-music lovers gathered around the fire of their passion, warming their backsides against the cold of the blackout, strategizing a way out.

For all that warmth and beauty, a cold breeze cut through the conference. Of over 500 people arrested in Seattle at the WTO Conference, Cheri Honkala is one of only 12 who still faces charges. She was arrested before the battle of Seattle really got started, attempting to deliver a statement of protest to the WTO on the part of America's poor. Her first plea bargain agreement offered her 5 days in jail, a $1000 fine, and a two year gag order prohibiting her participation or involvement in demonstrations anywhere in the country. She refused this blatant attempt to blackout her voice, and she stands trial in Seattle on March 14th.

She'll have the Folk Alliance behind her, as well as the many other musicians who came to her work over the past two years. Most important to her, she'll have her son's support. A member of KWRU's War Council, Mark will have the support of the vision his mother passed on to him, a vision that allows him to see that great, big community of resistance that won't rest until every voice has the chance to be heard.

--Danny Alexander
danny@thezone.org

For further parallels between the music industry and the machine trying to silence Cheri Honkala, see Dave Marsh's new American Grandstand at www.addict.com.

A plea from KWRU:

Right now, people throughout the country, including musicians, labor leaders, students, religious leaders, and lawyers are writing letters to the District Attorney's office in Seattle asking that Cheri Honkala's case be dropped. We ask that you do the same. Cheri's case number is 371901. Please address your letter to City Attorney Mark Sidran. Mail your letter to Municipal Building, 10th Floor, 600 4th Avenue, Seattle, WA, 98104, or fax to (206)684-8284. Also, please cc the KWRU Defense Committee at PO Box 50678, Philadelphia, PA 19132, (215)203-1950 FAX, kwru@libertynet.org.

Check out the website: http://www.libertynet.org/kwru