Singers, musicians come together to perform at ICE sites

When his weekly song circle group performed at the Renee Good shooting site Jan. 13 in Minneapolis, Timothy Frantzich got a new lesson on the old folk tunes he had been playing for most of his 62 years.

The veteran Twin Cities folk singer and teacher was especially enlightened when his group of about 40 people more than doubled in size when neighbors and others joined in.

“I realized why there was all that harmony in ’60s music,” said Frantzich. “It’s there for a reason. It brings people together.”

Frantzich is one of many musicians and singers who’ve come together over the past week at Good’s memorial site in Minneapolis and other locations where ICE agents and protests have been active.

Though from many different backgrounds, these street performers share a love for music and a desire to raise their voices — or blow their horns — against Good’s killing and ICE’s tactics in Minnesota. Many of them believe there’s nothing more useful in keeping protests peaceful than music.

“Music just helps people access their feelings,” said Daniel Goldschmidt, a music therapist by day who’s been out several nights this month performing at protest sites with the second line-style street troupe Brass Solidarity.

“Especially when there’s so much going on that it’s hard to know what to feel, music helps us sort it out.”

The biggest displays of communal musicmaking during this month’s tumult, though, were by the new community group the Singing Resistance.

An informal and resoundingly congenial-looking street choir, the Singing Resistance was seen in a now-viral video clip that shows the singers slowly marching through the Phillips neighborhood Jan. 11 singing a simple refrain learned from the Peace Poets, a similar community group that has sung at ICE protests in New York. The group drew an even bigger crowd of vocalists this past weekend.

“This is for our neighbors who are locked inside,” they sing in the first clip, which now has more than 170,000 likes. “Together we will abolish ICE.”

Even one of the co-founders of the Singing Resistance was surprised by how many people you see in the clip: around 300, when only about 100 or so were expected.

“I think the simple act of singing helps draw more people in,” said Sarah, who did not want to give her last name. (The whole group is keeping its personal information private out of safety concerns.)

Via a chat chain on a private messaging app, the singers settled on their first meetup at a Phillips area church about a mile from where Good was shot Jan. 7. They also shared a song list via the app, featuring many simplistic, repetitive songs written just for such occasions.

“There’s no sheet music, no tabs,” Sarah said. “They’re all songs you can learn by ear and are easy for harmonizing.”

The Singing Resistance is planning more harmonious demonstrations in the coming weeks. The members of Brass Solidarity learn from a messaging app when they’re performing next.

Brass Solidarity formed in 2021 to perform at George Floyd Square in south Minneapolis after the sentencing of former police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of murdering Floyd. The group still meets up to perform every Monday at the square and has sporadically played at other protests and community events, too. It rarely takes paid gigs, though, except for occasional fundraisers.

In the days after Good’s shooting, Brass Solidarity moved its weekly Monday performance to her memorial site. The troupe has also appeared outside the Whipple Federal Building, where Goldschmidt said one of the members was temporarily detained by ICE.

Not so scary that the group can’t have some fun, though. Many of the songs in the Solidarity repertoire are funky and danceable, including the O’Jays’ “Love Train,” Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” and anthems by Sounds of Blackness and Nina Simone.