Wisconsin School Board Bans Band Students From Playing Song About Marsha P. Johnson
School board members said the song about Marsha P. Johnson and the Stonewall Uprising, which contains no lyrics, was “indoctrination.”
Featured image screenshot via WMTV
A Wisconsin high school band took to the stage Monday night for its spring concert. One piece that the students had been practicing since October, however, was not on the program.
Last week, the Watertown School Board decided in a vote of 7-1 to pull “A Mother of a Revolution!” from Monday’s concert, reported Wisconsin Public Radio. The song honors trans activist Marsha P. Johnson and commemorates the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, which sparked the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. Board members said the piece of music contained a “celebration of violence.”
“It is the responsibility of a public school to provide a strong, values-neutral education to all students,” a statement from the board released Sunday said. “As the encouragement of social violence continues to rise across the country, the Watertown Unified School District Board of Education stands firm on the principle that it is not the place of a public school to endorse or celebrate acts of violence.”
The release came after students at the local high school and middle school organized walkouts late last week in protest of the decision.
Students had asked the board to reconsider their vote.
One seventh-grade student, who is gender fluid, told the board on May 12, “I don’t think you guys understand how hard it is to listen to you guys not accept them, because I know it’s like to not be accepted.”
“To hear them play a piece by an LGBTQ composer would mean so much,” the student explained, WPR reports. “Whether they’re trans, gay, whatever, because you’re accepting them, you’re letting the students that need to be accepted to be accepted.”
“This is a perfect example of what everyone here ran on, which was ending indoctrination and radical curriculum,” board vice president Sam Ouweneel said at the board meeting.
Composed in 2019 by Omar Thomas, the piece has no lyrics.
In a message posted online last week, Thomas called out the school board’s decision. “I’m incredibly proud to be a part of a tradition that makes space for and highlights our shared humanity, and that chooses to exercise this most precious muscle. Our common human story is what we investigate every time we gather to prepare a piece of music, and it’s what we radiate outwards to the audience every time we perform. It stays with us and changes us,” he wrote.
In October, Watertown band director Reid LaDew sent students’ parents information about the song, in line with the district’s “controversial issues policy,” according to WPR. LaDew told parents in the note that their students would be working on the piece.
“The purpose behind studying Mother of a Revolution is not to provoke controversy, but to deepen students’ understanding of how music reflects the diverse experiences of humanity,” LaDew said in the note, according to station. “Engaging with this piece helps foster empathy, cultural awareness, and respect for the stories and struggles that shape our shared history.”
The school board didn’t raise any issue at the time, and only one family objected to the piece. Students had practiced the song since.
Early in the day on Monday, almost 800 alumni, staff or ex-staff, parents, and other members of the community also opposed the decision, arguing that the band director had followed the district’s own policy, according to WPR.
While students did not play “Mother of a Revolution!” on Monday night, a local church announced that it will fly Thomas in to conduct a performance of the song on Wednesday for students and community members, local news outlet WMTV reports. Thomas will also give a talk afterward.
The event, to be held at Immanuel Evangelical Luthern Church, is open to the public. A livestream will also be available.
