About

Hello and welcome to Good Chants for a Lively Protest!

Good Chants is a ready resource for any protest. In these tough times, chants and songs are important tools that can deliver powerful messages. A few well-chosen “sound bites” can brighten and energize any event. Though each chant may not represent all points of view, find what is useful to your voice.  We can build a better world together.

Before you dive into this treasure trove of good chants and songs, please read this explanation of how best to use the goodchants.org website.

WHERE TO START:
There are two ways to access chants on this site and each section offers valuable information.
1. DOWNLOAD– This section will provide an exact copy (cover to cover) of the contents of the most recent edition of the pocket-sized booklet Good Chants for a Lively Protest – complete with chants, songs, artwork and some good tips about chanting most effectively. The SONGS are found in both sections (Downloads and View Chants), but they’re easier to read in the DOWNLOAD section and musical scores are in this section only.
2. CHANTS / VIEW CHANTS- The CHANTS section is a dynamic version which is updated often with new chants, songs and content.)  It provides the same chants as the above downloaded version in addition to newer content (but without the artwork and sometimes in a different order.)
Racial Justice is a new category which was created incorporating new chants heard at protests with other well-worn chants which were updated.

CHECK OUT ALL THE CATEGORIES:
Many of the chants span several categories- for example, the chant “What do we want? Justice!” could work in most of the categories, and other words in addition to “justice” can be substituted. In the interest of saving space, the chant may appear in just one category, usually Multi-Purpose, or sometimes the same chant might be repeated in several categories.  So be sure to check out all of the categories and “customize” the chant!

GUIDE TO CALL AND RESPONSE:
Many chants are call and response or call and echo.  The leader’s CALL is written in BOLD CAPS and the RESPONSE or ECHO is indented and not bold. Some chants and songs are “zipper” chants where you can “zip out and zip in” any issue. These are shown with an underline and a blank space (_________) and alternative or additional words are sometimes suggested.

PLEASE SHARE!  CIRCULATE WIDELY,  COPY FREELY AND SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THIS HANDY RESOURCE!  THANK YOU!

To order copies of the actual pocket-sized booklet, Good Chants for a Lively Protest, check out the website for more information.
Collected and edited by Ruth Goldbaum – healthcare worker, retired AFT member, singer, mother and activist.
Artwork by Rini Templeton (1935-1986). Rini was a brilliant artist-activist working in the United States, Cuba, Mexico, and Nicaragua. More of her art can be found at riniart.com