As the town’s late Shan Ellentuck said
upon hearing of the Roosevelt Poets upcoming event, “Isn’t everyone a poet?”
And the response: “Yes, but only a few
people admit to it!”
This year, you’re invited to read one poem of your own, along with the RAP poet

The Roosevelt String Band (with David Brahinsky, guitar and vocals; Ed Cedar, a variety of string instruments; Joe Pepitone, bass; Noemi Bolton, banjo uke, guitar and vocals; Nancy Wilson, guitar and vocals; Guy DeRosa, harmonicas) concert this year will feature a variety of songs from the folk and singer-songwriter traditions, including songs by Leonard Cohen, Stan Rogers, Chris Smither, Pete Seeger, Kate Wolf, Cheryl Wheeler and many others.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” is the motto for our multi-media event. Photos, music, and poems will celebrate how America’s slavery trail became its civil rights trail. We’ll be telling the story of how suffering yielded overcoming. A narrative of our nine-day drive from Greensboro to Selma, Birmingham to Montgomery to Washington, D.C., visiting the Civil Rights Institute and Birmingham Jail and ending at the National Museum of African American History & Culture. What we learn is that Black history is the history of ALL Americans; as Fannie Lou Hamer said, “Nobody’s Free Until Everybody’s Free.”