Cities across the nation are witnessing a revival of protest music. Bellingham is no exception.
On a recent Saturday afternoon, about a dozen singers crowded into Havilah Rand’s living room in Bellingham. A few brought guitars, and there was at least one mandolin. Arranged in a circle, they passed around printouts of lyrics to protest songs collected over the past few weeks. Some were old folk tunes like “We Shall Overcome” and “We Shall Not be Moved,” but others were more recent compositions — many coming out of Minneapolis.
Organized via an email list and a Facebook group that now boasts over 200 members, the Good Trouble Resistance Singers meet regularly in Bellingham for communal singing sessions, joining a growing movement across the United States.
In Minneapolis and elsewhere, groups like Singing Resistance are organizing to bring music into protest movements, sharing videos on social media of thousands singing in unison. Singing Resistance is organizing a Weekend of Action on Feb. 28 and March 1 in which Bellingham’s Good Trouble Singers plan to participate.
At the same time, singer-songwriters are picking up their instruments to document the moment. In Bellingham, both Cascade Cody and Zaia Grace penned songs in response to Renée Good’s death at the hands of ICE agent Jonathan Ross. A concert and fundraiser for immigrant families affected by ICE activity — including Cascade Cody and other local artists — will take place on Feb. 28 at COF& in Bellingham
But even before ICE actions in Minneapolis, momentum for protest music was starting to build. Bellingham folk singer Linda Allen said she’s seen a “reblossoming” of protest music since Trump’s reelection. Nationally, folk artists like Jesse Welles have risen to prominence with topical hits that garner millions of views on TikTok. Locally, Bellingham musicians have sung at rallies and hosted protest music sing-alongs at Firehouse Arts and Event Center. For many, the music provides a new sense of hope and community.
Come together
Fl!p Breskin recalls a time when communal singing was everywhere.
A musician and educator based in Bellingham, Breskin came of age in Seattle in the 1960s and remembers singing in groups at large folk music hootenannies and Vietnam War protests. But in the 1980s and ‘90s, that culture started to disappear.
“I got to actually watch it happen, over my life, where singing ceased to be a community activity,” she said. “Things shifted from singing being something you do, to something you purchase from the good singers.”
As singing faded from everyday life in the last decades of the twentieth century, it also became less common at protests and rallies. Allen, who is around the same age as Breskin, remembers participating in rallies in the ‘80s and ‘90s with “very little” music.
“Pretty soon,” she said, “I was seeing rallies about very important issues with just speakers.”
To Allen and Breskin, this seemed like a significant loss. Music, they said, can bring people together, get to the heart of an issue and clarify a message in ways that speeches or chants don’t always achieve.
“When you’re singing with a crowd of people together, our voices move the air,” Breskin explained. “The rippling of the air, when it hits our eardrums, is sound. But it hits our whole bodies. So that when you’re in the middle of a crowd of people singing wholeheartedly, your whole body is touched by and held by that singing, and we can tell we’re connected.”
Like Allen, Breskin said she can feel the tides starting to turn in favor of musical resistance.
“I’m very excited, in this moment, watching the singing coming out of Minneapolis,” she said. “Just in the last couple of weeks everybody I know is sending me stuff — videos of people singing things. Dozens a day.”
Havilah Rand, a Bellingham-based singer-songwriter and educator, also took notice of the trend. When she saw there was a local appetite for communal singing, she started to organize. Within just three days, Rand said, the Good Trouble Resistance Singers had an email list of 50 people and a Facebook group of 150. The group began collecting songs in a Google folder, including some from the Singing Resistance Songbook.
Breskin and her partner Zeke Hoskin — also a musician — both attended a gathering at Rand’s house. They each brought songs to share, including a recent Hoskin original, “We Ain’t Gonna Let That Pass.” Like many a good protest tune, Hoskin’s song has a simple, repetitive chorus that’s easy to pick up on the fly.
Those who wish to join in the singing don’t need to be musicians. The songs are meant to be easy to learn and sing. Rand’s goal is for people to find “community and hope” in the gatherings.
“(Singing) is a way to release anxiety,” Rand said. “I think we’re all just kind of taking in all of this stress and fear that’s around us. So it’s a great way to process that.”
She also hopes that, once people become more familiar with the songs, they can bring them to future protests — whether gatherings in Downtown Bellingham or outside the ICE office in Ferndale.
“I’m not the person who has been out in the streets every weekend,” Rand said. “But I will say that singing gets me really fired up and so I will be out with a microphone helping people sing together.”
Singing the news
In the wake of Renée Good’s death, Bellingham musician Kate Czaja — who uses the stage name Zaia Grace — said they felt “frozen.”
“I think, like many of us, I learned about Renée Good’s murder from just opening my phone and seeing a video of someone getting shot — of her being shot,” Czaja said.
It wasn’t until a few days later that they sat down to write. The result is a raw, haunting song posted to social media just two weeks after Good’s death.
“I’m sure you’ve all seen it, the headline of the week. She was shot by a man playing soldier in the street,” Czaja sings, looking directly at the camera. The lyrics go on to describe the scene: “kid toys in the front seat” and “blood on the wheel” of Good’s car.
The song is about Renée Good and her family who mourns her. But it’s also about Czaja’s own family. Their grandfather fought in World War II, and Czaja’s lyrics wonder what he might have felt seeing thousands of masked federal agents descend on Minneapolis.
“The lyrics are talking about my grandfather. But in my heart, I was thinking of all of those who have come before us in our country, on Turtle Island, who have been resisting systems of domination and violence and have been fighting for liberation,” they said.
Now 27, Czaja said they’ve been writing political music since they were a teenager. In those days, their lyrics centered around issues of feminism and environmental justice. Attending high school in the San Juan Islands, they used to write songs on ferry rides. One purpose music can serve, they said, is to “provide evidence and testimony.” While their songs may not be as easy to sing in a crowd, the music, they hope, can still move people.
“Renée Good” wasn’t the first song Czaja wrote about ICE. “A Nation of ICE and Snow,” composed in 2025, describes people being detained by masked, plainclothes agents in unmarked vehicles. It also makes reference to Elon Musk’s stiff-armed salute at Trump’s inauguration.
“We know where this goes,” they sing, ominously, allowing listeners to draw their own conclusions about the direction of American politics.
At the time of writing, Czaja said, “I was seeing a lot of communities, particularly communities that are most privileged and insulated from what’s happening, just kind of going about business as usual. I wanted to shake the people who weren’t paying attention or who were numbing themselves out.”
Czaja performed “A Nation of ICE and Snow” at this year’s Bellingham Folk Festival in January alongside local artists Hannah Wyatt and Claire Willow.
Musicians with a political bent have long found a home in Bellingham — folks like Dana Lyons and Robert Sarazin Blake, whose lyrics touch on a range of topical issues. Blake performed his original song “No Kings”at a rally last October. Linda Allen’s catalog of political music includes songs about immigration, reproductive freedom and workers’ rights. She corresponded with Pete Seeger and befriended Malvina Reynolds in Berkeley, both of whom, she said, have influenced her writing.
Allen, in turn, has gone on to inspire others.
Cody Jordan, who performs under the name Cascade Cody, calls Allen “one of the most prolific songwriters” he’s talked to. Jordan started writing protest music in the last couple years, penning a song called “Business for Fascists” last summer. Just days after Good’s death, he showed up to a Bellingham protest, guitar in hand, having already composed a protest song in her honor.
“I’m Not Mad at You” takes Renée Good’s final recorded words as its refrain, with verses that tell the story of Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis. It’s both an account of history and a rallying cry.
Jordan doesn’t expect protest music to change minds, but he sees it as a way to provide context and deepen understanding.
“It’s just trying to gather a few more pieces of the puzzle,” he said, “as opposed to trying to solve the whole thing.”
Jordan calls Pete Seeger his “hero.” He said he’s also a fan of Woody Guthrie and is glad to see Jesse Welles “taking up the torch” of political song writing. At Bellingham’s ICE Out for Good rally, Jordan honored the long tradition of American folk by singing “Down by the Riverside” — an African American spiritual that predates the Civil War but saw a resurgence in popularity during Vietnam War protests. As he sang, the crowd began to join in.
— By Christy Carley
Also read in Salish Current:
• “Indigenous rappers ‘carry the torch,’” Feb. 20, 2026
• “Heartbreak, rage and shame as community mourns Renée Good, protests ICE,” Jan. 14, 2026
• “Chorale’s ‘Lest We Forget’ to recall the past; evoke hope,” Nov. 14, 2025
• “Despite the rain, this is what democracy looks like,” Oct. 20, 2025