A protest-music night that started a year ago in a Cambridge pub has grown into a sold-out Somerville tradition that pairs old union anthems with lessons in modern-day organizing. Which Side? A Protest Music Teach-Out returns to The Burren at 247 Elm St. in Somerville on August 18 at 8 p.m., following a run that has included a sellout crowd of 120 people and a first-anniversary celebration at Fort Point's Opera + Community Studios in July.
The series began in July 2025 at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge before relocating to The Burren in Somerville's Davis Square last October, according to The Boston Globe. Tickets are pay-what-you-want with a $5 minimum, and proceeds go to the performing musicians and other event costs, the Globe reports. Co-organizer Joyce Linehan, who has recruited acts including The Bags, The Cavedogs, Barrence Whitfield, and Thalia Zedek for past shows, has described the series as an organizing exercise with an effect she calls therapeutic, per the same account.
Linehan brings serious institutional weight to the project. She was appointed Chief of Staff for the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority in March 2026, according to Signature Boston, and previously served as Chief of Policy and Planning for former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, the Globe notes. That same month, Governor Maura Healey named her to the 19-member governing council of the Mass Cultural Council, with her term running through February 2028.
A Scholar's Deep Dive Into Protest Songs
Co-organizer James Sullivan, who teaches at Emerson College, wrote the book on the genre — literally. His 2019 book *Which Side Are You On? 20th Century American History in 100 Protest Songs*, published by Oxford University Press, examines how topical songs tracked social movements across a century, giving the series its name and its intellectual backbone. The August 18 lineup will feature Damon & Naomi, The Hazel Project, The Croaks, Dom the Composer, Eric Martin, Emily Marvosh, and house band the Paid Protesters, per the Globe, with each act asked to perform two songs — one cover, one original.
The title itself carries deep labor history. According to the Zinn Education Project, Kentucky activist Florence Reece wrote “Which Side Are You On?” on a kitchen calendar in 1931 after company-hired deputies illegally raided her home during the Harlan County coal strike, setting her lyrics to a traditional Baptist hymn to rally striking coal miners. Past sets have leaned into that mix of old and new: the Kossoy Sisters, identical twins Irene and Ellen, performed “Hobo's Lullaby,” while Salyse covered Florence + the Machine's “Dog Days Are Over,” the Globe reports.
Formerly Incarcerated Performers Join the Bill
Sullivan connected with a group called The OG's, which includes four formerly incarcerated men, through Emerson's prison education program at MCI-Norfolk, according to the Globe. That program, the Emerson Prison Initiative, celebrated its first graduating cohort of bachelor's degree recipients at MCI-Norfolk in June 2025, per Mass.gov, delivering Emerson College liberal arts coursework inside state correctional facilities. Another performer, Mercedes Escobar, has performed “Freedom Highway” by the Staple Singers at a Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame event, the Globe notes.
The series has also reclaimed songs not typically associated with protest. Katharine Lee Bates wrote the poem that became the lyrics to “America the Beautiful” and described it as a patriotic protest, according to the Globe. The National Park Service notes that Bates, a Wellesley College professor, penned the poem after an 1893 journey across the country that included a visit to Pikes Peak, framing it as an aspirational call for brotherhood rather than uncritical patriotism. One event opened with musician Jon Butcher playing Jimi Hendrix's arrangement of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” per the Globe.
Speakers Turn Songs Into Civic Action
Between musical sets, Which Side? events feature speakers who connect the performances to present-day organizing. A July event included remarks from Kim Driscoll, Kade Crockford, and Ted Landsmark, according to the Globe, with Crockford offering attendees a concrete path of action involving ACLU training for election poll monitors.
Landsmark carries his own weight in Boston's civil rights history. He was the attorney depicted in Stanley Forman's 1976 Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph “The Soiling of Old Glory,” taken during an anti-busing protest at Boston City Hall Plaza, according to WGBH, which captured a white demonstrator lunging at him with an American flag during the city's desegregation crisis. Speaking at the teach-out, Landsmark told the crowd, according to the Globe, “The organizing power we need is in this room,” and spoke about the importance of the arts in building community.
The night doesn't end when the speeches do. Attendees are assigned to meet two people they've never met and discuss joy and anxiety, an exercise the Globe reports is meant to help people identify who has help to give and who needs it. More information and tickets for the August 18 show are available through the series' website, whichside.boston.
