Some of Ashley Jackson's earliest memories took place at church services she attended with her grandmother. The rising harp player leaned into those experiences for her sophomore album Take Me to The Water. Spirituals, and their coded messages of freedom for the enslaved, are at the heart of her arrangements of works by Alice Coltrane, Margaret Bonds and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

Each of the organizations Prism spoke to acknowledged the importance of resource provisions around language access, child care, and meals to reduce barriers to entry by making community engagement more convenient and appealing. But not every organization has the resources to achieve goals around accessibility, especially groups that are entirely volunteer-run. Volunteers and funding dollars are drying up across mutual aid communities, making matters more difficult for these groups and limiting capacity even further.

Protest songs have been part of American history for centuries — from “Yankee Doodle” during the Revolutionary War period to “Okie from Muskogee” by Merle Haggard to Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” — and these tunes have covered all sides of the political and social spectrum. However, the history of protest music is often associated with men. Musicians like Woody and Arlo Guthrie and Bob Dylan are lauded for their issue-focused songs, yet women have played a key role in this American tradition as well.