Peter Yarrow 'building peace' with new generation

Courtesy of Operation Respect

Peter Yarrow is shown at the spring 2010 PEAL conference. The Parent Education & Advocacy Leadership Center was established to bring together parents of children with disabilities.

Singer-songwriter Peter Yarrow knows a thing or two about the struggle for justice.

In the early 1960s, he marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Alabama and Washington; later, he stood singing amid the spray of tear gas at 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago; and since then he has traveled the world in support of myriad social and political causes.

More recently, Yarrow turned up at the side of union workers protesting in Madison, Wis., and just this week he performed as part of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.

"We sang, 'We shall not, we shall not be moved' — and it was wonderful," says Yarrow. "There have been all kinds of arrests, but

what I found was a very safe and very caring environment."

For the 73-year-old Yarrow — who plays the Bartlett Performing Arts and Conference Center Friday night, along with his son Christopher Yarrow — it's all an extension of an effort that began more than 50 years ago, when he first came to prominence as part of the folk group Peter, Paul & Mary.

With hits like "Blowin' In the Wind" and "If I Had a Hammer" (as well as the Yarrow-penned "Puff the Magic Dragon" which was later turned into a series of Emmy-nominated animated TV specials) the group became torch-bearers for the socially conscious music of the era.

Though he still occasionally performs with Noel "Paul" Stookey (the third of the triumvirate, Mary Travers, died in 2009) and does his own solo dates, these days Yarrow devotes most of his time to performing in support of Operation Respect, the nonprofit organization he founded in 1999.

The program promotes a curriculum of "civility and conflict resolution" in schools throughout the world. "We're now in 22,000 schools in the U.S. and many other countries," says Yarrow. "We're in Israel, and going to Palestine, we're in Croatia, Canada -- wherever we're invited to go, we go." (According to Operation Respect officials, nearly 100 educators from Memphis-area schools have ordered the curriculum materials, which come free courtesy of the McGraw-Hill Cos.)

The chief component of the program is called "Don't Laugh at Me," which utilizes "inspiring music and video along with curriculum guides based on the well-tested, highly regarded conflict resolution curricula developed by the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program."

"The reason Operation Respect is so important is that I've come to believe that the only way we're going to change things is through educating kids in a different way," says Yarrow. "That is what 'Don't Laugh at Me' does. Ostensibly, it's about eliminating bullying and disrespect ... but those are symptoms of something deeper."

"We talk about a thing called the 'Pyramid of Hate': It starts with kids making fun of each other and bullying each other; that builds to racism and prejudice; then that builds to war and holocaust. So if we eliminate that, by creating an environment in which kids are safe, feel respected, valued and empowered, then we're growing children who can form a more caring, loving, peaceful society. In effect, they grow to be peace builders."

Clearly, Yarrow views his efforts as more than just working for a good cause. "If something is a good cause and makes you feel good supporting it, that's a common kind of experience," he says.

"But when you've been working in efforts that you perceive to be essential to the survival of equity and justice ... and when you see the desperation of people in this country ... then your participation reaches another level of feeling: that your life is linked to theirs and together those lives are on the line."

While Peter Paul and Mary enjoyed the commercial benefits of the '60s folk boom — selling millions of albums, charting 19 times and earning five Grammy awards — Yarrow has never tethered his personal satisfaction to sales or success. In short, he never got jaded like some of his '60s contemporaries.

"Well, what makes people jaded is forgetting the real gift of being alive, of being able to make a difference," he says.

"If every time you picked up a guitar and opened your mouth and sang, people sang along with you and recreated a spirit of hopefulness and a determination to move forward, then you're not going to get jaded. You're not, because you have a purpose."

Yarrow says the challenge now is to reach a culture that has grown increasingly cynical. He quotes the closing lines of his 1978 anthem "Sweet Survivor": "You see someone too young to know the difference /And a veil of isolation in their eyes/ And inside you know you've got to leave them something/ Or the hope for something better slowly dies."

"I do feel worried about the way things are heading," says Yarrow, "but I don't have the option to consider withdrawing from the struggle."

Through it all, Yarrow will continue to sing the songs that have resonated for a half-century.

"I will always be singing 'Blowin' in the Wind' and 'If I Had a Hammer' — but there are new songs, and there are new meanings. It's not just a trip down memory lane," he says.

"These songs are not historical documents to be looked at in wonder and say, 'Oh, wasn't that a time.' Because this is the time. This is perhaps the most crucial time."

Peter Yarrow

8 p.m. Friday at the Bartlett Performing Arts and Conference Center, 3663 Appling Road. A limited number of tickets are available for $20. For more information, go to bpacc.org, or call (901) 385-6440.

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