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Acclaimed Folk Singer on Feminism, Gentrification, Gender Violence and Art in the Era of Trump

Over the past decade, Alynda Segarra’s band Hurray for the Riff Raff has become one of the most celebrated in modern folk music.

When she was just 17, Alynda Segarra, the leader of the critically acclaimed band Hurray for the Riff Raff, left her home in the Bronx and began hopping freight trains. She eventually landed in New Orleans, where she learned to play banjo. Over the past decade, her band Hurray for the Riff Raff has become one of the most celebrated bands in modern folk music. In 2014, the publication American Songwriter named her tune “The Body Electric” the song of the year. NPR declared the same tune to be the political folk song of 2014. Hurray for the Riff Raff’s new record, “The Navigator,” is out this week. For more, we speak with Alynda Segarra.

Please check back later for full transcript.

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We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.

Over the last months, each executive order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core part of a strategy to make the right-wing turn feel inevitable and overwhelming. But, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to remember in Truthout last November, “Together, we are more powerful than Trump.”

Indeed, the Trump administration is pushing through executive orders, but — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in legal limbo and face court challenges from unions and civil rights groups. Efforts to quash anti-racist teaching and DEI programs are stalled by education faculty, staff, and students refusing to comply. And communities across the country are coming together to raise the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and protect each other in moving shows of solidarity.

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