It was a scene that could have come straight from the pages of American history — and yet, it unfolded in real time, with a rawness that left the nation trembling. Beneath the solemn gaze of Abraham Lincoln’s statue, two voices of resistance, Joan Baez and Bruce Springsteen, came together for an unforgettable moment that pierced through political noise and reached straight into the heart of America.

The event, titled “Voices for America,” was no ordinary concert. It was a call — a cry — for unity, justice, and moral courage in a country grappling with division. And as dusk fell over Washington, D.C., thousands gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, holding candles, handmade signs, and hope that their voices still mattered.

As Bruce Springsteen strummed the haunting opening chords of “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” the crowd fell into a reverent hush. His voice — gravelly, urgent, unmistakable — began to fill the air:

“Men walkin’ ‘long the railroad tracks / Goin’ someplace, there’s no goin’ back…”

And then, out of the shadows, Joan Baez emerged. Dressed in black, with silver hair glinting under the lights and fire in her eyes, she approached Bruce slowly. The music paused. The audience seemed to collectively hold its breath.

Without a word, Baez wrapped her arms around Springsteen in a fierce, almost maternal hug. Microphones caught her soft but shaking voice as she whispered:

“I have to be here. America is becoming a terrible country — but your voice still gives us hope. The Boss has a rebel queen by his side tonight.”

The crowd erupted. Cheers turned into tears. For many, it felt like a torch being passed — or perhaps rekindled — from one generation of protest to another.Joan Baez has never been a stranger to resistance. From marching with Martin Luther King Jr. to defying war and injustice through her music, she has stood on the frontlines of conscience for over six decades. And Bruce — with his gravel-voiced poetry of working-class struggle — has long been the voice of America’s silent majority: weary but proud, bruised but never broken.

That night, they were one.

They launched back into “The Ghost of Tom Joad” — now a duet, now an anthem — with Bruce on guitar and Joan harmonizing with a voice that still held the quiet strength of every movement she ever stood for. Together, they resurrected the ghost of resistance.

And then came a silence more powerful than any sound.

Joan Baez stepped forward again. She looked out at the sea of faces — young and old, Black and white, immigrant and native-born — and said:

“I’ve sung this song in churches and jails. I’ve sung it for Dr. King and Cesar Chavez. But tonight, I sing it because I’m scared — and because I still believe in the power of love and nonviolence.”

Bruce picked up his harmonica, the crowd joined in, and for a few minutes, the entire nation seemed to stand still.

Cameras flashed. Children climbed onto their parents’ shoulders. An elderly man in a Vietnam vet jacket saluted with tears streaming down his cheeks.

People weren’t just singing. They were remembering. And reclaiming.

The performance felt like a prayer and a protest all at once — not against one man, one policy, or one election, but against the creeping numbness that had settled into the soul of a troubled country.

Backstage, Joan and Bruce didn’t say much. They didn’t need to.

He handed her his guitar pick. She handed him a peace sign pendant she’d worn since 1968.

“Keep going,” she told him.

“I will,” he replied, simply.

That night, the headlines would scream:

“Joan Baez and Bruce Springsteen Reignite the Spirit of Protest at Lincoln Memorial.”
“‘The Boss Has a Rebel Queen’: Baez’s Hug Steals the Show at ‘Voices for America’ Concert.”

But for the people who stood there — who cried and sang and believed — it wasn’t about headlines. It was about healing. It was about remembering that truth still matters, that compassion is not weakness, and that music can still be a weapon for good.

For one night, Joan Baez and Bruce Springsteen reminded us who we are — and who we still have a chance to become.

Social Media Erupts:

“I cried. Joan Baez hugging Springsteen… that’s America to me.” — @truthoverfear
“She called herself ‘The Rebel Queen’ and we BELIEVE her. Long live the Queen.” — @libertyrocks
“This is what democracy sounds like.” — @activistmom

As candles flickered out and the crowd slowly dispersed into the D.C. night, one thing was certain:

The fight for the soul of America is far from over — but as long as voices like Joan’s and Bruce’s sing out, there is still light.

Joan Baez on America Under Trump: ‘It Feels Like Torn Fabric’

The folk singer and social activist on the reasons protesting has gotten “dangerous,” why it’s essential to still show up, and what she felt seeing A Complete Unknown for the first time

Pull into the tree-cloaked driveway of Joan Baez’s home south of San Francisco and roam around her house and the first thing you’ll notice are oversize portraits she’s painted of Volodymyr Zelensky, Martin Luther King Jr., Anthony Fauci, Gandhi, and the late congressman John Lewis. For years, Baez would display two at a time in her front yard, but now they lean forlornly on a porch.

“Just after Trump got elected [last fall], somebody tattled to somebody in the city, who says, ‘Does she have permits?’” Baez says. “It was clearly a snitchy kind of thing.” While one of her friends cut the paintings down, Baez went into the tree house in her front yard and blasted recordings by soprano opera singer Renée Fleming. “It was my way of civil disobedience,” she says with a mischievous grin. “Just to do something.”

For decades in the public eye, Baez has been doing something in the name of music, social justice, and civil rights. She’s been lionized, condemned (even sometimes by the left), mocked, dismissed, revered, and occasionally rediscovered. That part of her life seemed to start winding down six years ago, when Baez wrapped up a farewell tour that, she insists, is genuinely final.

At that point, Baez, now 84, entered what should have been her chill-out years, devoted to painting and writing poetry, dancing daily around her property to the Gipsy Kings, and spending time in the rambling, funky-but-chic house where she’s lived for 55 years. The place currently has 13 chickens that roam its grounds, provide her with fresh eggs and, now and then, wander into her kitchen to peck away at some cat food. “Now, I also get to paint my nails,” Baez says, wriggling her hand to reveal aqua-blue fingernails.

Sức mạnh của âm nhạc: Pete Seeger và Bruce Springsteen | unionavenue706

But as seen by the hubbub over her paintings of activists and public figures, Baez keeps getting pulled back into the spotlight. Start with the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, which thrust her fraught, long-ago relationship with Dylan (played by Timothée Chalamet) back into the spotlight. Monica Barbaro’s largely spot-on performance introduced Baez, her music, and her folk-Madonna image to a generation born decades later. And then there is, once more, Trump. When Rolling Stone last visited Baez here, he had just been elected president for the first time. Now that he’s returned to the White House, more disruptive and alarming than before, Baez has again found herself at rallies and released a new protest song, “One in a Million,” with fellow veteran troubadour Janis Ian. Baez is also helping devise a name for a new organization she’s joining that would provide support for families of immigrants whose breadwinners have been scooped up and imprisoned by ICE agents, and she posts words of wisdom on her social media accounts, including Facebook. (Observing a newborn songbird in her driveway, she writes, “Her beauty itself will offer us hope in the darkness and deliver us from all that is evil.”)

But as Baez admits, both today at her home and in a follow-up interview, she is also entering a new and challenging world. Brewing up a fresh pot of coffee, Baez, in a black turtleneck with her hair in a silver bob, settles in at her kitchen table. “This is an interesting time,” she says, “because I’ve never been here before.”

When we last talked here, it was right after Donald Trump’s 2016 election. Who would have thought we’d be here again?
Surprised the shit out of me. Nobody could have dreamed this up. Nobody could have predicted that it would turn into what it’s turned into, because that’s for other countries, the “shithole countries.” This is turning into a shithole country because of them. It’s all the evil things that shithole countries do. On the other hand, we’ve all sort of known that the Heritage Foundation has been plugging away and making plans, and we just weren’t prepared.

Where were you on election night when you heard the results?
Oh, here. I didn’t hear the results. I saw my neighbor’s face. I knew it was a disaster. But the truth is it’s been in the works for 50 years. It’s not even about Trump. He just turned out to be this wizard of a disgusting human being who gives people the right to do what he does.

Is there anything in particular this administration has done that has really shocked you? 
In the first 100 days, sending people like that [snaps fingers] to prisons known for torture. All the work I did in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and the Eastern Bloc, and it’s the same mechanism, with all the ruthlessness and the steps to the dictatorship.