From the National Mall to the streets of Minneapolis to TikTok screens across the country, harmonizing has become a tool of resistance.
The big picture: Protest anthems have punctuated tense moments in American history, rallying demonstrators during the early labor movement and again during the Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam upheavals of the 1960s.
Driving the news: Bruce Springsteen, an outspoken Trump critic, is among the artists releasing anti-administration anthems.
- He slammed "King Trump's private army" in his new song, "Streets Of Minneapolis," singing: "In chants of 'ICE out now' / Our city's heart and soul persists / Through broken glass and bloody tears / On the streets of Minneapolis."
- Protest comes naturally to punk-inspired artists like the Dropkick Murphys or Green Day.
- Others take a more tongue-in-cheek approach like Grammy-nominated singer Jesse Welles, who has racked up more than 26.6 million TikTok likes with biting folk songs that have earned him comparisons to Woody Guthrie.
- "If you're lackin' control and authority / Come with me and hunt down minorities / Join ICE," Welles sings.
But modern protest music also comes in the voices of people who receive no fame or royalties and whose pitch isn't always perfect.
- The a cappella voices and wailing horns of groups like Singing Resistance and Brass Solidarity are the live playlists of protests in the Twin Cities.
- A Singing Resistance organizer told CNN's Anderson Cooper that music is a vehicle for demonstrators' grief, rage and strength.
- "It's a way to gather our courage," the organizer said.
Noriko Manabe, a professor of music theory at Indiana University who analyzes the sounds of resistance, says she's observed a surge in protest singing at the Minneapolis demonstrations.
- She says "it makes a lot of sense" for people to come together in song at this moment, noting music was a key element of demonstrations during the U.S. Civil Rights movement. It "can be diffusing," Manabe says.
- "Everybody's got a right to live / Everybody's got a right to dream," faith leaders and peaceful demonstrators recently sang at a Minneapolis airport protest, pulling from one of many Poor People's Campaign anthems.
Flashback: Protest movements throughout American history have tied lyrics to their causes — but those songs aren't always written for the fight. Sometimes, they're adopted later by resisters as the soundtrack to their campaign.
- That's why experts say so-called "protest music" can be difficult to define.
- Kendrick Lamar's "Alright" became a modern anthem of the Black Lives Matter movement, though the album's co-producer never expected it to be a protest song.
- And in Hong Kong and beyond, Les Misérables' "Do You Hear the People Sing?" has gone from the stage to the streets as a protest anthem.
Yes, but: Music is just one subset of the myriad ways sound is used as a force of resistance, says Stony Brook University critical music studies professor Benjamin Tausig.
- In U.S. cities pushing back against immigration enforcement, he tells Axios, one instrument has emerged as a tool of protest against the "silent presence" of ICE: the whistle.
- Sound is not only an accessible tool, he says, it's one that's unequivocally human: "People singing together or shouting ... captures something very deep within us."
The bottom line: Through the chants in the streets, the original songs on our screens, and the historic hymns that never age, the resistance record still spins in 2026.
Go deeper: "We will be ungovernable": Resistance 2.0 pivots to disruption
