Bonnie is as known for her lifelong commitment to social activism as she is for her music. She has long been involved with the environmental movement, doing concerts around Forest, Oil, Mining and water protection since the mid-70s. She was a founding member of MUSE (Musicians United for Save Energy) which produced the historic concerts, album and movie, NO NUKES in 1979. She has been especially active in the fight to preserve our Ancient Forests, performing numerous concerts, lobbying in Washington and getting arrested twice in support of a change in forest policy.
She has also supported groups working for Native American, women's and human rights, as well as the fight against apartheid in South Africa and US involvement in the war in Central America in the 80s.
As one of the founding members of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation she continutes to work for increased recognition, health benefits and royalty reform for the pioneer generation of R&B artists to whom we owe so much. In 1995, she helped establish the Bonnie Raitt Guitar Program, which now provides free guitar lessons to kids in over 180 Boys and Girls Clubs around the world.
For more about Bonnie's activism history, go to BIO and scroll through her Benefit History.
ACTIVISM WORKS!
Frontburner Issues you can get involved with:
Peace for Iraq
More than a decade of U.S. efforts to undermine the regime of Saddam Hussein has produced utter misery for Iraq's 23 million people. A renewed military campaign by the United States against Hussein would wreak further havoc and devastation on Iraq's population for certain, while only potentially removing their notorious leader from power. President Bush is picking up where his father left off, hellbent on protecting access to Iraqi oil, and seems willing to risk the lives of thousands of Americans and Iraqis to keep gas-guzzling SUVs on the highway.
"The American Friends Service Committee and Fellowship of Reconciliation launched the Campaign of Conscience in December 1999 to pressure the U.S. government and the United Nations Security Council to end the economic sanctions that have severely restricted the availability of food, medicine, and clean water in Iraq. During the past ten years, sanctions have led to an almost complete breakdown in economic, medical, social, and educat ional structures."
Learn more about AFSC's Iraq Peacebuilding Program
Shut Down the School of the Americas!
On November 15-17, 2002, thousands will converge in Georgia at the gates of the Fort Benning military base and engage in nonviolent direct action to say NO to torture, rape and murder in our names and to shut down the School of the Americas (SOA).
School of the Americas Watch holds an annual demonstration outside the gates of the recently renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in Fort Benning, GA. This year the Indigo Girls will perform at Sunday's rally, and other activists such as Pete Seeger, Susan Sarandon and Winona LaDuke will send written statements of support to be read from the stage. All will express their solidarity with protesters on site, against the murderous military training school known as the School of the Americas.
Harvey Wasserman, author of The Last Energy War and senior consultant for Greenpeace USA, collaborated with Bonnie on a statement to be read from stage, expressing their outrage at the ongoing training of death squad sargents and military dictators. Below is an excerpt:
"Indeed, the School of the Americas is a breeding ground for terrorists that needs to be shut down---especially in light of September 11, and especially in light of a new word we're all learning at great cost---blowback.
We have long known it is wrong to train people to kill and impose unjust power in the name of our national arrogance. For two centuries the United States has imposed its will over people and nations who are vulnerable to military aggression.
Our nation has broken more than 400 treaties with native Americans, virtually every one it has ever signed. Today Leonard Peltier and countless other native American activists rot wrongly in jails merely for the "crime" of speaking up for justice for their people.
But this particular school now reminds us such treatment always comes back to haunt us---what goes around, comes around, often in terrible and unexpected ways."
Learn more about School of the Americas Watch
Support Blues Music Education for Youth
The Alabama Blues Project after-school Blues Camp is an innovative and multidisciplinary arts and education program that teaches forty "at risk" students blues musical instruction and performance skills in harmonica, guitar, voice and percussion. The program provides mentoring from music instructors and guest blues musicians, implementing a life skills curriculum through individual tutoring, group interaction and public performances.
The curriculum is designed to provide an environment in which to practice life skills such as listening, cooperation, team work, goal setting and appropriately expressing feelings. The students' performances provide a forum for parents and community to come together to celebrate, recognize and enjoy the students' accomplishments. Music lessons provide an effective bridge between art, culture, youth and community providing a direct link to cultural heritage through music indigenous to this area and giving students a sense of history and "cultural self esteem."
Learn more about the Alabama Blues Project
Musicians breaking the mold
Read an article about Bonnie Raitt, Green Highway and how production of her summer tour with Lyle Lovett was made pollution-free! The Red Hot Chili Peppers latest album, By the Way, was printed on sustainably-produced paper, learn more about why the band went out on a "limb" to be one of the firsts to do so!
Click here for the article
Grassroots groups benefitting from the November 2002 mini-tour of California: SLO Mothers for Peace, Environmental Center of San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz Energy Action Coalition, Vote Solar and the Committee to Bridge the Gap
Help Protect the Forests
Priceless forests the world over are being destroyed for private profit, to the detriment of us all. Clear cutting, over logging, conversion of forest land to grazing land---they are turning our lush green treeslands into barren deserts, causing runoff that destroys our rivers and streams, leaving ecological catastrophe where once there were vital ecosystems and the natural balancing mechanisms to combat global warming. We simply cannot afford to lose more irreplaceable forests to rapacious corporations whose only concern is their quarterly bank statement, rather than the long-term health of the planet.
Visit the Forest Issues page to learn about organizations committed to protecting forests and the important habitats within.
Protest helps change forest policy of lumber giant Boise-cascade
On July 25, 2001, Bonnie and more than 20 musicians and social and environmental justice leaders, including Doors’ drummer John Densmore and author/activist Julia Butterfly Hill, were arrested at the corporate headquarters of paper-products giant Boise-Cascade in a suburb of Chicago, after peacefully protesting the company’s attempts to block free speech and muzzle dissenting voices about their refusal to end its obsolete, environmentally destructive logging and distribution practices and adopt sustainable forestry principles. RAN's old-growth campaign has garnered increasing public support resulting in major brands, including L.L. Bean, Levi-Strauss and Patagonia, dropping their contracts with Boise. The company recently altered its old growth policy, a move that hints that Boise is feeling the heat and success may be on the horizon. Until then, RAN will continue to work tirelessly to end Boise’s out-of-date, barbaric logging practices.
Read more about Bonnie's arrest and the history of the campaign
Obviously from "The Onion".