June 8, 2015

In 1989 the Middle East Children’s Alliance produced our first large fundraising concert at the Berkeley Community Theatre which holds 3200 people. It was an evening I will never forget. Every seat was filled. The performers were Pete Seeger, Marcel Khalife, Holly Near and Ronnie Gilbert.

June 8, 2015

In 1989 the Middle East Children’s Alliance produced our first large fundraising concert at the Berkeley Community Theatre which holds 3200 people. It was an evening I will never forget. Every seat was filled. The performers were Pete Seeger, Marcel Khalife, Holly Near and Ronnie Gilbert.

The performers exchanged several songs before the event so that the 3 English speakers could learn the Arabic songs that Marcel had sent from Lebanon and Marcel was able to learn the folk songs sent from Pete and Holly and Ronnie. There were many meetings at Redwood Records to try and iron out the many questions that both the Arab and the Jewish communities had. Things were very different in 1989 than they are today and it was this concert and all the discussions surrounding it that actually helped shape the direction that MECA has taken ever since.

When I received news of Ronnie Gilbert’s death yesterday I was extremely sad and have been thinking of that night at the Berkeley Community Theatre in 1989 and of all of the pressure we were all under, especially Ronnie.

Ronnie was a woman who stood up for justice whether it was fighting off the anti-communists who along with Joe McCarthy tried to imprison anyone that they believed to be a member of the Party or a friend of someone who was. I grew up listening to The Weavers and I will always remember listening to Ronnie’s voice singing Good Night Irene. Never did I imagine that one day when I grew up I would meet Ronnie Gilbert and that I would stand next to her at the BCT.

Ronnie Gilbert stood against injustice and Apartheid and she understood in 1989 that it was wrong in South Africa and that it was just as wrong in Palestine.

-Barbara Lubin, MECA Director