The use of atomic bombs against civilians was a logical outgrowth of the industrialization of war. WWI showed the world how the mass production of death could be organized to kill large numbers of soldiers. World War II advanced the technology to include the deaths of large numbers of civilians.

It’s really a shame that in our current Patriot Act Era, it’s getting harder and harder to get copies of one’s FBI surveillance files. When we still had an effective Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), one could apply for one’s files and after a few months of letters and phone calls, get a version heavily censored with what looked like black magic marker. Still, they could make for amusing reading even with those annoying cross-outs.

I heard the loud thumping of footsteps coming up the basement stairs. Something was very wrong. Marie appeared at the kitchen entrance, distraught and out of breath. Martin Luther King has just been shot dead in Memphis. It’s all over the news. Come downstairs. Now.

A terrible primal rage boiled up from somewhere deep in my consciousness. Not Martin Luther King. Not King. For God’s sake, not him.

I stood for a moment overcome by this terrible anger then said,” They’re going to burn America to the ground tonight. And I’m glad.”

I wasn’t kidding. 

The Sixties were famous not only of its radical politics, but for its radical experiments in music. John Coltrane pushed the limits of Jazz improvisation. Jimmy Hendrix pushed the limits of the electric guitar. Joanie Mitchell pushed the limits of the song as a poetic art form.

But the term radical comes from a Latin word meaning “root”. For some musicians of the time, radical music meant a return to older forms of folk music and blues.

One such group was the Jefferson Street Jug Band, local College Park musicians who championed such instruments as the whisky jug, washtub bass, kazoo and washboard.