Joan Baez: Singer, Song Writer, Activist

Joan Baez was born on January 9th. 1941 in Staten Island, New York into a Quaker household.​​

“The white kids weren’t really interested in me and the Mexican kids didn’t like me because I was quite different from them. So when I finally picked up the ukulele and started singing it was good for my self-image,’’ she recalls. “The white kids came to listen to me. I was like a little  court jester. I liked the attention and I liked being accepted, even if it was only for that.”

Her father, Albert V. Baez, was a physicist who came to the United States from Mexico at a very young age, while her mother, Joan Bridge was a native of Edenburgh, Scotland. Young Joan inherited her father’s dark complexion, and struggled to know where she fit in as a child.

Because of her father’s teaching positions and research Joan Baez traveled to many American and foreign cities with her family as a child. Experiencing racial predjudice herself, and seeing others in extremely poor living conditions undoubtedly influenced her passion for civil rights. She has used her gift of singing to be an activist during most of her career.

Joan Baez (at age 22) sang about freedom and civil rights everywhere, from the backs of flatbed trucks in Mississippi to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s March on Washington in 1963.
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