Lew Finfer, a co-director of Massachusetts Communities Action Network, which has worked with BABAM several times in the past year, agrees. When an event doesn’t have music, “we lose that spark and inspiration,” he said. “Music creates a continuity to past movements.”
Fittingly, Finfer said, his network often requests songs that harken back to the civil rights era, like “Down By the Riverside” and “Oh Freedom.”
Brancazio said one of his goals for the group is to strengthen its relationships with protest organizers to effect policy change on a larger scale.
Creating positive change is a goal Erika Sanchez, Ezequiel’s mother, fully supports and hopes her son will embrace as he grows older.
“It’s very important to me,” she said. “It’s important for him to learn his rights.”
