Mary Travers, part of the legendary folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, whose protest music helped define the 1960s passed away in Danbury, Connecticut on Wednesday. 

The interview below is from the December 20, 1976 issue of the socialist newspaper, In These Times, part of the Alternative Press Collection.

From the interview:

“All art forms reflect society.  Music does not create the revolution.  It articulates it maybe, but it is not a lasting force.  Something has to be happening in society first.”

“’I think the country suffered terrible blows in the latter half of the ‘60s, she says, ‘with all the assassination and the unresponsiveness of the government—unresponsive in a way that it had not been unresponsive before.  In previous times, when there was extended pressure from people over periods of time, the government moved off the dime.  And that didn’t happen in the ‘60s.’   The election of Jimmy Carter, a ‘well-meaning person’ may make some difference, Travers believes.  ‘In order to have change you have to have someone who pivots, someone who is responsive to change.”’

The Alternative Press Collection is one of the oldest and largest collections of alternative press materials in the United States. The Alternative Press Collection (APC) was founded in the late 1960s out of student participation in activist movements for social, cultural and political change.  Currently, the APC includes thousands of national and international newspapers, serials, books, pamphlets, ephemera and artifacts documenting activist themes and organizations, particularly focusing on underground and counter culture publications from the 1960s and 1970s. 

For more information about the Alternative Press Collection, please go to https://lib.uconn.edu/location/asc/collections/alternative-press/