Created for the 2006 Women's Equality Day celebration at NYU Law School
Rapp is an author & singer/songwriter, most of whose songs are on feminist and LGBTQ issues. She plays at many national and state rallies and conferences around
Story behind the song
Quoted verbatim in The New Yorker – 11/13/06, “Rise Up Ye Women” was created for a 2006 Women’s Equality Day event at NYC Law School and updated in 2012 for a NYC Veteran Feminists’ salute to Kate Millett. www. SandyRapp.com.
Lyrics
Rise Up Ye Women © Sandy Rapp 2006 & 2012
It was a time of dark and sad song,
Seven years with Bella been and gone.
Among the leaders from the days of long ago,
A troubled time had taken out its toll.
And there was one, from Illinois. It’s told how
Betty broke a new and grueling ground.
She went marchin' in Manhattan up Fifth Avenue ya know;
And she wrote a book that turned the world around.
Chorus:
Rise up ye women or the vintage it will fail,
Cried old prophet Isaiah, so they say.
And they rose up, the mighty women of a new and movin’ age;
And they grew to be the prophets of their day.
And there was one, from old Montgomery,
She rode a bus to freedom it is told.
She went marchin' by with Martin out of Selma long ago;
And into history our Rosa rode.
And there were two from Pennsylvania,
Where liberty is rung from every bell.
Molly Yard went marchin' to the rally in the sky;
And C. Delores Tucker left as well,
Repeat Chorus
And let us sing, Coretta Scott King,
For out from Alabama did she go.
There was Bella’s scribe Mim Kelber;
There was Wendy Wasserstein;
We lost ‘em all within a year ya know.
But we saluted those among us;
Kate Millett took the world on with a pen.
Sidney Abbot, Barbara Love, Chesler, Morgan, Gloria,
They made the Second Wave for NOW and then.
Repeat Chorus
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