Jacob Butterly

Jacob is a poor and working class queer poverty abolitionist, organizer, singer, banjoist, folkie and scribbler. They are a native of Philadelphia these days living in Montgomery county.  They have worked in outdoor childhood education and recreation for over ten years, forging the core of their song-leading and performing skills working with middle-schoolers. They have been organized with Put People First! PA since 2017, after losing their sister Becky to breast cancer. and have steadily taken on more leadership over the years and kept lifting up music and art in every organizing space. These skills are fundamental to their organizing where they are committed to developing the leadership of the Poor & Dispossessed 140+ million poor and low-income people in the United States across historical lines of division through human rights struggles, like for Healthcare and Housing, waged by Put People First! PA, the Non-violent Medicaid Army and the Poor People's Campaign. They believe music and art are a basic right for all people and like political education is most effective when people are inspired to take it up and wield it for their liberation. A fundamental piece of their music and organizing work is inspiring and developing others to embrace their own creative power. 

Their residency will provide them an opportunity to lean into an organizational project they've been dreaming of; to compile a living songbook that folks organizing can really make their own - filled with the music, wisdom, drawings and doodles of everyday people organizing across the state and country. It will be collaborative from it's root and the process inspired to develop people into political and artistic leaders in their communities. 

People have to speak out to the power structure of this country if there's going to be fundamental change. Getting folks to sing together is one of the first steps in getting them comfortable being heard, being seen and being together. It gets them to speak out. If folks can't risk singing together, they won't risk fighting together against this system. People have to be brought together and the right song can always be the catalyst for that.