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D.C. Labor chorus: ‘The musical arm of the resistance’

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January 21, 2019 at 12:00 p.m. EST
Elise Bryant, director of the D.C. Labor Chorus, leads group members in a rehearsal before their performance at a prayer breakfast during the AFL-CIO Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Civil and Human Rights Conference at the Washington Hilton on Sunday. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

If President Trump’s election revived the protest movement on the left, the D.C. Labor Chorus is providing the soundtrack.

For 20 years, this group of activists, labor organizers and rabble-rousers with serious singing chops has belted out folk songs, show tunes and chants to spread messages of empowerment and resistance.

Demand for performances increased when Trump took office and has spiked again with the onset of the nation’s longest federal government shutdown. In response, the chorus has repurposed some favorite ditties to reflect the news of today.