Bev Grant

Bev Grant (born 22 March 1942) is an American musician, photographer, filmmaker, and activist based in New York City.

Personal life Grant grew up in Portland, Oregon, and moved to New York with her husband in the 1960s. She later separated from her husband, was radicalized through the Anti-War Movement, and became involved in the Women's Movement as an activist, musician, and photographer. She was involved throughout the 1970s and 1980s with the band Human Condition, which she helped create in 1972. Their first album, The Working People Gonna Rise!, was recorded in 1974 with Barbara Dane at Paredon Records.

In 1991, Grant joined the United Association of Labor Education Northeast Union Women’s Summer School as cultural director. From 2006 to 2008, Grant performed with other female musicians as part of a group called Bev Grant and the Dissident Daughters which included singers Angela Lockhart and Carolynn Murphy. After that, she performed with Ina May Wool as WOOL&GRANT until 2015. I Will Sing (2015), with Brooklyn Women's Chorus Wool & Grant (2013), by Ina May Wool and Bev Grant as Wool & Grant Singing Clear: Clean Earth, Air, Water 'Round Here (2012), Various Artists The Power of Song (2003), with Brooklyn Women's Chorus We Were There! Songs of Women's Labor History (2002) In Tune (1994)

Photography Much of Grant's alternative-press photography documents political organizing events Grant attended, and occasionally participated in, from approximately 1968 until 1972, after which point she focused more extensively on her music career. many have been distributed by Getty Images and were featured in a solo exhibition in 2018 at Osmos Gallery in New York City.

Grant's photography depicts her own activism and her involvement with New York Radical Women. Her documentation of the 1968 Miss America Protests was featured in her 2018 solo exhibition at Osmos; these photographs have become widely popular and are Grant's best known work. Her press pass allowed her to take photographs inside the pageant itself, where protesters unfurled banners and released stink bombs. released in 2015.

Film As a member of Newsreel, Grant caught several important events on film, including the 1968 Miss America pageant for the Newsreel film Up Against the Wall Ms. America. Her work as an activist and filmmaker gave her contacts within, and filming access to, groups including the Young Lords, the Black Panther Party, and the Poor People's Campaign. She contributed the theme song to the 1971 film, Janie's Janie, which is considered "an important early film of the women's movement."

Activism As an activist, Grant attended her first anti-war demonstrations in New York City and was radicalized at a meeting of Students for a Democratic Society at Princeton in 1967. 2017 Joe Hill Award from the Labor Heritage Foundation in recognition of Grant's artistic work in support of labor organizing. 2017 ASCAP Jay Gorney songwriter award for the song "We Were There". Grant's song “Inez” is included in the Smithsonian/Folkways “Best of Broadside” collection.