The face of activism today is wrinkled. Care-worn. Sun-damaged. Showing evidence of living, and gravity. In a word, OLD.

Okay, young people are showing up these days at ICE Out and No Kings rallies, marches for Free Palestine, Ukraine and other burning issues. But current data suggest that Millennials and Gen Z doubt that meaningful change and lasting reform are in fact possible.

The Fall, 2025 Harvard Youth Poll describes the generational shift with understatement: “Young Americans feel the country is off course and their futures are unstable.”

 Far from naïve, they are less earnest, less convinced, less hopeful than the strident rabble-rousers of their grandparents’ era.

Well, duh.

Why? To quote an irascible blast from the past, contrarian Yippie shaman Abbie Hoffman complained that “No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.”

More than a half-century ago, the voice and face of political protest were undeniably young. Not only were Flower Power protestors speaking out against social issues: they were also rebelling against their parents, challenging the values represented by the Silent Generation.

Who can ever forget Joan Baez, sun-bronzed, barefoot and barely out of her teens, raven tresses blowin’ in the wind of Newport, singing about standing ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard? And Bob Dylan himself, four months her junior, warning that “The ship’s wise men / Will remind you once again/ That the whole wide world is watchin’.”

Upstarts and trouble-makers of every genre and background, ranging from the sly and literary Phil Ochs to the rollicking and jest-plain-ornery Country (“Give me an ‘F’!”) Joe, skewered the last sacred morsels of the American Dream in song and in action.

One of the generation’s finest poets, Paul Simon, simply paired a traditional hymn with radio snippets including the sonorous tones of The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. summoning a march for fair housing, against the voice of Richard Nixon calling the opposition to the war in Vietnam “…the greatest single weapon working against the US.”

Nina Simone was a decade older, but her incendiary Mississippi Goddam was nothing to be trifled with. (Can I git me an “Amen” up in heah?) Avuncular, 1919-born Pete Seeger was old enough to have fathered them all, but he full-frontal attacked the war, the FatCats who fueled it, the bigots, those who discriminated against women, the military-industrial complex at large, the polluters, the racists, the fascists, the liars and  deceivers, the bushwahs, the haters, the rednecks and the red-baiters with indefatigable fervor until his dying breath.

Those smooth-skinned idealists, those who are still surviving among us, are now septuagenarians. Thus it makes sense that while the lens of protest during the 1960s and 70s focused on the young, today the Raging Grannies International lead the charge.

As background, the Raging Grannies are a thing, with Gaggles across the US and around the world. The mantra: “We are building a movement based on justice love and peace, and we won’t be stopped by bullies, whose cruelties we will cease.”

The Raging Grannies began in 1987 in Victoria, British Columbia. This initial proto-Gaggle had mastered Merry Prankster-style street theatre, dressing in lab coats and armed with turkey basters to protest nuclear weapons, brandishing umbrellas full of holes to demonstrate the fallacy of the “nuclear shield,” and presenting their “briefs” in literal form—women’s undies—to the local legislature.

Today, the Raging Grannies worldwide use their vintage and presumed respectability subversively, simultaneously confronting stereotypes about age and gender as they satirize the misguided and corrupt official handling of major environmental, social and political issues. They typically dress in classic Granny gear: sensible shoes, aprons, shawls, loose flowered dresses, big hats—although wardrobe is open to interpretation.

It’s telling to note that there appear to be no Gaggles in Southern California, where I live and work, here in the sun-kissed realm where proactive Botox and Restylane injections may be prescribed as soon as one’s teen acne clears up.

Of the more than 1,000 original songs available for download on the Raging Grannies site, The Body Song by the Boston Raging Grans, sung to the tune of “Comin’ Through the Rye,” urges the listener to “Leave your Botox in the box,” reasoning

I’m the one inside my body
I know how I feel
It’s health and strength and joy in life that
Make my body real.

We caught up with the Austin Gaggle last week. Friends and fellow Raging Grannies Lisa Rogers, Judy Gradford and Jennifer Graf made the national news on March 28 for their unflinching, amusing, and surprisingly mediagenic message.

Lisa Rogers and Judy Gradford are of the age where they are enjoying the 70s a second time around.

Rogers is part of The Therapy Sisters singing sisterhood and says “Hey, I can play guitar in a rocking chair—as long as it has no arms.”

Rogers adds “Music is the KY jelly in my life and of any successful movement. My earliest musical influences— besides church and musicals and especially Tom Lehrer—would be Woody and Pete and Joan and Bob and Phil. But as soon as I learned about Malvina Reynolds, she became my role model. She started writing songs in her forties. They weren’t necessarily beautiful or Top 40; they were singable, simple, smart, sometimes funny, and meaningful.”

Gradford says “Being a student of political movements, it was apparent to me fairly early on that music was essential to these movements. The Wobblies totally understood this and the music of Joe Hill still speaks to us today. And as Raging Grannies, we use humor and satire to hold our criminal leadership accountable. Movements do not move without music.”

Gradford adds “As someone who has lived a good portion of my life in blue states, I feel quite fortunate to be here in Texas now because raising our voices as older women and especially older white women is essential to creating conditions for change.  It is very hard to witness the level of oppression being laid on women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+++ and Hispanic communities.  Watching the attacks on DEI and public education are so disheartening. There are days when I want to pull the covers over my head and not get out of bed.   But we cannot give up or lose hope.  White supremacy and fascism are a death-spiral and we must insist on choosing life.”

Women anywhere can start their own Gaggle. The website offers “Being a biological grandmother is not a requirement, and if you’ve ever heard us sing, it should be obvious that a good singing voice is not required, either.”

Go, Grannies, go!