“By The Time I Get To Arizona” was written by Public Enemy’s Chuck D in 1991 as a direct reply to Arizona officials, including John McCain and Fife Symington, for rejecting the federal holiday celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Just last year, the song’s sentiments resurfaced when the same state’s governor, Jan Brewer, decided to sign into law the Arizona immigration bill, which gave police the power to detain people they suspect to be undocumented, proving that the same politics written about in “By The Time I Get To Arizona” are alive and well in Arizona today.
Photo: President Lyndon Johnson meets with Martin Luther King Jr. in the White House on Dec. 3, 1963. Photograph by Yoichi R. Okamoto.
[via Ronnie Rocket via Billboard]
New Music United 