Opening for Johnny Cash at a venue outside Philadelphia in 1995, a concert sponsored by a local country station, Kris Kristofferson was in friendly territory. But not for long. During the show, he dedicated a song to Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Black journalist and former Black Panther who’d been convicted of a 1981 killing of a white police officer in Philadelphia and sentenced to death. The crowd began booing, goaded on further by Kristofferson comparing Abu-Jamal to Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Gandhi. The Philadelphia Daily News called him “another ill-informed Hollywood jackass,” and the radio station stopped playing his records, even while admitting they didn’t play them much to begin with.
That show would be neither the first nor last time that Kristofferson made his views on politics or particular causes known. Since his death on Sept. 28 at 88, Kristofferson has been eulogized for his songwriting and acting. But his history of upfront and often controversial social activism, which dated back more than 50 years, revealed another side, one that set him apart from his peers in country and pop music, then and even now.
Growing up in Brownsville, Texas, Kristofferson had an innate connection with Hispanic workers; he was partly raised by his Hispanic nanny, Juanita Cantu. “I spoke Spanish before I spoke English,” he said in 1982. “I felt very close to the farm workers and their problems.” Years later, that connection led to Kristofferson’s earliest political associations, when he supported the United Farm Workers, the union whose co-founder, Cesar Chavez, fought for improved labor conditions and health care services for those in that field.
Kristofferson called Chavez “one of the most inspirational people on the planet today” and appeared at several rallies and benefits supporting the UFW. “I saw a lot of celebrities and many of them were genuine supporters, but sometimes I thought it was performative,” says Marc Grossman, who met Kristofferson when he worked as Chavez’s speechwriter and personal aide in the Seventies. “But it was never like that with Kris. Consistently over the years he would be with the farm workers in good times and bad.” Look closely at Kristofferson in A Star Is Born and you’ll see glimpses of a pendant he’s wearing, adorned with the UFW black eagle symbol.
For Kristofferson, though, the experience was an education in ways he didn’t always expect. While helping Chavez campaign for Proposition 14, aimed at ensuring that union organizers would have access to farm workers on the job, among other initiatives, Kristofferson realized what he and Chavez and his organization were up against and how hard he’d have to fight. “These college kids remind me of the ‘50s,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 1978. “They say, ‘I’m not going to let them take food out of my baby’s mouth.’ So you say, ‘Hey, you got it wrong. They put the food on the table.’ It was so disillusioning. I didn’t know there were so many little Republicans running around.”
That association wasn’t nearly as controversial as ones Kristofferson took soon after. He joined a chorus of supporters for Leonard Peltier, a Native American convicted of killing two FBI agents who were in pursuit of a man (not Peltier) connected to a robbery; Peltier always maintained his innocence. In 1987, Kristofferson played at a benefit for Peltier alongside Jackson Browne, Willie Nelson, and Joni Mitchell; onstage, Kristofferson declared that Peltier had been targeted for his activism, and was later rebuked by the federal prosecutor on the case. Afterward, two Southern California radio stations banned his songs (and Nelson’s too). “By playing the records, we would be attacking the reputations of these two agents, and I don’t think that’s fair,” said the stations’ management.
“The Peltier issue was hot and remains in so many ways,” says Mark Rothbaum, who managed Kristofferson during some of those years. “But Kris used his stardom for the benefit of others. I don’t think he gave a hoot one way or the other about what it temporarily might do to his stardom. He lent his hand to those who were being oppressed. He couldn’t stay out of it.”
During that same period, Kristofferson claimed that his friendship with actress Vanessa Redgrave and her then-controversial pro-Palestinian stance in the Seventies cost him work. Yet none of that blowback seemed to impact him; if anything, it inspired him to take up more causes. He partook in a major anti-British, pro-Ireland rally in San Francisco in the late Eighties. In 1987, he joined actor Martin Sheen in protesting against a U.S. nuclear test explosion. In 1990, he released Third World Warrior, an album of political flamethrowers that made a record company publicist of that time roll her eyes. At the show with Cash, he was told that police in the audience were infuriated by his Abu-Jamal comments, but he didn’t bow down. When he asked Cash for his thoughts, Cash replied, “Listen, you don’t need to apologize for nothin’,” then invited his friend out to sing with him.
And of course, who can forget the sight of Kristofferson twice comforting Sinéad O’Connor — and risking the wrath of outraged classic rock fans — when she was greeted with a tidal wave of boos at the Bob Dylan 30th anniversary concert in 1992? (“Don’t let the bastards get you down,” he whispered to her, and later recalled, “It just seemed to me wrong, booing that little girl out there. She’s always had courage.”) Well into the 2010s, Kristofferson stuck with his beliefs, playing benefits for the UFW, joined by Los Lobos and Ozomatli, and other farm-worker causes. At a UFW event in 2015, Morrison watched as Kristofferson broke into union songs with activists and was having, Grossman says, “the greatest time.” As Kristofferson told Esquire during that period, “I’ve been a radical for a long time. I guess it’s too bad. I’d be more marketable as a right-wing redneck. But I got into this to tell the truth as I saw it.”
These days, one would be hard-pressed to compile a lengthy list of musicians in country music so steadfastly and publicly in support of causes that could cost them half of their audience. But Kristofferson seemed to thrive on the confrontations that his deeply held beliefs brought him. “I will fight and I will die for freedom,” he sang on Third World Warrior, “up against an eagle or a bear.”