A Leader’s Legacy
On Monday evening, November 9, I attended the Mary Travers memorial service at Riverside Church near the Hudson River at 120th Street in Manhattan.
Mary Travers, the Mary in the Peter, Paul & Mary folksingers, activists, and life enrichers, died in September from complications of leukemia. However, her spirit was very much alive when Peter, Paul, and a host of celebrities, politicians, spiritual leaders, and friends spoke about her gifts as a singer but most of all her passion and dedication to helping others.
After a video montage was shown on a large screen above the altar of the gothic church, Peter and Paul took center stage to welcome over 1,200 in the audience who came to pay tribute to the role Mary had played in their own and others’ lives. As the singers warmed up their guitars, they said how hard it was to sing without Mary’s voice and invited the audience to sing her part while they sang harmony.
The song they chose was quickly recognized and as I joined in singing “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” I felt chills go through my entire body. I, like everyone else it seemed, knew every word in every verse from decades of hearing it sung in person or on the radio or through speakers.
The New York Choral Society
I first saw Peter, Paul & Mary in-person when I was a student at the University of California at Berkeley. And their songs followed me through my career. Mary with her singing partners had been performing for nearly 50 years at concerts throughout the world, fund-raisers for human rights causes and political candidates running for office, and gatherings on the Mall in Washington to lift their voices to support Martin Luther King, Jr. and others who brought light to areas of growth for America.
President Barack Obama sent a note that Peter read to the audience, former President Bill Clinton appeared in a video, and former presidential candidate and senator George McGovern got up to thank Mary for her role in his career. Another former presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) also went to the podium and told us how a fund-raiser early in his political career where Peter, Paul & Mary sang was the turning point to staying in a political race and continuing on his path.
To see a full list of speakers and performers, click here.
The evening together lasted four hours, exhausting emotionally and physically since like others in the audience we were up and down to give standing ovations, sing along, clap, and sway with the music. Whoopi Goldberg offered moments of laughter when she went to speak and said to the effect, “Forget those serious tunes. I like ‘Puff the Magic Dragon.’ That’s my favorite song!” Also, near the end of the program when Peter noted that the potted plants on the altar could be taken by anyone in the audience (Mary would have liked that no cut flowers were used, he said), before Peter finished his speech Whoopi got up from the front row, walked to a ledge below the stage, and picked up a potted plant then returned to her seat as the laughter gently rolled back and up from those who could see what she had done to the back row of the balcony.
Toward the end, Judy Collins sang “Amazing Grace” and triggered my thinking about the role performers play in society and the larger culture. Mary’s legacy lives on not just by the lives she changed but by her commitment to use her power and influence in causes that promoted justice and harmony.
A leader’s legacy is not built in a day. It is earned over years of positive contributions to the greater good. I can’t say that I supported every cause that Mary did. But I can say that I know the legacy she leaves is one that will inspire me to make the most of the life that I have in using my gifts as an educator and coach to help others reach their full potential.