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\n\tThis article<\/em><\/a>\u00a0was produced by Capital & Main, an award-winning nonprofit journalism publication. It is published here with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tDuring his lifetime,\u00a0Woody Guthrie<\/a> saw America at ground level, riding boxcars, singing in taverns and on street corners, and even living for a time in a California migrant camp.<\/p>\n \n\tThese experiences shaped the songs he wrote, giving voice to migrant workers, laborers, and other marginalized Americans. Through his music, Guthrie protested inequality and championed social justice, helping define the role of folk music as a vehicle for change.<\/p>\n \n\tGuthrie died in 1967 at age 55, but his music has never faded from the American consciousness. Nowhere is that legacy more evident than in \u201cThis Land Is Your Land,\u201d his alternative national anthem. His gift for lyrics that were both deeply humane and sharply critical has endured for generations, inspiring followers such as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tA\u00a0new PBS documentary<\/a>,\u00a0Woody Guthrie and the Ghost of Tom Joad Today<\/em>, revisits his work in the 1930s and 1940s and shows how it remains connected to this modern era of immigration and aggressive ICE enforcement under President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n \n\tGreg Mitchell, writer and director of the documentary, said Woody Guthrie has had a moment of increased relevance over the last year as his music attracts a new generation of listeners.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cNot that he\u2019s ever disappeared,\u201d said Mitchell, the author of several books about American politics and history since the Great Depression, including on Socialist Upton Sinclair\u2019s 1934 race for California governor. \u201cWoody has been embraced by new generations, certainly at the No Kings protests and anti-ICE protests. He\u2019s sort of everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tGuthrie resonates, Mitchell said, because \u201che seems authentic. Most of the country is not left wing, but he had an incredible life, and he wrote all these great songs and lived it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn the documentary\u2019s vintage footage, scenes of Depression-era migrant camps don\u2019t look very different from recent news coverage of how farmworkers live. After years of drought at home,\u00a0Dust Bowl<\/a>\u00a0refugees from Oklahoma and Texas came to California looking for work, but were often greeted by angry locals. Attempts to organize farmworkers were often\u00a0crushed violently<\/a>.<\/p>\n