40 Years After His Death, Harry Chapin Matters More Than Ever.

40 Years After His Death, Harry Chapin Matters More Than Ever

By Steve Villano,

(Copyright, 2021, Part I)

(40 years ago next week, singer/songwriter/activist Harry Chapin was killed in a car accident on the Long Island Expressway. He was 38 years old.

In addition to recording 12 Albums, and performing some 2000 concerts over a 10-year career, Chapin co-founded the International world hunger organization, WHYHunger, with former Catholic Priest and social justice advocate Bill Ayres. That really wasn’t too much of a surprise since Harry’s great aunt was Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Workers Movement, and a force in progressive social action.

Working with Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy and President Jimmy Carter, Harry Chapin pushed hard for the creation of the first — and only — Presidential Commission on Hunger in US History in 1980. It still stands as the only such undertaking.

With WHYHunger — 46 years after it’s founding — still fighting hunger and the broader issues of poverty and income inequality, and Harry Chapin Food Banks feeding tens of thousands of Americans across this nation each year — Chapin’s music, his messages of social justice, and his work for social change are more important and…