During the Great Depression, Woody Guthrie traveled across America and saw the injustice, poverty, and despair of a nation suffering the consequences of Republican misrule. In the city square, in the shadow of the steeple, by the relief office he saw his people. They were hungry, out of work, out of hope. But he never stopped hoping that someday, for their sake, for the sake of their children and grandchildren, America would become a land of economic and social justice.
As he was walking that ribbon of highway,
He saw what America was, but he also saw what America can be.
He saw above him that endless skyway,
He saw below him, that golden valley,
He never lost his faith that this land was made for you and me,
and wrote an anthem that still touches the heart of every American who hears it . . .