By Irwin Redlener

It was our 5th trip to Ukraine.

But this time, we were traveling with legendary singer/ social activist Joan Baez. This was no coincidence. Karen Redlener and I met Joan in 1972 when she helped financially rescue a clinic I ran in Lee County, Arkansas. The place was an impoverished bastion of Southern racism and the 6th poorest county in America at the time. But we were just one of many federally funded programs for high-poverty communities struggling to stay afloat as President Richard Nixon, bent on eliminating programs like ours, was pulling federal funding as quickly as he could get away with. I had reached out randomly to the iconic superstar singer Baez for help. She responded by organizing a benefit concert in Memphis – the closest big city to Lee County. We’ve been pals ever since – so we were hardly surprised when, just after Russia invaded Ukraine, Joan called saying, “Let’s do something!”

Fast forward to our most recent trip to a country at war, where there is fierce combat in the east and, for the most part, in western Ukraine, people living in some of the most beautiful cities in Europe.