The Night They Tried to Silence Janis Ian

She was fifteen. She wrote a song about race. The crowd tried to shut her up. She kept singing.

Photo by Alexis Fauvet on

Note: This story contains a historically accurate use of a racial slur. It appears in a direct quote to convey the violence and hostility faced by Janis Ian during a live performance in 1966. While painful, the language is presented in context to honor the truth of what happened and the courage it took to keep singing.

Long before “cancel culture” became a buzzword, there was actual danger in telling the truth.

Fifteen-year-old Janis Ian didn’t go looking for controversy – she just wrote what she saw. But when she sang about a teenage interracial romance, the backlash was swift, violent, and deeply American.

In a time when books are being banned, protests criminalized, and constitutional rights like habeas corpus are on the chopping block, her story is worth remembering – not just for the courage it took, but for the cruelty she endured for singing one simple truth: love is love.

In 1966, a fifteen-year-old songwriter stood alone on a stage in Encino, California.