Maine's Ms. Rachel speaks out for Gaza's children

Yahoo

2 days ago

Jun. 3—Rachel Griffin Accurso's popular "Ms. Rachel" YouTube series is all about entertaining and educating tiny children. So it's no surprise Accurso, who grew up in Springvale and started her singing career around Portland, would want to protect children, too.
Her show has 15 million subscribers and some episodes stream on Netflix. For months Accurso has been using her platform to speak out forcefully about the horrors of war visited upon Palestinian children in Gaza. Her videos and social media posts have garnered international media attention and prompted the group StopAntisemitism to ask the Department of Justice to investigate whether she's being paid to promote pro-Hamas propaganda, several news outlets have reported. She's also gotten considerable criticism on social media, along with many posts supportive of what she's doing.
@msrachelforlittles Dear Leaders — be so ashamed #gaza ♬ original sound — Ms Rachel
The attention and attacks have not stopped or slowed Accurso, who announced the birth of her second child in April, via a surrogate. Just a few days ago she posted a tearful message on Tik Tok, telling political leaders to "be ashamed" for not doing enough to stop the killing and maiming of children, a result of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
"Be so ashamed that you don't see Palestinian people or their children as the same as us, and our children. You think their babies don't like peekaboo and don't smile when they see someone they love and don't cry the same?" Accurso says in the post.
Mainers who knew Accurso or performed with her say her talent, drive and courage were apparent when she was playing places like One Longfellow Square and Blue in Portland 20 years ago. Singer songwriter Anni Clark says she was surprised to see Accurso's transition to music for infants and toddlers, since her repertoire in Portland included piano-based songs influenced by R&B and jazz. But even then Clark said people could see that Accurso, who studied music at the University of Southern Maine before moving to New York, was likely capable of big things.
"The talent and the energy was always apparent. She was fearless, in going out and getting what she wanted. She was relentless in her work," said Clark, who lives in Old Orchard Beach. "She had the drive to be in front of people and express herself. Those of us who perform have that, but her light shone even brighter."
Accurso, 42, grew up in the Springvale section of Sanford and graduated from Sanford High School. She studied music at the University of Southern Maine in the early 2000s, and recorded and performed around the area. In an interview at that time with the USM newspaper, the Free Press, she cited Norah Jones and Ben Folds among her influences. She told the Biddeford Journal Tribune, during an interview about her pre-Ms. Rachel music career in 2015, that she had been writing music in her head since she was 5 years old and "thought everybody did."
Around the release of her album, Accurso opened for Clark at one of her shows, and Clark remembers Accurso's songs and piano playing as upbeat and high-energy. She also remembers that Accurso was developing a following around Portland. It was a very different following than she has now.
"She wrote some provocative, sensual lyrics back then, and I do know she had a huge male fan base," said Clark.
Accurso moved to New York to study music at New York University. It was while in New York that she met her husband, Aron Accurso, a musician who was working on Broadway. According to the New York Times they met at a Unitarian Church on the Upper East Side, sometime around 2010. She later spent nine months as a Dramatists Guild Fellow, being mentored by Broadway professionals.
In 2016, she emailed the Press Herald — for a story on Maine musicians living in New York City — to say she was living in Manhattan and working on a musical called "We Have Apples," which highlighted the stigma of mental health conditions, and the lack of accessible care. The musical got national attention, including stories in the Washington Post and on CBS News.
Accurso, who has masters degrees in early childhood development and music education, began putting her "Songs for Littles" videos online in 2019 with her husband. They created their YouTube series after having a hard time finding online speech development resources for their infant son, who didn't speak until he was two. With bright-colored sets and puppets surrounding her, Accurso dresses in overalls and talks sweetly and enthusiastically to her audience between songs.
@msrachelforlittlesMeeting Rahaf from Gaza ?♬ original sound — Ms Rachel
Today the YouTube channel has more than 15 million subscribers. Accurso also has more than 3 million followers on Instagram and 6.5 million on Tik Tok. In January, Netflix announced it would begin streaming some of her YouTube episodes. Accurso and her show have been talked about on NBC's "Today," National Public Radio and ABC's "Good Morning America," and she's been written about in the New York Times and Parents magazine, among others.
Newspapers and news outlets like NPR, The Guardian and others have written about her lately because of her Gaza videos and statements, and the criticism she's garnered for it. In March, Accurso posted a video of two children watching a "Ms. Rachel" video surrounded by debris. The caption read: "My friends Celine and Silia in what used to be their home in Gaza. They deserve to live in a warm, safe home again." In May, Accurso posted on Instagram about meeting with a 3-year-old girl from Gaza who lost her legs in an airstrike.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Ms Rachel (@msrachelforlittles)
A representative for Accurso said she was not available for a phone interview, and she did not respond to emailed questions. In a New York Times story in mid-May on her statements about Gaza, Accurso was quoted as denying that she had received any money from Hamas, calling the accusation "absurd." She also explained, in an emailed response, her reasons for continuing to call attention to the children of war-torn Gaza.
"I've spent my life committed to the learning and well-being of children," Accurso said. "I have always believed that safety and security are a basic human right for every child — so you see, caring about children in Gaza is a direct continuation of the work I've been doing most of my life. We don't care about only some of our students because of where those students were born, we care about every one of them."
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