Using chalk and charcoal, Joans sent outthree of his jazz fan friends throughout Manhattan to write the slogan `Bird Lives!` in subway stations and on walls.

In 1973, 18 years after its first publication, in this article the poet, sometime jazz musician, former roommate of the late Charlie Parker and surrealist painter Ted Joans claimed that the famous New York "Bird Lives!" graffiti were specifically created by him.