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128-531: Their case was taken up as a major civil rights case, because of injustices after their arrests and questions about the trial. The Civil Rights Congress and the NAACP had legal teams that represented three men each in appeals to the State Supreme Court. It found fault with the court's instruction to the jury, and remanded the case to a lower court for retrial, which took place in 1951. That resulted in

256-642: A Gullah black spiritual dating from slavery days, was also introduced to wide audiences by Pete Seeger and the Weavers (in 1959), becoming a staple of Boy and Girl Scout campfires. In the late 1950s, the Kingston Trio was formed in direct imitation of (and homage to) the Weavers, covering much of the latter's repertoire, though with a more buttoned-down, uncontroversial, and mainstream collegiate persona. The Kingston Trio produced another phenomenal succession of Billboard chart hits and, in its turn, spawned

384-455: A Hammer" was a hit for Peter, Paul and Mary (1962) and Trini Lopez (1963) while The Byrds had a number one hit with "Turn! Turn! Turn!" in 1965. Seeger was one of the folk singers responsible for popularizing the spiritual " We Shall Overcome " (also recorded by Joan Baez and many other singer-activists), which became the acknowledged anthem of the civil rights movement , soon after folk singer and activist Guy Carawan introduced it at

512-621: A March 26, 1957, indictment for contempt of Congress ; for some years, he had to keep the federal government apprised of where he was going any time he left the Southern District of New York. He was convicted in a jury trial of contempt of Congress in March 1961, and sentenced to ten one-year terms in jail (to be served simultaneously), but in May 1962, an appeals court ruled the indictment to be flawed and overturned his conviction. In 1960,

640-416: A Negro," "You can't live here 'cause you're a Jew," "You can't work here 'cause you're a union man." So, Mr. President, We got this one big job to do That's lick Mr. Hitler and when we're through, Let no one else ever take his place To trample down the human race. So what I want is you to give me a gun So we can hurry up and get the job done. Seeger's critics, however, continued to bring up

768-623: A Rendezvous with Death"), had been one of the first American soldiers to be killed in World War I . All four of Pete's half-siblings from his father's second marriage—Margaret (Peggy), Mike, Barbara, and Penelope (Penny)—became folk singers. Peggy Seeger , a well-known performer in her own right, married British folk singer and activist Ewan MacColl . Mike Seeger was a founder of the New Lost City Ramblers , one of whose members, John Cohen , married Pete's half-sister Penny, also

896-614: A career in journalism and took courses in art as well. His first musical gig was leading students in folk singing at the Dalton School , where his aunt was principal. He polished his performance skills during a summer stint of touring New York state with the Vagabond Puppeteers (Jerry Oberwager, 22; Mary Wallace, 22; and Harriet Holtzman, 23), a traveling puppet theater "inspired by rural education campaigns of post-revolutionary Mexico". One of their shows coincided with

1024-788: A chorus of members of the Thälmann Battalion , made up of volunteers from Germany. The songs were "Moorsoldaten" (" Peat Bog Soldiers ", composed by political prisoners of German concentration camps); " Die Thaelmann-Kolonne ", "Hans Beimler", "Das Lied von der Einheitsfront" ("Song of the United Front" by Hanns Eisler and Bertolt Brecht ), "Lied der Internationalen Brigaden" ("Song of the International Brigades"), and "Los cuatro generales" ("The Four Generals", known in English as "The Four Insurgent Generals"). As

1152-512: A controversial Almanac singer, the 21-year-old Seeger performed under the stage name "Pete Bowers" to avoid compromising his father's government career. In 1950, the Almanacs were reconstituted as the Weavers, named after the title of an 1892 play by Gerhart Hauptmann , about a workers' strike (which contained the lines "We'll stand it no more, come what may!"). They did benefits for strikers, at which they sang songs such as "Talking Union", about

1280-527: A covered baseball field. There the Seegers: watched square-dance teams from Bear Wallow , Happy Hollow, Cane Creek, Spooks Branch, Cheoah Valley, Bull Creek, and Soco Gap ; heard the five-string banjo player Samantha Bumgarner ; and family string bands, including a group of Indians from the Cherokee reservation who played string instruments and sang ballads. They wandered among the crowds who camped out at

1408-461: A favorite of Woody Guthrie, who was known to carry it around). Seeger toured Australia in 1963. His single " Little Boxes ", written by Malvina Reynolds, was number one in the nation's Top 40. That tour sparked a folk boom throughout the country at a time when popular music tastes, post– Kennedy assassination , competed between folk, the surfing craze , and the British rock boom that gave the world

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1536-425: A folk "purist" who was one of the main opponents to Dylan's " going electric ", but when asked in 2001 about how he recalled his "objections" to the electric style, he said: I couldn't understand the words. I wanted to hear the words. It was a great song, " Maggie's Farm ," and the sound was distorted. I ran over to the guy at the controls and shouted, "Fix the sound so you can hear the words." He hollered back, "This

1664-648: A friend of his father's, at the Archive of American Folk Song of the Library of Congress . Seeger's job was to help Lomax sift through commercial " race " and " hillbilly " music and select recordings that best represented American folk music, a project funded by the music division of the Pan American Union (later the Organization of American States ), of whose music division his father, Charles Seeger,

1792-401: A hotel room. He later said he felt ashamed and suicidal for being a "stool pigeon". He testified that his pay varied from $ 25/week to $ 250/month, and that he routinely lied to FBI contacts. Pamphlets Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer-songwriter, musician and social activist. He was a fixture on nationwide radio in

1920-535: A judge. Five of the six men charged with the murder signed confessions written by the police. The trial began on June 7, 1948, when the State of New Jersey opened its case against the six based on the five signed confessions obtained by the Trenton police. There was no other forensic evidence, and Horner's widow could not identify the men as the ones in her store. The defendants were assigned four attorneys, one of whom

2048-510: A legion of imitators, laying the groundwork for the 1960s commercial folk revival. In the documentary film Pete Seeger: The Power of Song (2007), Seeger states that he resigned from the Weavers when the three other band members agreed to perform a jingle for a cigarette commercial . In 1948, Seeger wrote the first version of How to Play the Five-String Banjo , a book that many banjo players credit with starting them off on

2176-544: A lover of Americana, played " Cindy " and " Old Joe Clark " with his students Charlie and Jackson Pollock ; friends from the " hillbilly " recording industry; and avant-garde composers Carl Ruggles and Henry Cowell . It was at one of Benton's parties that Pete heard " John Henry " for the first time. Seeger enrolled at Harvard College on a partial scholarship, but as he became increasingly involved with politics and folk music, his grades suffered and he lost his scholarship. He dropped out of college in 1938. He dreamed of

2304-419: A mistrial, requiring a third trial. Four of the defendants were acquitted. Ralph Cooper pleaded guilty, implicating the other five in the crime. Collis English was convicted of murder, but the jury recommended mercy – life in prison rather than execution. The civil rights groups appealed again to the big State Supreme Court, which found fault with the court, and remanded the case to the lower court for retrial of

2432-573: A national appeals campaign on their behalf, their first for African Americans. The CRC coordinated nationally, with 60 chapters at its peak in 1950. These acted on local issues. Most were located on the East and West coasts, with only about 10 chapters in the states of the former Confederacy, five of them in Texas. The CRC used a two-pronged strategy of litigation and demonstrations, with extensive public communications, to call attention to racial injustice in

2560-524: A naturalized US citizen in 1945, the government prosecuted him for perjury for having failed to acknowledge being a member of the Communist Party in his naturalization application. The conviction was overturned due to a statute of limitations in the law. The CRC campaigned for Rosa Lee Ingram and her two teenage sons (Wallace and Sammie Lee Ingram) against a death penalty murder charge in Georgia,

2688-753: A one-day trial in January 1948. The Ingrams had no access to lawyers before the trial. The Ingram appeal campaign was orchestrated by the Women's Committee for Equal Justice, a CRC subdivision led by the nationally known leader, Mary Church Terrell . As its predecessor, the ILD, had accomplished with the Scottsboro case , the CRC hoped to use the Ingram case to draw national and international attention to racial inequality in

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2816-459: A platoon on maneuvers in Louisiana during World War II. With its lyrics about a platoon being led into danger by an ignorant captain, the song's anti-war message was obvious—the line "the big fool said to push on" is repeated several times. In the face of arguments with the management of CBS about whether the song's political weight was in keeping with the usually light-hearted entertainment of

2944-537: A resonant chord between two precise notes, a melody note and a chiming note on the fifth string", Pete Seeger "gentrified" the more percussive traditional Appalachian "frailing" style, "with its vigorous hammering of the forearm and its percussive rapping of the fingernail on the banjo head". Although what Dunaway's informant describes is the age-old droned frailing style, the implication is that Seeger made this more acceptable to mass audiences by omitting some of its percussive complexities, while presumably still preserving

3072-672: A self-described "split tenor" (between a tenor and a countertenor), Pete Seeger was a founding member of two highly influential folk groups: the Almanac Singers and the Weavers . The Almanac Singers, which Seeger co-founded in 1941 with Millard Lampell and Arkansas singer and activist Lee Hays , was a topical group, designed to function as a singing newspaper promoting the industrial unionization movement, racial and religious inclusion, and other progressive causes. Its personnel included, at various times: Woody Guthrie, Bess Lomax Hawes , Sis Cunningham , Josh White , and Sam Gary . As

3200-591: A strike by dairy farmers. The group reprised its act in October in New York City. An article in the October 2, 1939, Daily Worker reported on the Puppeteers' six-week tour this way: During the entire trip the group never ate once in a restaurant. They slept out at night under the stars and cooked their own meals in the open, very often they were the guests of farmers. At rural affairs and union meetings,

3328-824: A talented singer, who died young. Barbara Seeger joined her siblings in recording folk songs for children. In 1935, Pete attended Camp Rising Sun , an international leadership camp held every summer in upstate New York, which influenced his life's work. His final visit occurred in 2012. At four, Seeger was sent away to boarding school, but came home two years later when his parents learned the school had failed to inform them he had contracted scarlet fever . He attended first and second grades in Nyack, New York , where his mother lived, before entering boarding school in Ridgefield, Connecticut . Despite being classical musicians, his parents did not press him to play an instrument. On his own,

3456-762: A third-party candidate on the Progressive Party ticket. Despite having attracted enormous crowds nationwide, however, Wallace did not win any electoral votes, and following the election, he was excoriated for accepting the help in his campaign of Communists and fellow travelers, such as Seeger and singer Paul Robeson . Seeger had been a fervent supporter of the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War . In 1943, with Tom Glazer and Bess and Baldwin Hawes, he recorded an album of 78s called Songs of

3584-524: A wider range of issues and a larger coalition. It became involved in the defense of Rosa Lee Ingram and her sons, and Willie McGee. In 1950, while the NAACP was working on appeals of the Martinsville Seven , who had all been convicted and sentenced to death in speedy trials, the parents of one defendant, DeSales Grayson, appealed separately to the CRC to defend their son. The NAACP contended that

3712-562: Is important is what we got to do, We got to lick Mr. Hitler, and until we do, Other things can wait. Now, as I think of our great land ... I know it ain't perfect, but it will be someday, Just give us a little time. This is the reason that I want to fight, Not 'cause everything's perfect, or everything's right. No, it's just the opposite: I'm fightin' because I want a better America, and better laws, And better homes, and jobs, and schools, And no more Jim Crow, and no more rules like "You can't ride on this train 'cause you're

3840-430: Is leading an unwilling people into a J.P. Morgan war". Eleanor Roosevelt, a fan of folk music, reportedly found the album "in bad taste", though President Roosevelt, when the album was shown to him, merely observed, correctly, as it turned out, that few people would ever hear it. More alarmist was the reaction of eminent German-born Harvard Professor of Government Carl Joachim Friedrich , an adviser on domestic propaganda to

3968-513: Is the way they want it." I said "Damn it, if I had an axe, I'd cut the cable right now." But I was at fault. I was the MC, and I could have said to the part of the crowd that booed Bob, "you didn't boo Howlin' Wolf yesterday. He was electric!" Though I still prefer to hear Dylan acoustic, some of his electric songs are absolutely great. Electric music is the vernacular of the second half of the twentieth century, to use my father's old term. One version of

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4096-655: The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour , the final lines were "Every time I read the paper/those old feelings come on/We are waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool says to push on." The lyrics could be interpreted as an allegory of Johnson as the "big fool" and the Vietnam War as the foreseeable danger. Although the performance was cut from the September 1967 show, after wide publicity, it

4224-639: The 12-string guitar , an instrument of Mexican origin that had been associated with Lead Belly , who had styled himself "the King of the 12-String Guitar". Seeger's distinctive custom-made guitars had a triangular soundhole. He combined the long scale length (approximately 28") and capo -to-key techniques that he favored on the banjo with a variant of drop-D (DADGBE) tuning , tuned two whole steps down with very heavy strings, which he played with thumb and finger picks. In 1956, Seeger and his wife, Toshi, traveled to Port of Spain , Trinidad , to seek out information on

4352-601: The American Songbag (1927), and later created significant original settings for eight of Sandburg's poems. Pete's eldest brother, Charles Seeger III, was a radio astronomer, and his next older brother, John Seeger, taught in the 1950s at the Dalton School in Manhattan and was the principal from 1960 to 1976 at Fieldston Lower School in the Bronx . Pete's uncle, Alan Seeger , a noted American war poet ("I Have

4480-669: The House Committee on Un-American Activities . Targeted by the U.S. government, the group was weakened in 1951, and it finally disbanded in 1956. The group was formed at a radical conference in Detroit held on April 27–28, 1946. Early goals included abolition of HUAC and protecting southern workers' right to unionize. In December 1947, the National Negro Congress merged into the group. International Labor Defense (ILD) national secretary William Patterson led

4608-540: The National Federation for Constitutional Liberties , and the National Negro Congress , serving as a defense organization. Beginning about 1948, it became involved in representing African Americans sentenced to death and other highly prominent cases, in part to highlight racial injustice in the United States. After Rosa Lee Ingram and her two teenage sons were sentenced in Georgia, the CRC conducted

4736-531: The New School for Social Research . Career and money tensions led to quarrels and reconciliations, but when Charles discovered Constance had opened a secret bank account in her own name, they separated, and Charles took custody of their three sons. Beginning in 1936, Charles held various administrative positions in the federal government's Farm Resettlement program , the WPA 's Federal Music Project (1938–1940) and

4864-577: The Puritan , Calvinist New England tradition", traced its genealogy back over 200 years. A paternal ancestor, Karl Ludwig Seeger, a physician from Württemberg , Germany, had emigrated to America during the American Revolution and married into the old New England family of Parsons in the 1780s. Seeger's father, the Harvard -trained composer and musicologist Charles Louis Seeger Jr. ,

4992-623: The San Diego school board told him that he could not play a scheduled concert at a high school unless he signed an oath pledging that the concert would not be used to promote a communist agenda or an overthrow of the government. Seeger refused, and the American Civil Liberties Union obtained an injunction against the school district, allowing the concert to go on as scheduled. Almost 50 years later, in February 2009,

5120-608: The Taft-Hartley Act and offered assistance to the Congress of Industrial Organizations and to the American Federation of Labor . In Louisiana, a local chapter launched a major campaign to convict the white police officer who shot Roy Cyril Brooks. The Brooks case began a larger effort against police brutality and demands to hire more Black police officers in cities such as New Orleans. In January 1949,

5248-736: The instrument . He went on to invent the long-neck or Seeger banjo. This instrument is three frets longer than a typical banjo, is slightly longer than a bass guitar at 25 frets, and is tuned a minor third lower than the normal 5-string banjo. Hitherto strictly limited to the Appalachian region, the five-string banjo became known nationwide as the American folk instrument par excellence, largely thanks to Seeger's championing of and improvements to it. According to an unnamed musician quoted in David King Dunaway 's biography, "by nesting

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5376-538: The steelpan , sometimes called a steel drum, or "ping-pong". The two searched out a local panyard director, Isaiah, and proceeded to film the construction, tuning and playing of the then-new national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago. He was attempting to include the unique flavor of the steelpan in American folk music. In the 1950s, and indeed consistently throughout his life, Seeger continued his support of civil and labor rights, racial equality, international understanding, and anti-militarism (all of which had characterized

5504-622: The 1940s, and had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers , notably their recording of Lead Belly 's " Goodnight, Irene ," which topped the charts for 14 weeks in 1950. Members of the Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era . In the 1960s, Seeger re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament , civil rights , counterculture , workers' rights , and environmental causes . A prolific songwriter, his best-known songs include " Where Have All

5632-399: The 1965 Newport Folk Festival that he threatened to disconnect the equipment. There are multiple versions of what went on, some fanciful. What is certain is that tensions had been running high between Dylan's manager Albert Grossman and Festival board members (who besides Seeger also included Theodore Bikel , Bruce Jackson , Alan Lomax , festival MC Peter Yarrow , and George Wein ) over

5760-579: The 50-mile walk from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, along with 1,000 other marchers. By this time, Seeger was a senior figure in the 1960s folk revival centered in Greenwich Village , as a longtime columnist in Sing Out! , the successor to the People's Songs Bulletin , and as a founder of the topical Broadside magazine. To describe the new crop of politically committed folk singers, he coined

5888-523: The Advancement of Colored People) defended the other three men, seeking to get their convictions overturned. Among the NAACP attorneys were Thurgood Marshall , who led many legal efforts by the organization; he later was appointed as the first African American to the Supreme Court of the United States ; Clifford Roscoe Moore Sr. , later appointed as U.S. Commissioner for Trenton, New Jersey ,

6016-642: The Almanacs cut several albums of 78s on Keynote and other labels: Songs for John Doe (recorded in late February or March and released in May 1941), Talking Union , and an album each of sea shanties and pioneer songs. Written by Millard Lampell, Songs for John Doe was performed by Lampell, Seeger, and Hays, joined by Josh White and Sam Gary. It contained lines, such as "It wouldn't be much thrill to die for Du Pont in Brazil," that were sharply critical of Roosevelt 's unprecedented peacetime draft (enacted in September 1940). This anti-war/anti-draft tone reflected

6144-408: The Almanacs had been, and its progressive message was couched in indirect language. The Weavers on occasion performed in tuxedos (unlike the Almanacs, who had dressed informally) and their managers refused to let them perform at political venues. The Weavers' string of major hits began with " On Top of Old Smoky " and an arrangement of Lead Belly 's signature waltz, " Goodnight, Irene ", which topped

6272-648: The Almanacs' repudiated Songs for John Doe . In 1942, a year after the John Doe album's brief appearance (and disappearance), the FBI decided that the now-pro-war Almanacs were still endangering the war effort by subverting recruitment. According to the New York World Telegram (February 14, 1942), Carl Friedrich's 1941 article "The Poison in Our System" was printed up as a pamphlet and distributed by

6400-469: The Beatles and The Rolling Stones , among others. Folk clubs sprang up all over the nation; folk performers were accepted in established venues; Australian performers singing Australian folk songs—many of their own composing—emerged in concerts and festivals, on television, and on recordings; and overseas performers were encouraged to tour Australia. The long television blacklist of Seeger began to end in

6528-526: The Beers Family, Roscoe Holcomb , Malvina Reynolds , Sonia Malkine, and Shawn Phillips . Thirty-nine hour-long programs were recorded at WNJU 's Newark studios in 1965 and 1966, produced by Seeger and his wife Toshi, with Sholom Rubinstein. The Smothers Brothers ended Seeger's national blacklisting by broadcasting him singing " Waist Deep in the Big Muddy " on their CBS variety show on February 25, 1968, after his similar performance in September 1967

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6656-532: The CRC withdrew from direct defense of Grayson in July 1950. But, the NAACP was unable to succeed with its appeals. All seven of the men were executed in February 1951. During the years of the Red Scare , due to its Communist Party affiliations, the CRC was classified as subversive and described as a communist front organization by US Attorney General Thomas Clark under President Harry S. Truman , as well as by

6784-589: The CRC worked mostly on publicity. It raised $ 45,125 for the Ingram Defense Fund and held annual Mother's Day rallies. On 21 September 1949, Terrell led a group to the United Nations to demand that officials address the Ingram case. Little progress was made in the case, but both the NAACP and the CRC continued to support Ingram during her imprisonment. Ingram and her sons were all released on parole in 1959, cited as "model prisoners." As in

6912-657: The Civil Rights Congress served as justification for FBI surveillance of Lena Horne and Paul Robeson . One agent later described breaking into the CRC's Chicago offices, saying "Anything that had the name 'committee' or 'congress' the FBI assumed had to be subversive." David Brown, secretary and then chair of the Los Angeles chapter of the CRC, served as an FBI informant from 1950 to 1954. He disappeared in January 1955 and tried to fake his own kidnapping. Soon after, he unsuccessfully attempted suicide in

7040-569: The Communist Party line after the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , which maintained that the war was "phony" and a mere pretext for big American corporations to get Hitler to attack Soviet Russia. Seeger has said he believed this line of argument at the time, as did many fellow members of the Young Communist League (YCL). Though nominally members of the Popular Front , which was allied with Roosevelt and more moderate liberals,

7168-678: The Council for Democracy (an organization that Friedrich and Henry Luce 's right-hand man, C. D. Jackson , Vice President of Time magazine, had founded "to combat all the Nazi, fascist, communist, pacifist" antiwar groups in the United States). Seeger served in the U.S. Army in the Pacific . He was trained as an airplane mechanic, but was reassigned to entertain the American troops with music. Later, when people asked him what he did in

7296-508: The Flowers Gone? " (with additional lyrics by Joe Hickerson ), " If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)" (with Lee Hays of the Weavers), " Kisses Sweeter Than Wine " (also with Hays), and " Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)", which have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement. "Flowers" was a hit recording for The Kingston Trio (1962); Marlene Dietrich , who recorded it in English, German and French (1962); and Johnny Rivers (1965). "If I Had

7424-407: The Ingram case, both the NAACP and the CRC rallied to the cause of the Martinsville Seven — seven black men all sentenced to death in Virginia in 1949 for the rape of a white woman. Only black men received the death sentence in Virginia in rape cases. Martin A. Martin, the chief lawyer hired by the NAACP from a major Richmond law firm, refused to work with the CRC because the government had classified

7552-469: The Lincoln Battalion on Moe Asch's Stinson label. This included such songs as " There's a Valley in Spain Called Jarama " and " Viva la Quince Brigada ". In 1960, this collection was re-issued by Moe Asch as one side of a Folkways LP called Songs of the Lincoln and International Brigades . On the other side was a reissue of the legendary Six Songs for Democracy (originally recorded in Barcelona in 1938 while bombs were falling), performed by Ernst Busch and

7680-404: The NAACP generated publicity to highlight the racial inequities in the railroading of the suspects, their lack of access to counsel, the chief witness' inability to identify them, and other issues. Figures such as W. E. B. Du Bois to Pete Seeger , then active in leftist movements, joined the campaign for publicity about obtaining justice in the trials of these men. Albert Einstein also protested

7808-404: The NAACP, the group sought to raise awareness outside the courtroom with demonstrations, propaganda, and high-profile events. As these campaigns gained popular awareness, the CRC received many letters from prisoners requesting legal assistance. The CRC opposed the 1940 Smith Act and 1950 McCarran Act , both of which expanded government powers to prosecute domestic dissent. It generally came to

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7936-426: The Negro People ". This document collected diverse instances of violence and mistreatment against African Americans, and argued that the United States government was a party to genocide in its own country. After William Patterson presented the document to the United Nations assembly in Paris, his passport was revoked by the State Department. Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Bois were blocked from traveling, and went to

8064-586: The Newport Festival controversy, as well as a glowing depiction of Seeger's early 1960s efforts to boost an unknown Bob Dylan, is dramatized in the 2024 feature film A Complete Unknown , where Edward Norton plays Pete Seeger. A longstanding opponent of the arms race and of the Vietnam War, Seeger satirically attacked then-President Lyndon Johnson with his 1966 recording, on the album Dangerous Songs!? , of Len Chandler 's children's song " Beans in My Ears ". Beyond Chandler's lyrics, Seeger said that "Mrs. Jay's little son Alby" had "beans in his ears", which, as

8192-440: The San Diego School District officially extended an apology to Seeger for the actions of its predecessors. To earn money during the blacklist period of the late 1950s and early 1960s, Seeger worked gigs as a music teacher in schools and summer camps, and traveled the college campus circuit. He also recorded as many as five albums a year for Moe Asch 's Folkways Records label. As the nuclear disarmament movement picked up steam in

8320-440: The U.N. offices in New York. Soon after it was founded, the CRC became a target of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and the Internal Revenue Service . A 1947 report to HUAC charged: "Having adopted a line of militant skullduggery against the United States with the close of World War II, the Communist Party has set up the Civil Rights Congress for the purpose of protecting those of its members who run afoul of

8448-415: The U.N. with a petition titled " We Charge Genocide ," detailing the abuses of African Americans in the US, including continuing lynchings in the 1940s. The CRC was perceived as an alternative or competitor to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) because it worked on similar issues in representing African Americans in legal cases and suits. The CRC believed that it embraced

8576-415: The United States military. In a review in the June 1941 Atlantic Monthly , entitled "The Poison in Our System", he pronounced Songs for John Doe "strictly subversive and illegal", "whether Communist or Nazi financed", and "a matter for the attorney general", observing further that "mere" legal "suppression" would not be sufficient to counteract this type of populist poison, the poison being folk music and

8704-404: The United States. A major tactic was publicizing cases, especially in the South, such as those of Rosa Lee Ingram and her two sons in Georgia, the Martinsville Seven in Virginia, and Willie McGee in Mississippi, in which Black people had been sentenced to death ; in the last two cases as a result of questionable rape charges. Given the disenfranchisement of blacks in the South at the turn of

8832-409: The United States. Pressure from the CRC and the NAACP led to a new hearing in March 1948. In this hearing, the judge denied requests for a new trial, but used his discretion to reduce the sentence from death to life in prison. The NAACP and CRC came into occasional conflict over the case because of differing goals and strategy. By the wishes of the Ingrams, the NAACP generally handled the legal side;

8960-425: The Wallace campaign), and he continued to believe that songs could help people achieve these goals. However, with the ever-growing revelations of Joseph Stalin 's atrocities and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 , he became increasingly disillusioned with Soviet Socialism. He left the CPUSA in 1949, but remained friends with some who did not leave it, although he argued with them about it. On August 18, 1955, Seeger

9088-461: The YCL's members still smarted from Roosevelt and Churchill 's arms embargo on Loyalist Spain (which Roosevelt later called a mistake), and the alliance frayed in the confusing welter of events. A June 16, 1941, review in Time magazine, which, under its owner, Henry Luce , had become very interventionist, denounced the Almanacs' John Doe , accusing it of scrupulously echoing what it called "the mendacious Moscow tune" that "Franklin Roosevelt

9216-586: The appeals failed. The US Supreme Court refused to hear the Martinsville Seven case, and all the men were executed in February 1951. McGee was executed in May 1951. In this period, the CRC was defending Communist officials known as the Top Eleven against prosecution under the Smith Act. This drew attention to their communist affiliation and people worried that the CRC endangered the outcome of

9344-580: The appeals for that reason. It withdrew from representing one of the Martinsville Seven directly. The CRC took stances on many issues related to political freedom and the rights of African Americans. It supported anti-lynching laws, and condemned the use of the Confederate flag at many government and school facilities in the South. It opposed U.S. intervention in the Korean War . The CRC opposed

9472-579: The assistance of individuals targeted by HUAC, particularly the "Top Eleven" communist leaders tried in 1949 under the Smith Act. The CRC was also active in the defense of Harry Bridges , a union organizer and leader of the California chapter of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union . The government had long sought his deportation, and Congress passed the Smith Act to provide a means to accomplish this. After Bridges became

9600-418: The beauty of this music firsthand was a "conversion experience". Pete was deeply affected and, after learning basic strokes from Lunsford, spent much of the next four years trying to master the five-string banjo. The teenage Seeger also sometimes accompanied his parents to regular Saturday evening gatherings at the Greenwich Village loft of painter and art teacher Thomas Hart Benton and his wife Rita. Benton,

9728-475: The case to the lower court for a fourth trial in 1952. English suffered a heart attack (myocardial infarction) soon after the trial and died in December 1952 in prison. Cooper served a portion of his prison sentence and was released on parole in 1954 for good behavior. Because of legal abuses in the treatment of suspects after the arrests, the case attracted considerable attention. The Civil Rights Congress and

9856-406: The century, all-white juries were standard, as only voters could serve. The CRC succeeded particularly in raising international awareness about these cases, which sometimes generated protests to the president and Congress. They also represented defendants in legal appeals to overturn convictions or gain lesser sentences. At that time in the South, when cases were tried by all-white juries, some of

9984-401: The characteristic driving rhythmic quality associated with the style. Inspired by his mentor Woody Guthrie, whose guitar was labeled " This machine kills fascists ", Seeger emblazoned his banjo head in 1952 with the slogan "This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It to Surrender", writing those words on every subsequent banjo he owned. From the late 1950s on, Seeger also accompanied himself on

10112-539: The charts for 13 weeks in 1950 and was covered by many other pop singers. On the flip side of "Irene" was the Israeli song " Tzena, Tzena, Tzena ". Other Weavers hits included "Dusty Old Dust" ("So Long It's Been Good to Know You" by Woody Guthrie) , " Kisses Sweeter Than Wine " (by Hays, Seeger, and Lead Belly), and the Zulu song by Solomon Linda , " Wimoweh " (about Shaka ), among others. The Weavers' performing career

10240-463: The defense team believed that gaining a life sentence instead of capital punishment was akin to acquittal, where social pressure was high for juries to find blacks guilty. The CRC also defended political dissidents, including Communists. The group conducted high-profile protests in Washington, D.C., and at the United Nations . It brought world attention to racism in the United States by presenting

10368-799: The ease with which it could be spread. While the U.S. had not officially declared war on the Axis powers in the summer of 1941, the country was energetically producing arms and ammunition for its allies overseas. Despite the boom in manufacturing this concerted rearming effort brought, African Americans were barred from working in defense plants. Racial tensions rose as Black labor leaders (such as A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin ) and their white allies began organizing protests and marches. To combat this social unrest, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 (the Fair Employment Act) on 25 June 1941. The order came three days after Hitler broke

10496-456: The edge of the field, hearing music being made there as well. As Lunsford's daughter would later recall, those country people "held the riches that Dad had discovered. They could sing, fiddle, pick the banjos, and guitars with traditional grace and style found nowhere else but deep in the mountains. I can still hear those haunting melodies drift over the ball park." For the Seegers, experiencing

10624-447: The farm women would bring "suppers" and would vie with each other to see who could feed the troupe most, and after the affair the farmers would have earnest discussions about who would have the honor of taking them home for the night. "They fed us too well", the girls reported. "And we could live the entire winter just by taking advantage of all the offers to spend a week on the farm". In the farmers' homes they talked about politics and

10752-458: The farmers' problems, about antisemitism and Unionism, about war and peace and social security—"and always", the puppeteers report, "the farmers wanted to know what can be done to create a stronger unity between themselves and city workers". They felt the need of this more strongly than ever before, and the support of the CIO in their milk strike has given them a new understanding and a new respect for

10880-511: The first African American appointed to such a position since post-Civil War Reconstruction; and Raymond Pace Alexander , later to be appointed as a judge in Pennsylvania. In 1949 the State Supreme Court remanded the case to the lower court for retrial, ruling that the jury had been improperly charged in the first case. In the course of the trial, the defense teams revealed that evidence had been manufactured. The medical examiner in Trenton

11008-421: The first African Americans for whom they campaigned on a national level for an appeal. The Ingrams, who were sharecroppers, were accused of murdering their white neighbor, John Ethron Stratford, in 1947 over an argument about animals on his land and his sexual harassment of the mother, Rosa Lee. They had been convicted—on the basis of circumstantial testimony, with no eyewitnesses—by a jury of twelve white men after

11136-662: The founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960. In the PBS American Masters episode " Pete Seeger: The Power of Song ", Seeger said it was he who changed the lyric from the traditional "We will overcome" to the more singable "We shall overcome". Seeger was born on May 3, 1919, at the French Hospital , in New York City. His family, which Seeger called "enormously Christian, in

11264-480: The grounds that this would violate his First Amendment rights: "I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this." Seeger's refusal to answer questions that he believed violated his fundamental constitutional rights led to

11392-463: The group as subversive and as a Communist front. Again excluded from the legal process, the CRC launched a national campaign based on injustices in the cases of Martinsville Seven and Willie McGee in Mississippi. McGee was also sentenced to death for conviction of rape of a white woman. The CRC created national attention and coordinated mailing campaigns to the government in Washington, DC, but

11520-438: The group held a "Freedom Crusade" in Washington, D.C., right before the re-inauguration of President Truman . Before the demonstration, the group had a public exchange with Congressperson John S. Wood . Wood accused the group of threatening "violence and riot" in the capital; the group responded that the white supremacy of the status quo "is constantly the scene of 'violence and riot' against Negro citizens." The Freedom Crusade

11648-534: The group throughout its existence. Frank Marshall Davis served on the organization's National Executive Board. Patterson also headed the Abraham Lincoln School in Chicago , with Davis also on the faculty and Board of Directors. The group gained about 10,000 members at its peak. It was generally stronger on the coasts and weak in the South, but it did conduct several major campaigns to defend

11776-557: The group, and many of its leaders were jailed. The group's power weakened in 1951 when the federal government barred it from posting bail for communist defendants in the resulting trials. During the Second Red Scare , many Americans wary of the group because of its communist connections. In 1956, the CRC was declared a communist front by the Subversive Activities Control Board . It disbanded

11904-507: The injustice. Commentary and protests were issued from many nations. 40°13′23″N 74°45′53″W  /  40.22307°N 74.76465°W  / 40.22307; -74.76465 Civil Rights Congress The Civil Rights Congress ( CRC ) was a United States civil rights organization, formed in 1946 at a national conference for radicals and disbanded in 1956. It succeeded the International Labor Defense ,

12032-641: The late 1950s and early 1960s, Seeger's anti-war songs, such as " Where Have All the Flowers Gone? " (co-written with Joe Hickerson ), " Turn! Turn! Turn! " adapted from the Book of Ecclesiastes , and " The Bells of Rhymney " by the Welsh poet Idris Davies (1957), gained wide currency. Seeger was the first person to make a studio recording of " Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream " in 1956. Seeger also

12160-494: The law." The group denied these charges and provided a list of sponsors, including Representatives Adam C. Powell , Senator Glen H. Taylor , and Atlanta University President Rufus Early Clement . Patterson called the group "non-partisan" and described it as "the Red Cross of the defenders of peace, constitutional rights, justice and human rights". The 1950 McCarran Internal Security Act increased government persecution of

12288-598: The legal rights of Southern Blacks. Its largest and strongest chapters in the South were in New Orleans and Miami . Altogether, the CRC founded more than 60 local chapters which sought to combat racial discrimination, racist stereotyping, and legal injustice in their communities. The U.S. Congress and courts weakened the group with legal restrictions in 1951. In 1956, members voted to disband. The CRC took up legal causes of those they considered unjustly accused. In addition to pursuing legal campaigns, often alongside

12416-450: The lyrics imply, ensures that a person does not hear what is said to them. To those opposed to continuing the Vietnam War , the phrase implied that "Alby Jay", a loose pronunciation of Johnson's nickname "LBJ", did not listen to anti-war protests as he too had "beans in his ears". During 1966, Seeger and Malvina Reynolds took part in environmental activism. The album God Bless the Grass

12544-565: The mid-1960s when he hosted a regionally broadcast educational folk-music television show, Rainbow Quest . Among his guests were Johnny Cash , June Carter , Reverend Gary Davis , Mississippi John Hurt , Doc Watson , the Stanley Brothers , Elizabeth Cotten , Patrick Sky , Buffy Sainte-Marie , Tom Paxton , Judy Collins , Hedy West , Donovan , The Clancy Brothers , Richard Fariña and Mimi Fariña , Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee , Mamou Cajun Band, Bernice Johnson Reagon ,

12672-498: The non-aggression pact and invaded the Soviet Union, at which time the Communist Party quickly directed its members to get behind the draft and forbade participation in strikes for the duration of the war—angering some leftists. Copies of Songs for John Doe were removed from sale, and the remaining inventory destroyed, though a few copies may exist in the hands of private collectors. The Almanac Singers' Talking Union album, on

12800-400: The organizations had different approaches; it spent more of its funds on direct defense of clients, including appeals, whereas the CRC mounted a public campaign, complete with distribution of pamphlets and advertising on billboards. Because the CRC had attracted adverse attention from the government, with the potential to negatively affect reception of appeals in the Martinsville Seven case,

12928-436: The other hand, was reissued as an LP by Folkways (FH 5285A) in 1955 and is still available. The following year, the Almanacs issued Dear Mr. President , an album in support of Roosevelt and the war effort. The title song, "Dear Mr. President", was a solo by Pete Seeger, and its lines expressed his lifelong credo: Now, Mr. President, We haven't always agreed in the past, I know, But that ain't at all important now. What

13056-612: The otherwise bookish and withdrawn boy gravitated to the ukulele , becoming adept at entertaining his classmates with it while laying the basis for his subsequent remarkable audience rapport. At thirteen, Seeger enrolled in the Avon Old Farms School in Avon, Connecticut , from which he graduated in 1936. He was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun , the George E. Jonas Foundation 's international summer leadership program. During

13184-737: The phrase "Woody's children", alluding to his associate and traveling companion, Woody Guthrie, who by this time had become a legendary figure. This urban folk-revival movement, a continuation of the activist tradition of the 1930s and 1940s and of People's Songs , used adaptations of traditional tunes and lyrics to effect social change, a practice that goes back to the Industrial Workers of the World or Wobblies' Little Red Song Book , compiled by Swedish-born union organizer Joe Hill (1879–1915) (the Little Red Song Book had been

13312-491: The power that lies in solidarity. One summer has convinced us that a minimum of organized effort on the part of city organizations—unions, consumers' bodies, the American Labor Party and similar groups—can not only reach the farmers but weld them into a pretty solid front with city folks that will be one of the best guarantees for progress. That fall, Seeger took a job in Washington, D.C., assisting Alan Lomax ,

13440-662: The progressive City and Country School in Greenwich Village , New York. In 1936, at the age of 17, Pete Seeger joined the Young Communist League (YCL), then at the height of its influence. In 1942, he became a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) itself, but he left in 1949. In the spring of 1941, the twenty-one-year-old Seeger performed as a member of the Almanac Singers along with Millard Lampell, Cisco Houston , Woody Guthrie , Butch Hawes and Bess Lomax Hawes , and Lee Hays. Seeger and

13568-507: The same year. The CRC was also infiltrated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation . FBI agent Matt Cvetic , who had joined the Communist Party, testified to HUAC in 1950 that the CRC was Communist-controlled and that Patterson was a Communist. He also identified a long list of politicians as Communist, as well as celebrities and community leaders. Various other agents surfaced to testify at anti-Communist trials. Association with

13696-400: The scheduling of performers and other matters. Two days earlier, there had been a scuffle and a brief exchange of blows between Grossman and Alan Lomax, and the board, in an emergency session, had voted to ban Grossman from the grounds, but had backed off when George Wein pointed out that Grossman also managed highly popular draws Odetta and Peter, Paul and Mary . Seeger has been portrayed as

13824-640: The store. One or more killed Horner by hitting him in the head with a soda bottle; some also assaulted his wife. She could not say for sure how many men were involved with the attack, saying two to four light-skinned African-American males in their teens had assaulted them. The Trenton police, pressured to solve the case, arrested: Ralph Cooper, 24; Collis English, 23; McKinley Forrest, 35; John McKenzie, 24; James Thorpe, 24; and Horace Wilson, 37, on February 11, 1948. All were arrested without warrants, were held without being given access to attorneys, and were questioned for as long as four days before being brought before

13952-450: The struggles for unionisation of industrial workers such as miners and automobile workers. Besides Pete Seeger (performing under his own name), members of the Weavers included charter Almanac member Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert , and Fred Hellerman ; later Frank Hamilton , Erik Darling , and Bernie Krause serially took Seeger's place. In the atmosphere of the 1950s red scare, the Weavers' repertoire had to be less overtly topical than that of

14080-470: The summer of 1936, while traveling with his father and stepmother, Pete heard the five-string banjo for the first time at the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in western North Carolina near Asheville , organized by local folklorist , lecturer, and traditional music performer Bascom Lamar Lunsford , whom Charles Seeger had hired for Farm Resettlement music projects. The festival took place in

14208-509: The two defendants who were sentenced to life. One was convicted in 1952 and the other pleaded guilty; both were sentenced to life. Collis English died in late December that year in prison. Ralph Cooper was paroled in 1954 and disappeared from the records. On the morning of January 27, 1948, William Horner (1875–1948) opened his second-hand furniture store as usual, at 213 North Broad Street in Trenton. His common-law wife worked with him there. A while later, several young African-American men entered

14336-542: The war, he always answered: "I strummed my banjo." After returning from service, Seeger and others established People's Songs , conceived as a nationwide organization with branches on both coasts and designed to "create, promote and distribute songs of labor and the American People". With Pete Seeger as its director, People's Songs worked for the 1948 presidential campaign of Roosevelt's former Secretary of Agriculture and Vice President, Henry A. Wallace , who ran as

14464-585: The wartime Pan American Union . After World War II , he taught ethnomusicology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Yale University . Charles and Constance divorced when Pete was seven and in 1932 Charles married his composition student and assistant, Ruth Crawford , now considered by many to be one of the most important modernist composers of the 20th century. Deeply interested in folk music, Ruth had contributed musical arrangements to Carl Sandburg 's extremely influential folk song anthology,

14592-488: Was Raymond Pace Alexander , an African American . On August 6, 1948, all six men were convicted and sentenced to death. All six had provided alibis for that day and had repudiated their confessions, signed under duress . An appeal was filed and an automatic stay of execution granted. In the process of appeal, the Communist Party USA took on the legal defense of half the defendants, with Emanuel Hirsch Bloch acting as their attorney. The NAACP (National Association for

14720-589: Was a concert violinist and later a teacher at the Juilliard School . In 1912, his father, Charles Seeger, was hired to establish the music department at the University of California, Berkeley, but was forced to resign in 1918 because of his outspoken pacifism during World War I . Charles and Constance moved back east, making Charles's parents' estate in Patterson, New York , about 50 miles north of New York City, their base of operations. When baby Pete

14848-429: Was abruptly derailed in 1953, at the peak of their popularity, when blacklisting prompted radio stations to refuse to play their records and all their bookings were canceled. They briefly returned to the stage, however, at a sold-out reunion at Carnegie Hall in 1955 and in a subsequent reunion tour , which produced a hit version of Merle Travis 's " Sixteen Tons ", as well as LPs of their concert performances. " Kumbaya ",

14976-751: Was born in Mexico City, Mexico, to American parents. Charles established the first musicology curriculum in the United States at the University of California, Berkeley , in 1913; helped found the American Musicological Society ; and was a key founder of the academic discipline of ethnomusicology . Pete's mother, Constance de Clyver Seeger (née Edson), raised in Tunisia and trained at the Paris Conservatory of Music ,

15104-575: Was broadcast when Seeger appeared again on the Smothers' Brothers show on February 25, 1968. At the November 15, 1969, Vietnam Moratorium March on Washington, DC, Seeger led 500,000 protesters in singing John Lennon 's song " Give Peace a Chance " as they rallied across from the White House. Seeger's voice carried over the crowd, interspersing phrases like "Are you listening, Nixon ?" between

15232-592: Was censored by CBS. In November 1976, Seeger wrote and recorded the anti-death penalty song "Delbert Tibbs", about the death-row inmate Delbert Tibbs , who was later exonerated . Seeger wrote the music and selected the words from poems written by Tibbs. Seeger also supported the Jewish Camping Movement. He came to Surprise Lake Camp in Cold Spring, New York , over the summer many times. He sang and inspired countless campers. Pete Seeger

15360-744: Was closely associated with the Civil Rights Movement and in 1963 helped organize a landmark Carnegie Hall concert, featuring the youthful Freedom Singers , as a benefit for the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. This event, and Martin Luther King Jr. 's March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August of that same year, brought the civil rights anthem " We Shall Overcome " to wide audiences. He sang it on

15488-552: Was eighteen months old, they set out with him and his two older brothers in a homemade trailer to bring musical uplift to the working people in the American South. Upon their return, Constance taught violin and Charles taught composition at the New York Institute of Musical Art (later Juilliard ), whose president, family friend Frank Damrosch , was Constance's adoptive "uncle". Charles also taught part-time at

15616-409: Was found guilty of perjury . After a mistrial, four of the men were acquitted in a third trial. Collis English was convicted. Ralph Cooper pleaded guilty, implicating the other five in the crime. The jury recommended mercy for these two men, with prison sentences rather than capital punishment. These two convictions were also appealed; the State Supreme Court said the court had erred again. It remanded

15744-443: Was head (1938–1953). Lomax also encouraged Seeger's folk-singing vocation, and Seeger was soon appearing as a regular performer on Alan Lomax and Nicholas Ray 's weekly Columbia Broadcasting show Back Where I Come From (1940–41) alongside Josh White , Burl Ives , Lead Belly , and Woody Guthrie (whom he had first met at Will Geer 's Grapes of Wrath benefit concert for migrant workers on March 3, 1940). Back Where I Come From

15872-569: Was one of the earliest backers of Bob Dylan ; he was responsible for urging A&R man John Hammond to produce Dylan's first LP on Columbia , and for inviting him to perform at the Newport Folk Festival , of which Seeger was a board member. There was a widely repeated story that Seeger was so upset over the extremely loud amplified sound that Dylan, backed by members of the Butterfield Blues Band , brought into

16000-425: Was released in January of that year and became the first album in history wholly dedicated to songs about environmental issues. Their politics were informed by the same ideologies of nationalism, populism, and criticism of big business. Seeger attracted wider attention starting in 1967 with his song " Waist Deep in the Big Muddy ", about a captain —referred to in the lyrics as "the big fool"—who drowned while leading

16128-712: Was subpoenaed to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Alone among the many witnesses after the 1950 conviction and imprisonment of the Hollywood Ten for contempt of Congress, Seeger refused to plead the Fifth Amendment (which would have asserted that his testimony might be self-incriminating) and instead, as the Hollywood Ten had done, refused to name personal and political associations on

16256-582: Was ultimately an orderly demonstration in which several thousand people visited elected politicians to demand action against lynching , freedom for communist leaders imprisoned for subversion (known as the Top Eleven), and implementation of the Fair Employment Practices Commission . In 1951, the Civil Rights Congress issued its petition to the United Nations entitled " We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government Against

16384-457: Was unique in having a racially integrated cast. The show was a success, but was not picked up by commercial sponsors for nationwide broadcasting because of its integrated cast. During the war , Seeger also performed on nationwide radio broadcasts by Norman Corwin . From 1942 to 1945, Seeger served in the Army , as an Entertainment Specialist. In 1949, Seeger worked as the vocal instructor for

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