Summary

A true American original is brought to life in this rich and lively portrait of Pete Seeger, who, with his musical grace and inextinguishable passion for social justice, transformed folk singing into a high form of peaceful protest in the second half of the twentieth century. Drawing on his extensive talks with Seeger,New Yorkerwriter Alec Wilkinson lets us experience the man's unique blend of independence and commitment, charm, courage, energy, and belief in human equality and American democracy. We see Seeger instilled with a love of music by his parents, both classically trained musicians; as a teenager, hearing real folk music for the first time; and as a young man, singing with Woody Guthrie and with the Weavers. We learn of his harassment by the government for his political beliefs and his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1949. And we follow his engagement with civil rights, the peace movement, and the environmentespecially his work saving the Hudson River and building the shipClearwater. He talks ardently about his own music and that of others, and about the power of music to connect people and bind them to a cause. Finally, we meet Toshi, his wife of nearly sixty years, and members of his family, at the house he built on a mountainside in upstate New York. The Protest Singeris as spirited and captivating as its subjectan American icon, celebrating his ninetieth birthday.

Author Biography

Alec Wilkinson began writing for The New Yorker in 1980. Before that, he was a policeman in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, and before that a rock-and-roll musician. He has published eight other books—two memoirs, two collections of essays, two biographical portraits, and two pieces of reporting. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lyndhurst Prize, and a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. He lives with his wife and son in New York City.

From the Hardcover edition.

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Excerpts

SEEGER’S POLITICS are of the most extravagantly conservative kind. He believes ardently in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. His interpretation of them is literal. In his years of activism, through the movements for workers’ rights, civil rights, the movement against the Vietnam War, and the ecological movement, in all of which he figured prominently, there is no conceit that he has more emphatically embraced than that all human beings are created equal and have equal rights. In the early and middle parts of the twentieth century, such a conviction made a person not a patriot, but a socialist. When Seeger moved to Beacon, in 1949, he held a couple of meetings with a middle- age couple, the only other Communists around, then quit the party. “I thought it was pointless,” he said. “I realized I could sing the same songs I sang whether I belonged to the Communist Party or not, and I never liked the idea anyway of belonging to a secret organization.”

After lunch we went out and looked at the river, and I could see where Seeger had been standing, in 1955, when a car arrived, and the man driving it asked if he was Pete Seeger. Then he handed Seeger an envelope and left. Seeger opened the envelope and called out to Toshi, “They’ve finally got around to me.” He had been summoned to testify before the House Un- American Activities Committee, in August.

Toshi found a lawyer who told Seeger that the option most commonly invoked was to cite the Fifth Amendment, which would lead to the case’s being dismissed. Seeger didn’t care for the inference of guilt that the gesture implied. People who had done so were sometimes described as “Fifth Amendment Communists.” The lawyer also said that Seeger could choose to talk about himself to the committee but refuse to talk about other people. “I had known I could do that,” Seeger told me, “because my father, in 1952, I think it was, had to resign his job inWashington when the FBI came and spoke to him, and he said, ‘I’m willing to undress myself in a sentence, but I’m not going to tell about anyone else I know.’ They said, ‘You’ve got to tell about everyone.’ He said he wasn’t willing to do that. He knew he would be fired, so he walked in the next morning and resigned. He was head of the music department of the Pan American Union. He’d hoped to hang on for a few years, since he hadn’t the savings, but he closed down his house—a great big house that he’d raised four kids in—and his wife had just died a few months earlier, and my sister was going to Radcliffe, so he went up and got a crowded little apartment in Cambridge. Anyway, the lawyer told me if, at the hearing, I answered the question, ‘Are you a member of the Communist Party?’ the next question would be, ‘Who did you know?’ ”

The third choice was to rely on the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The Hollywood Ten, a group of screenwriters and producers, had tried this in 1947, and been convicted of contempt, jailed for a year, and then blacklisted. Employing this tactic, Seeger might spend years in court, have his career ruined, and still go to jail. The lawyer left the choice to Seeger. He told him not to bait the committee, to be polite, to answer their questions, or say why he wouldn’t. Refusing to answer would result in a contempt citation, and each citation could be worth a year in jail. As the hearing approached, the lawyer reviewed with Seeger the questions he was likely to be asked.

Seeger appeared before the committee, in New York, on August 18, 1955. He was interrogated by Walter Tavenner, the committee counsel; Representative Francis Walter, the chairman;

Excerpted from The Protest Singer: An Intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger by Alec Wilkinson
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