If there is a vision of U.S. patriotism that is redeemable, it must surely draw on Seeger’s insistence that it encompass both ardent dissent and robust internationalism.
Published in the January-February 2019 issue of the New Internationalist.
Five years ago, in January 2014, the United States lost a great patriot, musician, and internationalist when the five-string banjo picker Pete Seeger died at age 94. In a time of resurgent and reactionary nationalism, we do well to remember his example of how a deep love of country could be married to a thoroughgoing progressivism.
Some lives have the ability to capture the spirit of rapidly changing times, tracing the unsteady contours of political life. Pete Seeger had one such life.
Seeger joined with Woody Guthrie to sing union songs on picket lines during the labor boom of the 1940s. He was red-baited and called before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the heyday of McCarthyism in the 1950s. In the 60s he helped to make “We Shall Overcome” the great anthem of the Civil Rights Movement, then joined anti-war protests singing, “Support our boys in Vietnam: Bring ’em home, bring ’em home.”
Starting in the 70s, before modern environmentalism had even taken shape, he led a successful effort to clean New York’s Hudson River, singing from a ship called the Clearwater.
“Some music helps you understand your troubles,” Seeger taught. “And some music helps you do something about your troubles.”
Woody Guthrie had inscribed his guitar with the slogan “This Machine Kills Fascists.” In tribute, Seeger wrote on his banjo, “This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces it to Surrender.”
Seeger gained unexpected fame in 1950 when his group The Weavers recorded a rendition of “Goodnight Irene” that became a radio sensation. But the blacklist soon stifled his commercial career, keeping him off network television for 17 years.
Seeger, who was suspicious of celebrity anyway, responded by performing in schools, at camps, and with marchers at demonstrations. He always contended that he’d rather have people join in song than listen idly to professionals. “Participation,” he stated, “is what’s going to save the human race.”
The folk revival that exploded in the 1960s adopted Seeger’s inclusive ethos as its guiding principle. It also adopted his vast catalogue of tunes, which plumbed musical traditions from New England to the Deep South, Appalachia to Oklahoma.
Yet while Seeger rooted himself in this rich musical heritage, he also extended his political and musical solidarity across borders. In 1963, when air travel was both difficult and expensive, he commenced a trip around the globe with a newsreel camera to document and share the folk songs of other cultures.
Throughout, he saw a common, liberating power. “When one person taps out a beat, while another leads into the melody,” he wrote, “or when three people discover a harmony they never knew existed, or a crowd joins in on a chorus as though to raise the ceiling a few feet higher, then they also know there is hope for the world.”
Even as later presidents praised him—Bill Clinton awarded the musician a prestigious Kennedy Center Honor, and Seeger played with Bruce Springsteen at Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration—he continued speaking out against his country’s military interventions, in Central America, Iraq, and beyond.
If there is a vision of U.S. patriotism that is redeemable, it must surely draw on Seeger’s insistence that it encompass both ardent dissent and robust internationalism.
Of those who had once branded Seeger as un-American for these beliefs, Springsteen put it best: “You outlasted the bastards!” he exclaimed.
___________
Photo credit: Josef Schwarz / Wikimedia Commons.
