People's Democracy
(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
No. 05
February 02, 2014
|
Vol. XXXVIII
No. 05 February 02, 2014 |
Pete Seeger
THE Communist Party of
India (Marxist) mourns the
demise of Pete Seeger, a singer, folk-song collector and
songwriter who
spearheaded an American folk revival and spent a long career
championing folk
music, who died on January 27. He was a simple man, who prided
in calling
himself as a “communist with a small 'c'”.
Pete Seeger was born on
May 3, 1919 and was 94 at his
death. He performed and recorded for six decades, and was
still an activist: as
recently as October 2011, he marched in
Pete Seeger sang topical songs,
children’s songs, humorous tunes and earnest anthems, always
encouraging
listeners to join in. His agenda paralleled the concerns of
the American Left:
He sang for the labour movement in the 1940s and 1950s, for
civil rights
marches and anti-Vietnam War rallies in the 1960s, and for
environmental and
anti-war causes in the 1970s and beyond. “We Shall Overcome,”
which Seeger
adapted, became a civil rights anthem.
During
the McCarthy era Seeger’s political affiliations, including
membership in the
Communist Party in the 1940s, led to his being blacklisted and
later indicted
for contempt of Congress. Seeger was convicted in 1961 and
sentenced to a year
in prison, but the next year an appeals court dismissed the
indictment as
faulty. After the indictment, Seeger’s concerts were often
picketed by the
rightist groups, which he commented as had “brought lots of
publicity to him”.
Pete
Seeger continued singing with an eternal optimism about the
future of the world
and its people.
He
mentored many young artists of those times, prominent among
them being Bob
Dylan. He was never after stardom and commercial benefits. He
would always like
to donate his earnings from the concerts to various labour,
social and
environmental causes that were dear to him.
His
death is not only a loss to the world of arts and culture, but
is a loss to the
working class, the progressive and the anti-war movements. The
CPI(M) pays its
homage to Pete Seeger and offers its condolences to his family
members in this
hour of grief.
(January 28, 2014)
