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"What to the Slave is 4th of July?": James Earl Jones Reads Frederick Douglass' Historic Speech
In a Fourth of July holiday special, we begin with the words of Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. On July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, he gave one of his most famous speeches, "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro." He was addressing the Rochester Ladies Antislavery Society. This is actor James Earl Jones reading the speech during a performance of historian Howard Zinn’s acclaimed book, "Voices of a People’s History of the United States." He was introduced by Zinn.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: In this holiday special, we begin with the words of Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. On July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, he gave one of his most famous speeches, "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro." He was addressing the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. This is James Earl Jones reading the historic address during a performance of Howard Zinn’s Voices of a People’s History of the United States. He was introduced by Howard Zinn.
HOWARD ZINN: Frederick Douglass, once a slave, became a brilliant and powerful leader of the anti-slavery movement. In 1852, he was asked to speak in celebration of the Fourth of July.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS: [read by James Earl Jones] Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?
I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today?
What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is a constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes that would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour forth a stream, a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and the crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
AMY GOODMAN: James Earl Jones reading Frederick Douglass’s famous 1852 Independence Day address in Rochester, New York. That was part of a performance of Howard Zinn’s Voices of a People’s History of the United States.
"This Flag Comes Down Today": Bree Newsome Scales SC Capitol Flagpole, Removing Confederate Flag
On June 27, Bree Newsome, a 30-year-old African-American woman, was arrested at the state Capitol after scaling the 30-foot flagpole and unhooking the Confederate flag. As police officers shouted at her to come down, Bree Newsome shimmied to the top, took the flag in her hand and said, "You come against me with hatred and oppression and violence. I come against you in the name of God. This flag comes down today!" Newsome recited Psalm 27 and the Lord’s Prayer as she brought the flag down. As soon as she reached the ground, she was arrested, along with James Tyson, who had stood at the bottom of the pole to spot her as she climbed. The action went viral and was seen around the world. Democracy Now! was at the jail where Newsome was taken, where we spoke with her supporters. The flag was replaced about an hour after Newsome took it down. We also spoke with supporters of the flag, who rallied at the Capitol Saturday, and with the counter-protesters who confronted them.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: That is Bree Newsome singing "#StayStrong: A Love Song to Freedom Fighters," and it’s Bree Newsome we’re talking about today. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. Democracy Now! has just returned from South Carolina, where the massacre of nine African-American churchgoers by a white suspect who embraced the Confederate flag has renewed protests to remove the Confederate battle flag from outside the state Capitol on its grounds. Last Tuesday, South Carolina state lawmakers agreed to debate removing the flag later this summer. But early Saturday morning, a 30-year-old African-American woman named Bree Newsome, with a helmet and climbing gear, scaled the 30-foot flagpole and unhooked the Confederate flag. As police officers shouted at her to come down, Bree Newsome shimmied to the top of that flagpole, took the flag in her hand and said, quote, "You come against me with hatred ... I come against you in the name of God. This flag comes down today!"
BREE NEWSOME: You come against me with hatred and oppression and violence. I come against you in the name of God. This flag comes down today!
AMY GOODMAN: Bree Newsome recited Psalm 27 and the Lord’s Prayer as she brought the flag down. As soon as she reached the ground, she was arrested, along with James Tyson, who had stood at the bottom of the pole to spot her as she climbed. News station WIS spoke to Bree Newsome as she was led away in handcuffs. She told them, quote, "Every day that flag stays up there is an endorsement of hate."
WIS REPORTER: And why did you do that?
BREE NEWSOME: Because it was the right thing to do, and it’s time for somebody to step up, do the right thing. We have to bury hate. It’s been too long. It’s killing us, literally. We can’t do this. We can’t be warring with each other all the time. It’s not right.
WIS REPORTER: Why not wait until lawmakers vote to take it down?
BREE NEWSOME: What is there to vote on? There’s doing the right thing, and there’s doing the wrong thing. It’s time for people to have the courage. Everybody who knows what the right thing is to do, we have to step up in love and nonviolence. We have to do the right thing, or else it won’t stop. Every day that flag hangs up there is an endorsement of hate. I prayed on it. And I was very afraid, but then I wasn’t afraid anymore, because, you know, the lord calls us all to do different things. This is what he called me to do. This is what I do.
WIS REPORTER: Ma’am, what is your name?
BREE NEWSOME: Bree Newsome.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Bree Newsome speaking to WIS, the local station in Columbia. She was being escorted away by a black law enforcement officer. Bree Newsome’s action went viral and was seen around the world. Her bail fund has raised over $110,000. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Ava DuVernay was among the many to hail her, writing on Twitter, quote, "I hope I get the call to direct the motion picture about a black superhero I admire. Her name is @BreeNewsome."
But within about an hour, a maintenance worker and state security officer had raised a new Confederate battle flag on the Capitol grounds.
Bree Newsome’s protest capped a week which saw at least six predominantly black churches across the South destroyed or damaged by fire, at least three of them arsons. It came one day after President Obama delivered the eulogy at the funeral for South Carolina State Senator and Reverend Clementa Pinckney at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. He was speaking at the College of Charleston, the arena that held thousands. Democracy Now! was there as the president called for the flag to come down.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Removing the flag from this state’s Capitol would not be an act of political correctness. It would not be an insult to the valor of Confederate soldiers. It would simply be an acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought—the cause of slavery—was wrong. The imposition of Jim Crow after the Civil War, the resistance to civil rights for all people, was wrong. It would be one step in an honest accounting of America’s history, a modest but meaningful balm for so many unhealed wounds. It would be an expression of the amazing changes that have transformed this state and this country for the better, because of the work of so many people of goodwill, people of all races striving to form a more perfect union. By taking down that flag, we express God’s grace.
AMY GOODMAN: That was President Obama speaking Friday before thousands of people at the College of Charleston for the funeral for Reverend and State Senator Clementa Pinckney. That was one day before Bree Newsome took the Confederate battle flag down on the Capitol grounds in nearby Columbia, the state capital. At 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, the funeral service began for Cynthia Hurd, a 54-year-old librarian killed in the Charleston massacre on June 17th by the accused white shooter Dylann Roof.
Meanwhile, in the capital, Columbia, about two hours away, Confederate flag supporters held a rally in front of the newly replaced flag. Antiracist counter-protesters also attended, standing shoulder to shoulder with the flag supporters, asking passing drivers to "honk the flag down." Democracy Now! was there. I spoke with the protesters on both sides.
WILLIAM WELLS: Heritage, not hate! Heritage, not racism! Heritage, not racism!
My name is William Wells. And I’m flying this flag for the people who died, all of the people who died, anybody who died for this flag, period. Period. It ain’t got nothing to do with black, white, love, hate, nothing.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you opposed to slavery?
WILLIAM WELLS: Hell yeah, I’m opposed to slavery. That wasn’t cool either.
AMY GOODMAN: So what does this flag means you?
WILLIAM WELLS: This means the 13 original colonies wanted to stay out of the United States government.
AMY GOODMAN: Can I ask what your thoughts are, listening to him and this rally? What is your name?
BRAILEY JOHNSON: My name’s Brailey.
AMY GOODMAN: And tell me the sign you’re saying—you’re holding?
BRAILEY JOHNSON: It’s to represent the nine people who lost their lives in Charleston.
AMY GOODMAN: And what else does it say?
BRAILEY JOHNSON: It says, "Honk the flag down."
AMY GOODMAN: What are your thoughts about the Confederate flag?
BRAILEY JOHNSON: It doesn’t represent me, my people, my people.
WILLIAM WELLS: Whoa, whoa, whoa. "My people," you’re saying?
BRAILEY JOHNSON: My people as in African Americans. I’m an African-American woman.
WILLIAM WELLS: You’re a black American.
BRAILEY JOHNSON: I’m an African American.
WILLIAM WELLS: I’m a white American. I’m married to a brown American.
BRAILEY JOHNSON: Excuse me, I was speaking.
WILLIAM WELLS: I’m sorry. You’re right.
BRAILEY JOHNSON: Thank you. So, as an African-American woman, this flag—I go to USC. And every time I have to walk past this flag, it hurts. It’s not—it doesn’t make me feel good about being a South Carolinian. I’ve never been proud to be a South Carolinian until this past week, because I see how great people are in Charleston. They’re really trying to fight for love. And I just want—I don’t want my children to have to grow up in South Carolina and see that flag that represents so much turmoil for African Americans. And I understand people want to say it’s not a race thing, but to me it is.
WILLIAM WELLS: Flag for the Americans who died! Flag for the Americans who died!
MONIFA LEMONS: [inaudible] just stand still and not say anything, their hate has not come out. And I say "they," because I mean hatred [inaudible]...
My name is Monifa Lemons. What that flag means to me is—we’re standing on a street now that if you cross over that bridge—right?—you know not to be there at night. If I cross over that bridge and I drive into a yard with a Confederate flag, I know not to ask them for help if I have a flat tire. I just know that. I’m not saying it’s true. I’m saying that I know that. All right? I’m saying that I know that for a fact. So, what we have to do is stop acting like we don’t know that when somebody has a Confederate flag in their yard, don’t stop there.
PROTESTER 1: Yo, take it down! Take it down! That’s right! Let’s go! Let’s go!
JALALUDIN ABDUL-HAMID: Take the flag down.
PROTESTER 2: Take it down.
PROTESTER 3: Take it down.
PROTESTER 2: Take it down.
JALALUDIN ABDUL-HAMID: This is just the first stepping stone.
AMY GOODMAN: And what does your sign say, sir?
JALALUDIN ABDUL-HAMID: Oh, my sign, I’m going to let you—I’m going to let it show for itself.
AMY GOODMAN: But for people who are listening on the radio.
JALALUDIN ABDUL-HAMID: Well, "I can’t believe I still have to protest this crap!" Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Really, how many years are we still protesting it? How many marches? How many lives? How many lives? That’s the main part. How many more lives that we have to mourn over?
AMY GOODMAN: What’s your name?
JALALUDIN ABDUL-HAMID: My name is Jalaludin.
HAZE BERGERON: I’m Haze Bergeron. Did you hear Lindsey Graham the other day on the floor of the Senate say that like what happened in Charleston was some Mideast-style hate? Like where has he been living this whole time? He’s from South Carolina. That’s some South Carolina-style hate, if you ask me. That’s some white-ass South Carolina racial hate. That’s all that is.
AMY GOODMAN: And what is your name?
STEWART: Stewart.
AMY GOODMAN: And why are you here today?
STEWART: I’m here because a friend called me and said they were going to have a rally and—that guy with the big flag over there, that’s who called me.
AMY GOODMAN: What’s the flag?
STEWART: Oh, the Confederate flag.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think Dylann Roof did the wrong thing?
STEWART: What he did was give a black eye to the Confederate flag by allowing the media and irrational people to say, "Well, that monument has got to come down because some nut killed somebody," which has nothing to do with that monument. The monument was not built over racism and over hatred. The monument was built because people died fighting for this state, just like the Vietnam War Memorial and World War II.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you.
STEWART: They love the people that died for this state.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you.
STEWART: Do you?
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you, Stewart.
STEWART: Thank you. What is your name?
AMY GOODMAN: My name is Amy, and I’m from New York.
STEWART: Amy what? What is your last name?
AMY GOODMAN: Goodman.
STEWART: Goodman.
AMY GOODMAN: Yeah.
AMY LITTLEFIELD: Now you have to tell us your last name, sir.
STEWART: Are you Jewish? Somebody told me that was a Jewish name.
PROTESTER 4: Take it down!
PROTESTER 5: Take it down!
PROTESTER 6: Take it down!
PROTESTER 5: What’s the problem? What’s the holdup?
PROTESTER 6: Flag gotta go. Take it down.
TOM CLEMENTS: My name is Tom Clements, and I live in Columbia, born in Savannah, Georgia.
AMY GOODMAN: Who’s your great-great-grandfather?
TOM CLEMENTS: Well, this was—I did this in 2008 when I came down on Confederate Memorial Day, but I had a great-great-grandfather that was captured at the Battle of Spotsylvania, at the Bloody Angle—and I’ve been there—which was just an awful, awful, horrific massacre, basically. I have another—my—
AMY GOODMAN: Wait, and he was a Confederate soldier?
TOM CLEMENTS: He was Confederate from Georgia. He was in this division, and they had this flag, which was certainly—
AMY GOODMAN: The 31st Georgia Volunteer Infantry.
TOM CLEMENTS: Yes, from central Georgia. He had five brothers. So there were six of them. Three of them were killed in the Civil War.
AMY GOODMAN: So you’re here with the folks that are waving the Confederate flag?
TOM CLEMENTS: Oh, no, absolutely not. No, I’m totally against what they stand for. And I find that they don’t really know the history. They haven’t even read the December 1860 reasons for secession, which were all about slavery. But I, my whole life pretty much, have had the same viewpoint, that the flag should be taken down. I like to pitch it that we’ve been fighting the Civil War down here since the war was over. I mean, 150 years. We just commemorated it here in South Carolina. It’s time to get beyond it.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, down the road from the Capitol grounds at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in Columbia, a bond hearing was held for Bree Newsome and James Tyson. They were charged with defacing state property, which can carry three years in prison and a $5,000 fine. About a dozen supporters waited in the lobby of the jail for their release, including fellow activists from North Carolina, where Bree Newsome lives. I spoke with some of her supporters.
AMY GOODMAN: What were your feelings as you watched the Confederate flag being taken down on the property of the state Capitol?
TAMIKA LEWIS: As you can see my glee, it was one of the most liberating and beautiful moments that I have known in all my 25 years of life, besides my daughter being born. To see that flag actually come down and all of the things that it represents being taken down by a strong black woman was one of the greatest symbols—symbolic images that one person could ever witness, I feel, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: That was very interesting. During this whole past week after the massacre of the nine Emanuel parishioners and their pastor, you had the American flag above the state Capitol, the South Carolina flag above the state Capitol, both at half-mast.
TAMIKA LEWIS: Mm-hmm.
AMY GOODMAN: And right next to them you had—
TAMIKA LEWIS: Flying strong and strong. And I think what it symbolizes hurts—
AMY GOODMAN: The Confederate battle flag—
TAMIKA LEWIS: Yeah, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —flying at half-mast—at full mast.
TAMIKA LEWIS: At full mast, right? Flying free, while the people who were murdered are laying under the casket, right? While you’re viewing people’s caskets and viewing the people while they’re laid to rest, you can look up, and although there was a black curtain, you still know what was on the other side of that curtain.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, you had to walk past the Confederate flag, right?
TAMIKA LEWIS: Flag, to even get there. So some people I know personally—my friend waited two hours under the Confederate flag, right? And we see the pictures of the murderer, and he’s holding these Confederate flags with so much glee and joy and pride. And it’s just like, why would we allow this to continue to stand? Why would our legislators, our councilmen, our mayor, the president? He was here. He could have taken it down himself if he really felt compelled to. Just saying.
AMY GOODMAN: You mean by executive order?
TAMIKA LEWIS: By executive order, yes.
CORINE MACK: My name is Corine Mack. I’m the president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg NAACP. I was notified this morning that one of my chairpeople was arrested, so I came down to ensure that she was OK and to give her some support. Bree Newsome is the chair of our social media and the co-chair of our young adults.
AMY GOODMAN: What does the Confederate flag mean to you?
CORINE MACK: Hate and segregation. It doesn’t mean anything American at all. And in fact, when you lose a war anywhere else in the country, that flag is not allowed to be flown anywhere. So why should we allow it here in the United States?
AMY GOODMAN: Why don’t you tell us your name?
KARIL TINAE PARKER: Hi. I’m Karil Parker.
AMY GOODMAN: And you came out here on your own to the detention center?
KARIL TINAE PARKER: I did. I came out here to show my support for Bree, that this is just—this is not her battle alone, that we stand with her. She did what many people have not had the courage to do, and that we are proud of her, that we support her. Whatever she needs, we are here for her. And I wanted her to know that, and that’s why I came. But it doesn’t matter how you feel about whether she should or should not have done it. She did it. It’s done. And it needs to come down. And she has done what our governor hasn’t had the courage to do, what our General Assembly hasn’t had the courage to do. She went up there and did what had to be done, when it needed to be done.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s over 100 degrees here. I’m looking at your T-shirt. Can you tell us what it says?
KARIL TINAE PARKER: What it says, it says, "Dream like Martin." It says, "Lead like Harriet." It says, "Fight like Malcolm. Think like Garvey. Write like Maya. Build like Madam C.J. Speak like Frederick. Educate like W. E. B. Believe like Thurgood," who was here—from here, might I add? "Challenge like Rosa."
AMY GOODMAN: Are you going to be adding another name to that list?
KARIL TINAE PARKER: Yeah, yeah. We’re going to "snatch down like Bree."
AMY GOODMAN: So, Carol, you’re from Columbia.
KARIL TINAE PARKER: This is my home, born and raised.
AMY GOODMAN: And so you’ve seen this flag for a very long time.
KARIL TINAE PARKER: I’ve seen this flag, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: This—well, the particular flagpole.
KARIL TINAE PARKER: Mm-hmm, I have. And that flag doesn’t mean any more today than it meant two weeks ago. That flag has always meant hate. And now Dylann Roof has just brought that hate to the light. It’s not a secret. That flag has always meant hate. It meant hate when I was in high school. I have no problem with you wearing your flag if you want to wear it on your T-shirt. I have a problem with it standing in front of what is supposed to be our state House, our state House grounds. That’s a problem, because it may mean heritage to you, but if it means hate to me, it doesn’t diminish what it means to me. It still means oppression. It still means hate. It still means slavery. And that just—that’s not going to change.
AMY GOODMAN: Tamika, was there a discussion about whether to wait for the South Carolina Legislature to take their time in a debate?
TAMIKA LEWIS: So we’ve noticed that they have been pushing it off for a very long time, since everything started to happen. And we just didn’t have time for it, basically. I think that’s how we summarize and use that, right? They still—it’s ambiguous, right? They’re going to wait. They’re going to take it to House, and then they’re going to stop, and then they’re going to come back to it. And it might have not been until the end of July or August, and then we don’t even know what they’re going to rule. So, the country will be waiting around to figure out what it is, and they might not even favor in the removal of the flag.
AMY GOODMAN: Tamika Lewis, Karil Parker and Corine Mack, speaking outside the jail in Columbia, South Carolina. Bree Newsome and Jimmy Tyson were both released from jail on Saturday afternoon after supporters posted the requisite $300 of their $3,000 bond each. Their next court appearance is July 27th in Columbia, South Carolina.
"We Shall Overcome": Remembering Folk Icon, Activist Pete Seeger in His Own Words & Songs
We end our Fourth of July holiday special remembering the late legendary folk singer and activist Pete Seeger. For nearly seven decades, Seeger was a musical and political icon who helped create the modern American folk music movement. We air highlights of two appearances by Seeger on Democracy Now!. Interspersed in the interviews, Seeger sings some of his classic songs, "We Shall Overcome," "If I Had a Hammer" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone." He also talks about what has been described as his "defiant optimism." "Realize that little things lead to bigger things. That’s what [the album] 'Seeds' is all about," Seeger said. "And there’s a wonderful parable in the New Testament: The sower scatters seeds. Some seeds fall in the pathway and get stamped on, and they don’t grow. Some fall on the rocks, and they don’t grow. But some seeds fall on fallow ground, and they grow and multiply a thousandfold. Who knows where some good little thing that you’ve done may bring results years later that you never dreamed of?"
Seeger led an illustrious musical career. In the 1940s, he performed in The Almanac Singers with Woody Guthrie. Then he formed The Weavers. In the 1950s, he was blacklisted after he opposed Senator Joseph McCarthy’s political witch hunt and was almost jailed for refusing to answer questions before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Seeger became a prominent civil rights activist and helped popularize the anthem "We Shall Overcome." In the 1960s, he was a vocal critic of the Vietnam War and inspired generations of protest singers. He was later at the center of the environmental and anti-nuclear movements. With his wife Toshi, Pete helped found Clearwater, a group to clean up the Hudson River. Toshi died in 2013 just weeks before their 70th wedding anniversary. In 2009, he and Bruce Springsteen performed Guthrie’s "This Land is Your Land" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at an inaugural concert for Barack Obama.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We spend the rest of the hour remembering Pete Seeger.
PETE SEEGER: [singing] If I had a hammer,
I’d hammer in the morning,
I’d hammer in the evening,
All over this land,
I’d hammer out danger,
I’d hammer out a warning,
I’d hammer out love between,
My brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
If I had a bell,
If I had a bell,
Ring it in the morning,
I’d ring it in the morning
Ring it in the evening!
Ring it in the evening,
All over this land,
Ring out danger
Ring out danger,
Ring out a warning,
Ring out a warning,
Ring out love, ring out love between,
My brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
If I had a song,
If I had a song,
Sing it in the morning,
Sing it in the morning
Sing it in the evening!
Sing it in the evening,
All over this land,
I’d sing out danger
I’d sing out danger,
I’d sing out a warning,
I’d sing out love between,
My brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
Well, I got a hammer,
Well, I got a hammer,
I got a bell,
And I got a bell,
And I got a song,
All over this land,
This hammer of justice,
The bell of freedom,
Song about love between
My brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
AMY GOODMAN: The legendary folk singer and activist Pete Seeger died in January 2014 at the age of 94. For nearly seven decades, Pete Seeger was a musical and political icon who helped create the modern American folk music movement. In the 1940s, he performed in The Almanac Singers with Woody Guthrie. Then he formed The Weavers. In the '50s, he opposed Senator Joseph McCarthy's witch hunt and was almost jailed for refusing to answer questions before the HUAC, the House Un-American Activities Committee. Pete Seeger became a prominent civil rights activist and helped popularize the anthem, "We Shall Overcome." He was also a vocal critic of the Vietnam War and inspired a generation of protest singers. Later in his life, Pete was at the center of the environmental and anti-nuclear movements. With his wife Toshi Seeger, Pete Seeger helped found Clearwater, a group to clean up the Hudson River in New York. Toshi Seeger died [in 2013], just weeks before their 70th wedding anniversary. In 2009, Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen performed Woody Guthrie’s "This Land is Your Land" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at an inaugural concert for Barack Obama, when he first became president.
Pete Seeger last joined us on Democracy Now! in August of 2013. We’ll play highlights from that interview later, but first I want to turn to Pete Seeger in 2004, when he joined us in our firehouse studio at Democracy Now! I asked Pete Seeger to talk about his time serving in the military during World War II.
PETE SEEGER: I first wanted to be a mechanic in the Air Force. I thought that would be an interesting thing. But then military intelligence got interested in my politics. My outfit went on to glory and death, and I stayed there in Kiesler Field, Mississippi, picking up cigarette butts for six months. Finally, they let me know, yes, they’d been investigating me, opening all my mail.
AMY GOODMAN: Pete Seeger, when you came back, they continued to investigate you.
PETE SEEGER: Well, I have assumed most of my life that if there wasn’t a microphone under the bed, they were tapping the phone from time to time and opening my mail from time to time. Who knows?
AMY GOODMAN: But it was more than that, wasn’t it?
PETE SEEGER: Well, sometimes they’d have picket lines out, but, you know, in a crazy way all it did was sell tickets. I remember one concert did not sell out. My manager said, "Pete, we should have gotten the Birches to picket you. Then it would have sold out."
AMY GOODMAN: I’m looking at a transcript of the House Un-American Activities Committee, August 18th, 1955, when they started off by saying—Mr. Taverner said, "When and where were you born, Mr. Seeger?" You actually answered that question.
PETE SEEGER: Well, I wish I had been more—spoken up more. I just did what my lawyer, a very nice guy—he says, "Don’t try to antagonize them. Just don’t answer these questions, because if you answer this kind of question, you’re going to have to answer more questions. Just say you don’t think it’s legal." Well, I said, "I think I’ve got a right to my opinion, and you have the right to your opinion. Period."
And so, eventually I was sentenced to a year in jail, but my lawyer got me off on bail. I was only in jail for four hours, and I learned a folk song. They served us lunch, a slice of bread and a slice of bologna and an apple, and the man next to me was singing, "If that judge believes what I say, I’ll be leaving for home today." The man next to him says, "Not if he sees your record, you won’t." But that’s an old African melody, you know. It’s in many, many African-American folk songs.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, you were sentenced to a year in jail?
PETE SEEGER: And a year later the appeals court acquitted me. Ironically—the contradictions of life still amaze me—the judge who acquitted me, the head judge—there were three judges—head one was Irving Kaufman, the man who sentenced the Rosenbergs to the chair 10 years earlier. But he acquitted me. He said, "We are not inclined to lightly disregard charges of unconstitutionality, even though they may be made by those unworthy of our respect."
However, I feel that—both my wife and I feel we’re lucky to be alive and lucky to be on good terms with our neighbors, and in the little town where we live, people shout out, "Hi, Pete! Hi, Toshi!" And I’d like to—I wish I could live another 20 years just to see things that are happening, because I believe that women working with children will get men to wake up to what a foolish thing it is to seek power and glory and money in your life. What a foolish thing. Here we are—
There’s a politician in my hometown, a very nice guy. He used to be a shop steward for the union in the local factory, but for 20 years he represented our town in the county legislature. And he said, "Pete, if you don’t grow, you die." One o’clock in the morning, I sat up in bed and thought of the next question. If that’s true, if you don’t grow, you die, doesn’t it follow the quicker you grow, the sooner you die? Nobody is facing up to that question, but it’s very definitely true. Now the first step in solving a problem is to admit there’s a problem. Then we can argue about ways it could be solved.
I suppose one person will say, "Well, let a few people have trillions of dollars and the rest of the people obediently do the work, and the people in charge will see that everything is done right." On other hand, I think what was in the Declaration of Independence is true now just as it was then. Those great lines, they’re written by Ben Franklin, you know, not Jefferson. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that when any government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it."
AMY GOODMAN: Pete Seeger, can you tell us about "We Shall Overcome"?
PETE SEEGER: I thought, in 1946, when I learned it from a white woman who taught in a union labor school, the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, that the song had been made up in 1946 by tobacco workers, because they sang it there to strike through the winter of 1946 in Charleston, South Carolina, and they taught the song to Zilphia Horton, the teacher at the labor school. And she said, "Oh, it was my favorite song." And I printed it in our little magazine in New York, People’s Songs, as "We Will Overcome" in 1947.
It was a friend of mine, Guy Carawan, who made it famous. He picked up my way of singing it, "We Shall Overcome," although Septima—there was another teacher there, Septima Clark, a black woman. She felt that "shall"—like me, she felt it opened up the mouth better than "will," so that’s the way she sang it. Anyway, Guy Carawan in 1960 taught it to the young people at the founding convention of SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC for short. And a month later, it wasn’t a song, it was the song, throughout the South.
Only two years ago, I get a letter from a professor in Pennsylvania, who uncovered an issue of the United Mine Workers Journal of February 1909, and a letter there on front page says, "Last year at our strike, we opened every meeting with a prayer, and singing that good old song, 'We Will Overcome.'" So it’s probably a late 19th century union version of what was a well-known gospel song. I’ll overcome, I’ll overcome, I’ll overcome some day.
AMY GOODMAN: You sang it for Martin Luther King?
PETE SEEGER: In 1957, I went down to Highlander. Zilphia was dead, and Myles Horton, her husband, said, "We can’t have a celebration of 25 years with this school without music. Won’t you come down and help lead some songs?" So I went down, and Dr. King and Reverend Abernathy came up from Alabama to say a few words, and I sang a few songs, and that was one of them. Ann Braden drove King to a speaking engagement in Kentucky the next day; and she remembers him sitting in the back seat, saying, "'We Shall Overcome.' That song really sticks with you, doesn’t it?" But he wasn’t the song leader. It wasn’t until another three years that Guy Carawan made it famous.
AMY GOODMAN: In 1967, you made your stand against the Vietnam War clear on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Can you talk about that?
PETE SEEGER: Well, the Smothers Brothers were a big, big success on CBS television. And way back the year before, I think in the spring of '67, they said—CBS says, "Anything we can do for you? You're right at the top. What can we do to make you happier?" And they said, "Let us have Seeger on." And CBS said, "Well, we’ll think about it." Finally, in October, they said, "OK, you can have him on." And I sang this song "Waste deep in the big muddy, the big fool says to push on."
The tape was made in California, flown to New York. And in New York they scissored the song out. And now, the Smothers Brothers took to the print media and said, "CBS is censoring our best jokes. They censored Seeger’s best song." And they got some publicity. And during November, December and January, the arguments went on. Finally, in February—no, pardon me, late January, late January of '68, CBS said, "OK, OK, he can sing the song." On six hours' notice, I flew out to California.
I remember singing a batch of songs from American history, songs from the Revolution, like "Come ye hither, redcoats, you mind what madness fills. In our forest there is danger, there’s danger in our hills. Fall the rifles, the rifles in our hands shall prove no trifle." I think I mentioned the hit song of 1814. It was the hit song: "Oh, say can you see." And the song of the Mexican War, "Green grow the lilacs all sparkling with dew." A love song. That’s why Yankees are called "gringos" in Mexico, from that song. And, of course, the Civil War, several good songs, not just "Battle Hymn of the Republic," but a batch of them. The Spanish-American War, Oscar Brown taught me this song. American soldiers in the Philippines, they were singing, "Damn, damn, damn the Filipinos. Cross-eyed kakiack ladrones. And beneath the starry flag, civilize them with a crag, and go back to our own beloved home." I didn’t sing that. But along come modern times. I sang "Waste Deep in the Big Muddy," and this time only a station in Detroit cut it out. But the rest of the country heard it, so seven million people heard it.
Who knows? Later that month, in late February, Lyndon Johnson decided not to run for re-election. The song would be probably just one more thing. I honestly believe that the future is going to be millions of little things saving us. I imagine a big seesaw, and at one end of this seesaw is on the ground with a basket half-full of big rocks in it. The other end of the seesaw is up in the air. It’s got a basket one-quarter full of sand. And some of us got teaspoons, and we’re trying to fill up sand. A lot of people are laughing at us, and they say, "Ah, people like you have been trying to do that for thousands of years, and it’s leaking out as fast as you’re putting it in." But we’re saying, "We’re getting more people with teaspoons all the time." And we think, "One of these years, you’ll see that whole seesaw go zooop in the other direction." And people will say, "Gee, how did it happen so suddenly?" Us and all our little teaspoons. Now granted, we’ve got to keep putting it in, because if we don’t keep putting teaspoons in, it will leak out, and the rocks will go back down again. Who knows?
AMY GOODMAN: Do you see those cracks, those places, today in mass media? I know you don’t watch TV and all that, but, for example, you going on Smothers Brothers. Do you think that it is as constricted today?
PETE SEEGER: Not as constricted, no. There’s all sorts of little things going on. I understand this program may be on some TV stations. I’ve got to find out where, when, so I can see it. You’re right, I don’t look at TV much, except to check on the weather for my skating rink. I’m a read-aholic and a magazine-aholic, I get 40 or 50 magazines a month. And I read music magazines, environmental magazines, union magazines, civil rights magazines. Who knows?
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Pete Seeger in our firehouse studio 10 years ago in 2004. We continue remembering Pete in his own words and song.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Pete Seeger, singing "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1968. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue to remember the life of Pete Seeger, the legendary folk singer and activist. We return to our interview back in 2004, a decade ago, in our firehouse studio. I asked Pete Seeger to talk about one of his most famous songs, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"
PETE SEEGER: Well, I was sitting in an airplane on my way to sing at Oberlin College. I was over Ohio, and—
AMY GOODMAN: What year?
PETE SEEGER: —half-dozing. Year, 1955. And all of a sudden, three lines, which I had read in a book, took form. In the book, it simply said, "Where are the flowers? The girls have plucked them. Where are the girls? They’re all married. Where are the men? They’re all in the army." It’s an old Russian folk song. And the Don Cossacks—maybe it’s a Ukrainian folk song. "Koloda Duda" is the original name, but I didn’t know that. All I knew is I had read these three lines in the book And Quiet Flows the Don by a Soviet novelist. And all of a sudden, I had three verses. I didn’t realize it at the time, I had swiped part of the verse from an old Irish song. I had been recording a lumberjack song from the Adirondacks: "Johnson says he’ll load more hay, says he’ll load 10 times a day." You can really see, I slowed it down, and I pinned the words to the microphone that night and sang them.
And a few weeks later, I was walking down 48th Street, Manhattan, stopped in at Folkways Records, said, "I made up a new song." And then, Moe Asch propped a mic up in front of me and recorded it. And a few months later it was out on another LP. An Oberlin College student got the LP at a job at a summer camp, and the kids were fooling around with the verses: "Where have all the counselors gone, broken curfew everyone." But by the end of the summer, he had made up the two extra verses we know. "Where have the soldiers gone, gone to graveyards. Where have the graveyards gone, covered with flowers."
And the kids took the song back to New York. Peter, Paul and Mary were singing in the Village, in Greenwich Village, and picked it up, started singing it. The Kingston Trio learned it from them. And about three years later, my manager says, "Pete, didn’t you write a song called 'Where Have All the Flowers Gone'?" I said, "Yeah, about three years ago." He said, "Did you copyright it?" "No, don’t guess I ever did." He said, "Well, you ought to. The Kingston Trio have recorded it."
Well, I got on the phone to Dave Guard. He was an old friend. He had started playing the banjo because he got my book, my bestseller. I mimeographed it first, but later printed it. It’s printed 100,000 copies. How to Play the Five-String Banjo. He wrote me a year later. He says, "I’ve been putting that book to hard use. I and two others have a group we call The Kingston Trio." So I called him up. "Oh, Pete, we didn’t know it was your song. We’ll take our name off it." It was very nice of him, because technically, legally, I had, as they say, quote, "abandoned copyright." But they took their name off, and my manager copyrighted it. It pays my taxes these days, that song. It’s been translated into dozens of other languages.
AMY GOODMAN: Pete, could you play "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"
PETE SEEGER: Where — ah, maybe I’ll just sing the very, very last verse, because the contradictions of life still amaze me. You have to laugh, if you don’t cry.
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one.
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?
AMY GOODMAN: You still have your voice.
PETE SEEGER: It’s in the cellar.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about getting older?
PETE SEEGER: Oh, it’s no fun to lose your memory or your hearing or your eyesight, but from my shoulders on down I’m in better condition than most men my age. I can go skiing with the family, although I stick to the intermediate slopes. I don’t try the double diamond.
AMY GOODMAN: Pete, you sit here listening with headphones on. You’re a singer. Sound is very important. It’s not as easy for you to hear things so clearly anymore. How has that affected you?
PETE SEEGER: Well, I’m singing to myself all the time, just humming or just in my brain. I’m not making any sound. But admittedly, I can’t—unless I have earphones on, I can’t really—even with what they call hearing aids, I can’t really hear music. I don’t listen to CDs. I don’t listen to the radio. I don’t listen to TV. And occasionally, when friends come around, I’ll join in with them, but my fingers are slowing down. I hear records that I made years ago and say, "How did I ever play that so fast?"
On the other hand, these are exciting times. There’s never been such as exciting times. And win, lose or draw, it’s going to be very, very exciting. And I applaud what you are doing. I think what Democracy Now! is doing is just fantastic. This couldn’t have been done half a century ago, could not have been done.
AMY GOODMAN: Why?
PETE SEEGER: Well, they didn’t have the technology for it, I guess. So as I say, technology will save us if it doesn’t wipe us out first.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, final words, Pete Seeger, as we wrap up this conversation—the role of music, culture and politics.
PETE SEEGER: They’re all tangled up. Hooray for tangling!
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us. And for someone who isn’t so hopeful who is listening to this right now, trying to find their way, what would you say?
PETE SEEGER: Realize that little things lead to bigger things. That’s what Seeds is all about. And there’s a wonderful parable in the New Testament: The sower scatters seeds. Some seeds fall in the pathway and get stamped on, and they don’t grow. Some fall on the rocks, and they don’t grow. But some seeds fall on fallow ground, and they grow and multiply a thousandfold. Who knows where some good little thing that you’ve done may bring results years later that you never dreamed of?
AMY GOODMAN: Pete Seeger speaking a decade ago in 2004 on Democracy Now! He last appeared on Democracy Now! in August 2013. He talked about one of his most famous songs.
PETE SEEGER: The song, "If I Had a Hammer," went all sorts of places that I could never go, and I’m very glad.
[singing] If I had a hammer,
I’d hammer in the morning,
I’d hammer in the evening,
All over this land,
I’d hammer out danger,
Hammer out a warning,
Hammer out love between,
All of my brothers,
Oh, a woman said, "Make that 'My brothers and my sisters.'" Lee says, "It doesn’t roll off the tongue so well. But she insisted. He said, "How about 'All of my siblings'?" She didn’t think that was funny.
[singing] All over this land.
If I had a song,
Don’t need to sing the whole song. You can sing it to yourself, whether you’re driving a car or washing the dishes or just singing to your kids. We haven’t mentioned children much on this program, but it may be children realizing that you can’t live without love, you can’t live without fun and laughter, you can’t live without friends—and I say, "Long live teachers of children," because they can show children how they can save the world.
AMY GOODMAN: And we end with more Pete Seeger last August [in 2013].
PETE SEEGER: We shall overcome.
We shall overcome.
We shall overcome some day.
Oh, deep in my heart,
I know that I do believe,
We shall overcome...
AMY GOODMAN: You’ve been listening to Pete Seeger in his own words and song. He died in 2014 at the age of 94. For a copy of today’s show, you can go to our website at democracynow.org, and go there to watch all of our Pete Seeger shows, including his 90th birthday celebration featuring Bruce Springsteen and Bernice Johnson Reagon and Joan Baez.
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