The American folksinger and activist Pete Seeger (born 1919) was associated with the Communist and Progressive parties in the 1940s and 1950s, but later focused on environmental issues. He was especially admired for his fight against the blacklisting of entertainers in the 1950s because of left wing political beliefs.

American folksinger, composer, song collector and five-string banjo virtuoso Pete Seeger was born in New York City in 1919 into a family of Juilliard music professors. He spent his early years in private schools and studied sociology at Harvard College. It was in 1938, when he dropped out of Harvard after two years to ride the rails and hitchhike all over the United States, that he immersed himself in folk music. He traveled all around the country collecting songs, meeting the greats of American folk music: Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie and Earl Robinson. Two years later he briefly served as an assistant in...