Performing Dissent: Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson before ...

TransatlanticaRevue d’études américaines. American Studies Journal 2 | 2021Left-wing Radicalism in the United States: A ForeignCreed?

Performing Dissent: Pete Seeger and Paul Robesonbefore HUAC (1955-1956)Jodie Childers

Electronic versionURL: https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/17937DOI: 10.4000/transatlantica.17937ISSN: 1765-2766

PublisherAssociation française d'Etudes Américaines (AFEA)

Electronic referenceJodie Childers, “Performing Dissent: Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson before HUAC (1955-1956)”, Transatlantica [Online], 2 | 2021, Online since 07 December 2021, connection on 15 December 2021.URL: http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/17937 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/transatlantica.17937

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Performing Dissent: Pete Seeger andPaul Robeson before HUAC(1955-1956)Jodie Childers

Hold the Line

1 In August 1949, Paul Robeson was scheduled to perform a concert with Pete Seeger and

other musicians in Westchester County, New York.1 Sponsored by the Civil Rights

Congress,2 a radical civil rights organization that advocated for racial justice in the

legal system, the event was canceled before Robeson even arrived, when right-wing

agitators armed with baseball bats stormed the outdoor venue and assaulted the

audience members. The organizers rescheduled the concert for September, countering

the accusations of un-Americanism in the design and program of the concert itself. Folk

standards, labor songs, and patriotic anthems such as “The Star-Spangled Banner” and

“America the Beautiful” were performed, the latter by Robeson himself. The protestors

returned again, disparaging the performers with anti-communist, racist, and anti-

Semitic propaganda. During the performances, local union workers protected the

musicians by creating a human barricade, but after the concert came to a close, this

mob of anti-communist agitators, which included local conservatives and Ku Klux Klan

members, descended on the performers and audience members as they left the site,

hurling racial epithets and throwing rocks at people and their cars. The police did not

intervene to stop the violence. Interweaving racial and anti-communist paranoia, this

riot brought to the fore clashing visions of American national identity during the

second Red Scare, a period when the left struggled against state-sanctioned

suppression that was instituted through policy and, as this incident indicates, enacted

by the public.

2 Responding to the attacks in an open letter to President Truman, Robeson pushed back

against allegations of “un-American” conduct and denounced the riot as “the product

Performing Dissent: Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson before HUAC (1955-1956)

Transatlantica, 2 | 2021

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of that perverted Americanism which brands as un-American those who speak out for

peace, who stand up for their constitutional rights and those of their fellow-men or

who are concerned with freedom for colonial peoples rather than with the raw

materials that can be stolen from their lands” (Robeson, “Open Letter” 253-236). The

attack left a lifelong impression on Seeger as well, whose car was pummeled with

stones, shattering the windows. Seeger saved the rocks that landed in his car and built

them into the mantle of his fireplace. He and Lee Hays, a fellow folk musician, also

memorialized the incident in the song “Hold the Line,” completed two weeks later,

which calls out the fascist mob and implicates the police for their complicity in what

came to be known in American history as the Peekskill Riots (Dunaway 15).

3 In this instance and throughout their careers, Robeson and Seeger were frequently

labeled as un-American and anti-American even as they strategically foregrounded

their American identities, cited American history in their music and writing, and

performed American cultural staples while promoting and defending their political

beliefs. The Peekskill Riots illustrate just how high the stakes were for left-wing artists

during this period. The scrutiny of these two prominent cultural figures culminated

when both artists were called before the House Un-American Activities Committee

(HUAC) in the 1950s. The testimonies delivered by Seeger (1955) and Robeson (1956)

shed light on how left-wing artists “held the line” as they performed their radical

identities and defended themselves from charges of un-Americanness during the height

of anti-communist suppression. Situating the testimonies of Seeger and Robeson within

their respective biographical contexts, this paper analyzes these documents not only as

historical archives of dissent, but as rhetorical performances that reversed the power

dynamics of the inquisition, effectively putting the committee on trial in the court of

public opinion.

4 Reading these two testimonies in juxtaposition illuminates how Robeson and Seeger

deployed patriotic rhetoric strategically to counter and deflect accusations of un-

Americanness. Both artists responded to the construction of radicalness as tied to “un-

Americanism” and “foreignness” by highlighting their rights as American citizens and

their protections under the Constitution, while also questioning the legitimacy of the

committee and the American political establishment. These two testimonies are also

significant as they evince two different legal methods of dissent, based on the First and

Fifth Amendments, a topic of debate among political leaders, intellectuals, artists, and

others who were concerned about HUAC’s affront to civil liberties.3 While Seeger’s

testimony in August 1955 championed artistic liberty and freedom of speech, using the

First Amendment as the foundation for his position, Robeson pleaded the Fifth in his

testimony, delivered in June 1956, and interrogated not only the committee but

American society more broadly, invoking an internationalist sense of social justice that

linked left-wing politics, the civil rights movement, and anti-colonial struggles around

the world.

McCarthyism and McCarranism

5 Left-wing radicals in the United States faced two acute periods of political suppression.

While anarchists were the primary target of the first Red Scare, which peaked from

1919 to 1920, by the 1950s, the emphasis had shifted to communism, although J. Edgar

Hoover remained one of the consistent figures between both periods. Hoover served as



2

an assistant to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer in 1919 and was a key player in the

Palmer Raids the following year. In 1924, Hoover became the head of the Bureau of

Investigation, which was renamed the FBI in 1935, the agency whose G-men were

responsible for the notorious surveillance campaign of alleged subversives. Yet, it was

not only Hoover, but also the ideological threads and “nativist patterns” that linked

these two periods of political suppression (Preston 2). According to William Preston, Jr.,

in his classic work Aliens and Dissenters, the federal government conflated “antialien and

antiradical” sentiments during the first half of the twentieth century, suppressing

radical ideas and enacting anti-immigrant legislations in tandem, which resulted in

tightened border restrictions and deportations. As Ellen Schrecker has stated

powerfully, “The history of American repression is strewn with the bodies of the

foreign born” (1996-1997 393).

6 Although Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin was the legislator popularly associated

with communist suppression during the 1950s, it was Nevada Senator Pat McCarran

whose politics reenacted the “antialien and antiradical” discourse of the 1920s.4

McCarthy’s bombastic rhetoric imagined a bifurcated world divided between

communism and capitalism, and expressed a fear of communist infiltrators within the

American government with a particular disdain for the elite domestic communists

“born with silver spoons in their mouths,” whom he called out in his speech delivered

at Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1950. McCarran’s paranoia fixated on the immigrant as

subversive and his name was attached to two of the most controversial legislative

measures during the period, the Internal Security Act, or McCarran Act (1950), and the

Immigration and Nationality Act, or McCarran-Walter Act (1952), both of which

increased the scrutiny of political radicals and tightened border restrictions.

7 The excesses of McCarranism did not go uncontested even within the federal

government. Both bills were vetoed by President Truman, but his vetoes were

overridden by Congress with overwhelming support. The Internal Security Act

mandated communist groups to register with the Subversive Activities Control Board.

In his veto, Truman endorsed the requirements for the Communist Party but

questioned the broad reach:

In so far as the bill would require registration by the Communist Party itself, it doesnot endanger our traditional liberties. However, the application of the registrationrequirements to so-called communist-front organizations can be the greatestdanger to freedom of speech, press and assembly, since the Alien and Sedition Lawsof 1798. This danger arises out of the criteria or standards to be applied indetermining whether an organization is a communist-front organization. (Truman)

8 The Immigration and National Security Act was particularly harsh on political

dissidents, who were deemed “ineligible to receive visas and excluded from admission”

(United States Congress 182). Among others, the law banned a range of political radicals

as follows:

(A) Aliens who are anarchists;(B) Aliens who advocate or teach, or who are members of or affiliated with anyorganization that advocates or teaches, opposition to all organized government;(C) Aliens who are members of or affiliated with (i) the Communist Party of theUnited States, (ii) any other totalitarian party of the United States, (iii) theCommunist Political Association […]. (United States Congress 184-185)

These two laws also worked in tandem with the Smith Act of 1940, which made it illegal

to aid and abet the overthrow of the government. The Smith Act had served as the



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grounds for the 1949 indictment of eleven communist party leaders including Benjamin

J. Davis.5

9 Because of these means of attack, left-wing radicals frequently appropriated patriotic

rhetoric or called out what Robeson labeled “perverted Americanism” as a form of self-

defense to ward off accusations of un-Americanness and garner support within the

larger culture. This was not a new strategy. From the early twentieth century, left-wing

radicals had been forced to devise tactics to protect themselves from the repressive

hand of the state. According to Alice Béja, anarchists in the early twentieth century,

like Emma Goldman, were looking not only to legitimize and disseminate their ideas

while responding to political suppression, but also to “rewrite the genealogy of

American dissent to make room for anarchism” (10). Béja argues that “anarchists like

Goldman in the United States wanted to Americanize anarchism” (11). Similar

strategies were deployed by communists and alleged party members during the second

Red Scare as they attempted to make a case for their beliefs and protect their political

freedoms. This was certainly the case for Paul Robeson and Pete Seeger, two towering

figures of American music and performance on the left in the 1950’s. Facing scrutiny by

both the government and the American public for their political views and affiliations,

Seeger and Robeson recounted their family histories, stressed personal ties to the

country, and appealed to American ideals such as freedom of speech to justify their

positions. They situated their own experiences of suppression in larger histories of

American dissent, oftentimes invoking such important American historical figures as

Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Du Bois in their songs and their rhetoric. For Seeger and

Robeson as artists, this project also helped forge a distinct American radical aesthetic.

100 % American Communist: Pete Seeger’s Testimony,18 August 1955

10 Pete Seeger’s problems with the American government began prior to the Cold War and

the question of his loyalty to the country was at the core of the line of inquiry he faced

from the beginning. The government’s scrutiny commenced during World War II, when

Seeger was stationed at Keesler Field, in Mississippi. According to his FBI file, the

impetus for the investigation stemmed from a letter he wrote to a branch of the

American Legion in California, dated 15 October 1942. In this letter, Seeger denounces

the chapter’s public support for (1) the deportations of Japanese citizens and

noncitizens, and (2) a ban on citizenship for their descendants. He notes the absurdity

of the proposition, pointing out that the United States would also need to ban those

from Italy, Germany, and so forth. Employing patriotic rhetoric, Seeger’s letter

ultimately makes an argument for a multicultural popular front that must unite to fight

against fascism.

11 This brief letter prompted a full-scale investigation into Seeger’s character, politics,

and loyalty to the state. It is not surprising that such a missive would draw scrutiny

considering that, as Ellen Schrecker observes, the American Legion was “perhaps the

most active organizational advocate of political restrictions on immigration” (1998

400). Indeed, there were ties between the federal government and the American Legion,

most notably, Watson Miller, who after a stint in the Federal Security Agency became

Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1947 (1998 400).

Seeger’s case file shows evidence that officials interviewed his friends and



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acquaintances, including a report of a conversation with fellow singer-songwriter

Woody Guthrie that took place in 1943. Seeger’s school records from Harvard (he

dropped out in 1938) were consulted and his personal letters, including many to his

partner Toshi Ohta, were intercepted, closely read, and analyzed in disturbing detail.6

12 The government was particularly concerned with his engagement and subsequent

marriage to Toshi Ohta. In a section of a report dated 23 March 1943 by the Military

Intelligence Division that includes six points of adverse information against Seeger, his

relationship to Ohta is noted as one of the main areas of concern: “Subject is engaged to

Miss Toshi Ohta, the daughter of an American mother and a Japanese father, who was

banished some years ago from Japan for political reasons” (“Pete Seeger 116”). Toshi

Ohta was born in Germany, the child of Takashi Ohta and Virginia Harper Berry.

According to family accounts, Toshi’s grandfather had been sentenced to exile from

Japan because he had translated Marx into Japanese. Instead, his son Takashi accepted

his father’s penalty, which was permitted under law. Seeger himself is described in his

FBI file by Second Lieutenant Alan Swartz as “100 % American though rather immature

and inclined to be a little drastic in his talk” (“Pete Seeger” 46).

13 The file expresses concern about Toshi and her father’s participation in the Japanese

Committee for American Democracy, an organization for the defense of Japanese

Americans’ civil rights. In fact, one of the reports concludes by proclaiming the danger

of their intimate relationship to the security of the state:

Correspondence between the two indicated that both Subject and his then fiancéewere deeply interested in political trends, particularly anti-Fascist, and that shewas a member of several Communist infiltrated organizations. Their marriage willquite possibly fuse and strengthen their individual radical tendencies. (“PeteSeeger” 19)

Due to these factors, Seeger’s “loyalty to the United States” was deemed “under all

circumstances questionable.” While the rest of his unit at Keesler was sent abroad, he

was forced to stay behind and only later dispatched to Saipan in the Western Pacific to

entertain troops. After the war he, along with many of his friends and fellow musicians,

continued to garner suspicion from the government because of their ties to the folk

music scene. At the same time, Seeger and his folk quartet, the Weavers, had never

been more successful, having hit #1 on the Billboard Chart in 1950. While the Weavers

were rising in fame, they faced scrutiny from both the right and even some of their

allies on the left, who questioned their financial success, their patriarchal rhetoric, and

their appropriation of black culture after they sold millions of copies of their cover of

one of Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter’s signature songs “Goodnight Irene” (Dunaway

174-175).

14 Like Hollywood, the folk scene had also become subject to special scrutiny during the

height of McCarthyism. Issued by the US Army, the pamphlet “How to Spot a

Communist,”, which circulated during the 1950s, notes that “such hobbies as ‘folk

dancing’ and ‘folk music’ have been traditionally allied with the Communist movement

in the United States” (6). With its tradition of cloaking political and subversive

messages in stories and fables, folk music was especially vulnerable to J. Edgar Hoover’s

accusations of “Aesopian” language, a potentially dangerous type of propaganda, which

he viewed as the tool of communists to “mislead the public” (Hoover 130). Because of

his participation in May Day rallies and other political events, Seeger’s name was listed

in Red Channels, the infamous blacklist put out by Counterattack7 in 1950, which also

included Alan Lomax8 and Oscar Brand9 among others associated with folk music and



5

culture. The FBI informant Harvey Matusow identified Seeger as a professed

communist in 1951, which was another blow to his career and reputation. Facing

increasing surveillance and a lack of opportunities to perform, the Weavers officially

broke up in 1952.

15 It was inevitable that Seeger would be called before HUAC, the notorious House

committee formed in 1938 in charge of investigating alleged subversives. By the

mid-1950s, the committee had already subpoenaed a range of high-profile artists

including the Hollywood Ten, Bertolt Brecht, and Langston Hughes among others. On

18 August 1955, Seeger, accompanied by his lawyer Paul Ross, was brought before a

HUAC subcommittee at Foley Square, amid four days of testimonies in which twenty-

three individuals were questioned. Ross was well known for working on cases

defending the civil liberties of left-wing figures and also encountered the government’s

suspicion, not only for his legal work, but for his progressive political affiliations and

civil rights activism. Leading up to the testimony, Seeger deliberated over whether to

plead the Fifth or the First. Enraged by the committee’s overreaches, Seeger told Ross:

“I want to get up there […] and attack these guys for what they are, the Worst of

America, the witch hunters” (qtd in Dunaway 207). Ross advocated a more cautious

approach (Dunaway 207) and Seeger ultimately opted to implicitly plead the First. In an

interview with the CBC in 1965, he noted: “I didn’t actually take any [amendment], but

my lawyer said the only defense he could make of me was on the basis of the First.” In

the same interview, his anger towards the committee was still apparent ten years later,

as he characterized HUAC as “a group of American Fascists” and explained why he did

not plead the Fifth: “I wanted to say you have no right to ask any American citizen this

question” (“Pete Seeger on being Black Listed”).

16 Francis E. Walter presided over Seeger’s hearing and the two most vocal participants

were Gordon Scherer, a Republican Representative from Ohio’s first district, and

Frank S. Tavenner, chief counsel for the committee. In his testimony, Seeger verbally

invoked no amendment but implicitly pleaded the First. After the prosecution of the

Hollywood Ten in 1947 (who were all convicted of contempt while appealing to their

First Amendment rights) most unfriendly witnesses opted to exercise their Fifth

Amendment right to resist self-incrimination, or as popularly understood, the right to

remain silent. Seeger, however, chose “to make a broader attack upon the committee”

(Incompleat Folksinger 468), situating his argument within debates over freedom of

speech.

17 In his testimony, Seeger enacted several strategies of dissent by refusing to answer the

committee’s questions, conflating religious and political freedom as core American

ideals, and arguing that political belief is protected as free thought and speech.

Stressing his American identity and invoking his rights as an American citizen, Seeger’s

tactics of resistance to the repressive state apparatus also included citing familial

forefathers and pointing out his aforementioned military service to the nation during

World War II. On the stand and in public forums, he defended his reputation and

shielded his views with the language of American freedom and liberty as a form of self-

defense. These tropes can be seen not only in his testimony but in other documents he

wrote surrounding his case, including letters, public interviews, and autobiographical

writings, platforms he used to take control of his narrative and defend his reputation

within the public sphere.10



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18 Seeger’s approach also brought to the fore the inherent conflict between national

security and individual liberty during the period. By emphasizing his own humble

aspirations and his status as a banjo-picker, Seeger constructed a persona that could be

viewed by the public as non-threatening in appearance, profession, and rhetoric. The

New York Times took the bait and Milton Bracker described Seeger’s appearance at the

HUAC testimony as follows: “Pete Seeger, 36, who called himself ‘a banjo picker’

appeared wearing a tweed jacket, over a dark plaid shirt with a yellow tie. He cited no

amendment, rejecting the whole line of inquiry as ‘improper’ and ‘immoral’” (Bracker).

19 Appealing to ethos was foundational to Seeger’s rhetorical approach as he projected

the image of an affable, courteous persona while simultaneously refusing to cooperate

with the authorities. By emphasizing his songs rather than his politics, Seeger

sidestepped any direct political engagement and instead underscored the issue of

freedom of expression, stressing the government’s encroachment upon his individual

liberty and freedom of belief and opinion, which, he maintained, was an ideological

foundation of American thought. This strategy was indeed a conscious one, and in his

autobiography, The Incompleat Folksinger, Seeger maintains that his goal was to

construct a narrative that showed one individual up against HUAC. In other words, he

was engaging in a form of public performance to expose the committee’s absurdity as

well as its danger to the country.

20 More specifically, Seeger “played the rube,” a strategy taken directly from the rural

folk cultures that had such an important influence on his musical work, as he projected

and performed the role of a naive, guileless persona while craftily manipulating the

situation to his advantage. Playing the role of the folksy musician while maintaining

complete control of his demeanor and language, he prodded and poked his

interrogators throughout the testimony, expertly pulling back and maintaining an

innocent posture all the while brazenly refusing to reveal any pertinent information.

He used colloquial language, often adding unnecessary information, seizing time, and

frustrating the committee’s sense of control over the situation. When Tavenner asked

him if New York had been his “headquarters for a significant period of time,” Seeger

replied informally as if responding to a question from a new acquaintance: “No, I lived

here only rarely until I left school, and after a year or two or a few years living here

after World War II, I got back to the country, where I always felt at home” (Seeger,

“Testimony” 687). When asked about his “profession,” he responded with a short

conversational reflection on his early years:

MR. SEEGER: It is hard to call it a profession. I kind of drifted into it and I neverintended to be a musician, and I am glad I am one now, and it is a very honorableprofession, but when I started out actually I wanted to be a newspaperman, andwhen I left school—CHAIRMAN WALTER: Will you answer the question, please?MR. SEEGER: I have to explain that it really wasn’t my profession, I picked up a littlechange in it. (Seeger, “Testimony” 687)

His informal behavior expressed absolute disrespect for the committee’s authority even

as his peaceful, convivial demeanor only served to emphasize the aggressiveness of the

committee’s manner and line of questioning. As a friendly “unfriendly” witness,

Seeger’s prepared statement shut off any line of inquiry about his politics while

opening other forms of dialogue outside the bounds of the committee’s focus. He

refused to name names or implicate himself in any way, yet he frequently offered to

provide information about the content, meaning, and significance of his songs, even



7

offering to perform them for the committee. This was not simply a testimony but a

performance constructed to shape public opinion about the committee’s infringement

upon an “ordinary” American’s private life.

21 One of the most interesting aspects of Seeger’s case revolves around his perspective on

religious and political belief. By tying politics and religion together under a broader

category of belief, he sought to separate private matters from matters of the state. He

also frequently used language with religious connotations both during the hearing and

when writing about the case afterwards. In his clearly prepared statement of refusal, he

conflated political and religious freedom explicitly:

I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical orreligious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any ofthese private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American tobe asked especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very glad to tell youmy life if you want to hear of it. (Seeger, “Testimony” 688)

To avoid charges of having advocated the “violent overthrow of the government”

under the Smith Act, Seeger frequently insisted that he had not engaged in any

“conspiratorial” behavior, pointing out that he had performed in a diverse range of

public and private spaces for artists of all political persuasions. Even more significantly,

he argued that music as personal expression and politics as personal belief were

shielded by the clauses under the First Amendment that protected freedom of religion

and freedom of speech. Although the First Amendment does not explicitly mention

freedom of political belief, Seeger essentially separated belief from action, a line of

reasoning that shared some similarities with one of the key arguments that would

overturn the convictions of communist leaders in Yates v. United States in 1957, by

differentiating between “abstract principles” and actions.

22 The religious language continued throughout the testimony alongside Seeger’s use of

an interrogative approach. At one point, for example, he was asked to identify his own

image in a photograph taken of a May Day parade in 1952. He looked at the photograph

and responded with a rhetorical question: “It is like Jesus Christ when asked by Pontius

Pilate, ‘Are you King of the Jews?’” Tying together politics and religion once again, this

remark struck a chord with journalists and was quoted in articles published by The

Washington Post and The New York Times. Later in a 1963 letter to Harold Leventhal, the

manager of the Weavers and a promoter of other important folk musicians including

Judy Collins and Bob Dylan, Seeger reflected upon his political views and elaborated on

the deeper significance of this question and on the nature of questions in general:

Actually, everyone knows there are lots of questions you can’t settle with a yes orno answer. After all, why did Jesus Christ refuse to give a yes or no answer whenPilate asked him “Are You King Of The Jews?” The reason was that either a yes or ano answer would have been misleading or untrue. Jesus did not consider himselfany temporal ruler, but in the deepest spiritual sense the King of all Mankind.(Seeger, “As Communist” 113)

Seeger was charged with contempt, but he continued to discuss religious freedom

during the appeal process.11 The religious language also persisted in later documents

tied to his case. In his statement to the court in his 1961 appeal, he invoked his familial

forefathers, positioning his own story as political dissenter in a lineage of religious

dissenters: “Some of my ancestors were religious dissenters who came to America over

300 years ago. Others were abolitionists in New England of the 1840s and ’50s. I believe

that in choosing my present course I do no dishonor to them, or to those who may

come after me” (Seeger, “Statement” 107). In this subsequent prepared statement



8

before the court, he described his experience before HUAC as a form of public

humiliation: “The House committee wished to pillory me because it didn’t like some

few of the many thousands of places I have sung for” (“Statement” 107). The thrust of

Seeger’s argument was still that politics fall under a larger category of beliefs that, he

maintained, are protected under freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the right

to peaceful assembly. His emphasis on a private individual self also shows the influence

on his thought of writers like Emerson and Thoreau, the latter of whom he first read at

the age of thirteen (Seeger, “My Political Bio” 92). By braiding together religious and

political freedom, Seeger positioned himself as a political dissenter not unlike religious

dissenters in early colonial histories—a legacy that was, of course, also invoked in 1953

by Arthur Miller in The Crucible about the Salem witch trials in seventeenth-century

Massachusetts.

23 Despite the indirect rhetoric in his testimony, Seeger admitted later, during his

subsequent trial, that his approach to HUAC was not merely about defending himself.

In a letter to Bess Hawes, Alan Lomax’s sister, Seeger explains that his goal was not just

to prove his own innocence, but to challenge the entire enterprise as “a complete

distortion of the correct practices and the legal practices of Congress” (Seeger, “Letter

to Bess Hawes” 111). He goes on to claim that his attack was offensive: “And my best

defense, frankly, is a hard-hitting offense to try and put this committee out of

business” (111). Intersecting religious and political language again, he argues that “the

question” at the center of his trial is “not one of conspiracy but heresy” (112),

differentiating more specifically between plans to overthrow the government and “the

legal right to believe in heresy of whatever form” (112). He goes on to assert:

“Congressman Walter has a perfectly good right to proclaim his belief that certain ideas

are harmful to America, but he has absolutely no right to go unchallenged with his

claim that these beliefs are illegal and conspiratorial and un-American” (112).

Emphasizing themes of plurality and dialogue as foundational ideals of American

society, he argues that freedom of belief includes the right to heresy, whether religious

or political: “America has plenty of room for heresies. It would not be such a good

country without them” (112).

24 As Seeger fought a long battle in the court system over the contempt charges, he

continued to face scrutiny not only from the government, but also from the American

public. The American Legion was particularly antagonistic, staging protests and pickets

in front of his concerts even into the 1970s. But similar themes persisted in Seeger’s

rhetoric as he brandished patriotic rhetoric as a means of defending himself from

attack on his character and music. In April 1956, he was scheduled to participate in a

folk concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Only months after his testimony,

several veterans groups protested his presence at the concert, receiving public support

from the Brooklyn Borough President, John Cashmore. Seeger responded to these

attacks by highlighting his own military service during World War II and proclaiming

that he sang “all of American history” (“Singer Draws Fire”).

25 Prior to his trial, Pete Seeger even attempted to contact the President of the United

States directly. In a letter dated 5 March 1961 found in the Kennedy archives, Seeger

outlined his story and appealed his case, including direct quotes from the testimony

itself, highlighting the moment when Tavenner interrogated him about the song

“Wasn’t That a Time.” As in his testimony and other texts associated with the case,

Seeger cites a familial forefather: he tells the story of his uncle, the poet Alan Seeger,



9

whom he describes as “the second American to die in World War I.” He includes one of

Alan Seeger’s poems, which calls out America’s neglect of social issues and laments that

“each man must share / The stain he lets the country wear.” He concludes the letter

with a rhetorical question that reflects upon the poem: “Should we not heed it now?”

(“Letter to JFK”). Pointed rhetorical questions like these were an important tactic for

Seeger. Similarly, he concluded his 1961 statement before the court of appeals with a

question: “Do I have the right to sing these songs? Do I have the right to sing them

anywhere?” (“Statement” 108).

26 Seeger’s right to sing his songs was ultimately protected in a long court battle that

resulted in a reversal of his contempt charges in 1962, but the experience left a strong

imprint on him. In his autobiography, Seeger discusses the lingering effects of the

committee on America’s global reputation: “The HUAC and similar inquisitions hurt

America a great deal. Our reputation throughout the world suffers when citizens in

other countries read in their papers about Americans being pilloried or jailed for their

opinions. If one truly loves America, one should try to put inquisitors out of business”

(Incompleat Folksinger 467). Regarding his own personal political and religious opinions,

he continued to remain elusive. A poet at his core, he encouraged those interested in

figuring out his politics to look deep within the lyrics of his songs. In his

autobiography, he defines a “left-wing extremist” as “Someone who stands up to

defend the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the Sixth Commandment

(Thou Shalt Not Kill)” (Incompleat Folksinger 462). This definition reveals his belief that

radical thought is rooted in the foundation of American society, and amounts to no

more than upholding and protecting the liberties built into the very structure of the

nation. One of the most direct statements of his larger worldview can be found in a

passage where he uses an eccentric mixture of theology and folklore to outline some of

his thoughts on human relationships and the planet:

If I had to accept any kind of label, I’d call myself some kind of Naturalist, perhapslike the Swedenborgians12—although I haven’t read enough about it to know forsure. But I so admired Johnny Appleseed,13 who was a Swedenborgian, that I namedmy magazine column after him. I’m not a vegetarian, but I do believe that Manmust learn to live in harmony with nature or we shall destroy this earth andourselves. I guess I’m about as Communist as the average American Indian was.(Incompleat Folksinger 479)

Published in 1972, these comments reflect on his experiences during his trial, while

also illustrating his turn towards environmentalism, which he began to explore more

explicitly in his music and activism in the 1960s. In 1969, Seeger, along with a group of

civil rights activists and folk musicians, sailed the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, a

106-foot historical replica ship, from Maine to New York to raise awareness about water

pollution. In 1970, they took the boat to the first Earth Day. With McCarthyism behind

him, this idiosyncratic mixture of left-wing radicalism and environmentalism would

inform the anti-war, human rights, and environmental work that Seeger devoted

himself to for the last fifty years of his life.

All-American Communist: Paul Robeson’s Testimony,12 June 1956

27 In a 1937 speech for the National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief, an association

formed to coordinate relief efforts during the Spanish Civil War, Paul Robeson offered a



10

strong statement about his belief on the relationship between art and politics: “the

artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my

choice. I had no alternative. The history of the capitalist era is characterized by the

degradation of my people” (P. Robeson, “Artist” 119). This choice to stand against

racism, capitalism, and imperialism came with profound consequences for Robeson,

and he experienced the brutal hand of the repressive state apparatus throughout his

life. Like many black artists and political leaders who spoke openly about politics

during the Cold War, Robeson countered the projected image of the United States as a

moral superpower by bringing to light and denouncing segregation and other forms of

racial injustice within the country. Influenced by W.E.B. Du Bois as well as by African

intellectuals and political leaders, whom he met while studying in London and traveling

the world during the 1930s and ’40s, he connected racism within the United States with

a larger project of colonization and Western imperialism. His study of African histories,

cultures, and languages also informed both his aesthetics and politics. In his discussion

of Robeson’s interest in languages, Gerald Horne points out that “language was not just

a tool of communication, but also a way to forge a deeper connection with social—and

political—consequence” (9). Robeson employed these gifts in political rhetoric and his

artistic talents in film, theater, and music as an instrument for Black liberation.

28 Robeson’s political and artistic projects were seen as particularly dangerous to US

foreign policy during the period. As the United States moved toward a strategy of

containment (prompted by George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” and enacted from

1947-1961 to actively impede the spread of communism throughout the world), this

also played out on the cultural front. In this “ideological war,” artists could be potential

subversives, not only domestically but also abroad, as their bodies and unregulated

cultural works crossed national boundaries. Musicians, writers, artists, and filmmakers

who performed for or created work for international audiences had the potential to

shape the image of the United States or to circulate “dissident” ideologies through

their works and through their political speeches and publications, thus undermining or

even subverting the American government’s strategy of political and cultural

containment. As Mary Dudziak argues in Cold War Civil Rights, activists, artists, and

writers who talked openly about racial oppression in the United States exposed the

failure of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms on the home front, calling into

question the very ethos of the American capitalist project.14 Robeson refused to allow

the federal government to control the narrative about racism in the United States, and

with his expansive global network, from the relationships he built with African political

leaders like Jomo Kenyatta to his travels in the Soviet Union, he had manifold

opportunities to dispute the watered-down version of American racism disseminated

by the official channels of the federal government. According to Gerald Horne,

Robeson’s life and work embodied a “radical internationalism” that was particularly

dangerous to the American political establishment, “since he was effectively eroding

Washington’s sovereignty in pursuit of racial equality domestically and the socialist

commonwealth globally that would guarantee it” (11). Not only in his rhetoric, but also

in his art, which built bridges across world folk cultures, Robeson expressed and

enacted his political beliefs, boldly stating his anti-capitalist perspective at a time when

political expression was being curtailed:

On many occasions I have publicly expressed my belief in the principles of scientificsocialism, my deep conviction that for all mankind a socialist society representsand advance to a higher stage of life—that it is a form of society which is



11

economically, socially, culturally, and ethically superior to a system based uponproduction for private profit. (P. Robeson, Here I Stand 47)

29 Though an idealist in his philosophical views about race, class, and empire, Robeson

was also a pragmatist and with his background in law (he received his law degree from

Columbia University in 1923), he appealed to the Constitution and other forms of

legislative resistance to defend himself against anti-communist attacks and advocate

for black liberation in the United States and the world. Several years before presenting

his own testimony before HUAC, Robeson criticized the committee on many occasions,

frequently terming it “the Un-American Activities Committee.” Challenging the

hegemony of HUAC by refusing to allow the committee to function as a nameless,

faceless entity, he disseminated information about its individual members. In a press

conference following the friendly testimony delivered by the prominent African

American baseball player Jackie Robinson,15 Robeson focused his critique not on

Robinson, but on the committee itself, calling out Georgia Representative John S. Wood:

“We cannot forget that John S. Wood chairman of the committee, once called the Ku

Klux Klan an American institution” (P. Robeson, “Let’s Not Be Divided” 220). In a news

release from 20 July 1949, put out by the Council on African Affairs,16 Robeson again

accused the committee of complicity in racial violence: “The Un-American Activities

Committee moves now to transform the Government’s cold war policy against Negro

people into a hot war. Its action incites the Ku Klux Klan, that openly terrorist

organization, to a reign of mob violence against my people in Florida and elsewhere”

(“Statement” 218). He personally experienced this intersection of anti-communist and

racist targeting in the mob attack at the Peekskill Riots only a few months later.

30 If the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 served to control immigration and prevent

dissident ideas from penetrating US borders, the passport restrictions of US citizens

under the Internal Security Act of 1950 stymied the free movement of people and

radical ideas outside the country. In this way, the American government attempted to

gain more control over the perception of the United States abroad, while also blocking

potential transnational radical encounters, particularly between left-wing thinkers like

Robeson and the rising tide of anti-colonial independence movements and activist

campaigns in India, Ghana, and Kenya among others. In 1950, Robeson attempted to

renew his passport and was ordered to sign an affidavit declaring his loyalty to the

state. He refused to do so, and his application was denied. In his reflection on his

passport situation, he noted that after the Hollywood Ten were convicted of contempt

when pleading the First, he resolved never “to comply with any demand of legislative

committees or department officials that infringes upon the Constitutional rights of all

Americans” (P. Robeson, Here I Stand 47). Not only did this keep Robeson from

performing abroad, but it also affected the political, artistic, and personal relationships

he had spent years building around the world. Unable to perform concerts or act in

theater or film projects abroad, while also facing continued blacklisting within the

United States, Robeson’s professional opportunities were severely limited. He was not

the only prominent black radical affected by these stringent controls. Du Bois lost his

passport in 1952. A writer and anthropologist, Robeson’s spouse Eslanda Robeson, was

called before the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the

Committee on Government Operation in 1953 and lost her passport as well.17 Much to

his great disappointment, Robeson was not able to travel to Indonesia to attend the

Bandung Conference in 1955, a meeting of Asian and African leaders focused on world

peace, decolonization, and international collaboration. However, during this period of



12

repression, Robeson continued to build transnational connections through the arts,

exploiting new technological means, performing concerts via telephone, sending audio

recordings abroad, and even performing concerts for workers at the border between

Canada and the United States.

31 Beginning in 1950, Robeson waged a long legal battle against the State Department to

have his passport reinstated. For this well-publicized case, which received international

attention in no small part due to Eslanda Robeson’s publicity work, his lawyers argued

that the denial of his right to travel violated both his First Amendment rights and his

property right or “right to earn a living by practicing his profession” (E. Robeson). In

the July-August 1955 issue of the Harlem-based newspaper Freedom, founded by Louis

Burnham and himself, Robeson discusses the invitations he received from around the

world to speak and perform, and declares that “despite all these invitations, the State

Department continued to deny me a passport, refused my Constitutional right to go

where I please and when I please so long as I don’t break the law” (“Constitutional

Right” 406). During this period, the federal government (as his FBI file shows) also

scrutinized every aspect of Robeson’s political and personal life in the United States

and this culminated when he was brought before the House Un-American Activities

Committee on 12 June 1956. Because of the passport case, which went through several

appeals and about which he wrote frequently, Robeson was well-prepared for this

moment. His background in law, the arts, and political activism also made him the ideal

candidate to take on such a monumental task. His testimony before HUAC, by any

assessment, is an astounding document of American history. Invoking the Fifth

Amendment, Robeson, who was accompanied by the prominent civil liberties lawyer

Leonard Boudin, moved adeptly and fluidly between legal and rhetorical tactics, as he

chastised and questioned the committee and turned the courtroom into a public

platform to advocate for black liberation in the United States and the world.

32 One of Robeson’s key strategies was to interrogate the committee. From the beginning

of the testimony, Robeson questioned its legitimacy, thus reversing the power

dynamics and putting its members on trial. From demanding that the committee

members introduce themselves and state their positions to asking them pointed

questions about themselves and the legal process, Robeson dismissed the institutional

hierarchy and instead inserted his own expertise and knowledge into the courtroom,

by assuming the role of a moral prosecutor and cross-examining the committee

members. Although resolute and austere in his argumentation, he also used biting

sarcasm on several occasions to highlight the absurdity in the line of questioning.

When Richard Arens asked him if he was a member of the Communist Party, he

retorted: “Would you like to come to the ballot box when I vote and take out the ballot

box and see?” (“Testimony” 773). When Arens demanded that he identify a document

with his photo on it, Robeson merely noted that he owned a copy of it himself.

33 Robeson used his extensive knowledge of American history to contextualize his own

antagonistic relationship with the state within a longer narrative of political resistance

and dissent. When questioned by Arens about alleged anti-American views based on his

comments against American imperialism, Robeson reframed the discourse by

comparing himself to the well-known black abolitionists Frederick Douglass and

Harriet Tubman (“Testimony” 782). Referring to these American historical figures

served to position his own narrative in a lineage of American political dissidence on the

right side of history. While aligning himself with fellow American dissidents, he also



13

highlighted the precedents for his experience of political repression, revealing the

committee’s own legal lineage: “I am here because I am opposing the neo-Fascist cause

which I see arising in these committees. You are like the Alien [and] Sedition Act, and

Jefferson could be sitting here, and Frederick Douglass could be sitting here and Eugene

Debs could be here” (785). By referencing the controversial 1798 Alien and Sedition

Acts, which put dually stringent restrictions on immigration and political expression,

Robeson placed the committee within a history of suppressive measures. He also cited

his own family history, alluding to ancestors who contributed to the American

Revolution as well as enslaved ancestors who built the nation: “My mother was born in

your state, Mr. Walter, and my mother was a Quaker, and my ancestors in the time of

Washington baked bread for George Washington’s troops when they crossed the

Delaware, and my own father was a slave” (778).

34 One of the most significant examples of Robeson’s usage of moral prosecution emerged

in his historic encounter with Chairman Francis E. Walter, Pennsylvania

Representative.18 The incident occurred after Robeson addressed the chairman directly,

disrupting a particularly tedious onslaught of questions. “Could I ask whether this is

legal?” Robeson demanded. Walter responded by hiding himself behind institutional

language: “This is legal. This is not only legal but usual. By a unanimous vote, this

Committee has been instructed to perform this very distasteful task” (“Testimony”

777). Robeson’s subsequent confrontation with the chairman forced Walter to publicly

admit his role in perpetuating American racism and xenophobia, an admission not only

for the press but for the annals of history:

MR. ROBESON: To whom am I talking?THE CHAIRMAN: You are speaking to the Chairman of this Committee.MR. ROBESON: Mr. Walter?THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.MR. ROBESON: The Pennsylvania Walter?THE CHAIRMAN: That is right.MR. ROBESON: Representative of the steelworkers?THE CHAIRMAN: That is right.MR. ROBESON: Of the coal-mining workers and not United States Steel by anychance? A great patriot.THE CHAIRMAN: That is rightMR. ROBESON: You are the author of all of the bills that are going to keep all kindsof decent people out of the country.THE CHAIRMAN: No, only your people.MR. ROBESON: Colored people like myself, from the West Indies and all kinds. Andjust the Teutonic Anglo-Saxon stock that you would let come in.THE CHAIRMAN: We are trying to make it easier to get rid of your kind, too.(“Testimony” 777)

In this rhetorical back and forth, Robeson refused to allow Walter to cloak himself in

anonymity and hide behind his institutional position, instead forcing him to publicly

acknowledge his views in a quotable audio bite, which was picked up by the Chicago

Defender among other papers. By ironically flattering and then baiting Walter to admit

his racism publicly, Robeson won the moral battle, and his victory would be in the

public record.

35 In a similar vein, Robeson expounded the ways in which racism factored into red-

baiting. He went so far as to claim that the threat posed by the Soviet Union should

challenge the United States to confront its racism directly. When the committee

members brought forward his affiliations with the Soviet Union, Robeson remained



14

evasive and instead turned the emphasis back to the problem of racism in the United

States, a strategy he frequently used when called upon to justify his relationship with

the Soviet Union. After pointing that his passport rejection had been motivated by his

anti-colonial work, he noted the crux of the matter:

The other reason that I am here today, again from the State Department and fromthe court record of the court of appeals, is that when I am abroad I speak outagainst the injustices against the Negro people of this land […].This is the basis, andI am not being tried for whether I am a Communist, I am being tried for fighting forthe rights of my people, who are still second-class citizens of the United States ofAmerica. (“Testimony” 778)

History has proven Robeson’s perspective valid and this explains why so many other

black artists who did not identify as communists were also scrutinized by the

government; for example Josephine Baker, a performer and public figure whose

political work focused exclusively on racial justice, had an extensive FBI file that shows

evidence of agents monitoring her travels around the world, despite the fact that she

became a French citizen in 1937.

36 Robeson’s 1956 HUAC testimony culminated with his chastisement of the committee, in

which he inverted notions of un-Americanism, accusing the committee of civil liberty

violations, once again citing the Alien and Sedition Acts as a historical precedent for

the anti-communist witch hunt of the twentieth century. The dialogue grew

particularly tense when Robeson was questioned about his relationship with the

Communist Party leader Benjamin Davis. Rather than remaining silent, Robeson

proudly acknowledged his relationship with the Party leader who had been indicted

under the Smith Act in 1949. He then praised Davis before castigating the committee: “I

say that he is as patriotic an American as there can be, and you gentlemen belong with

the Alien and Sedition Acts and you are the non-patriots, and you are the un-

Americans, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves” (“Testimony” 789). In this

intrepid rhetorical move, Robeson symbolically indicted the committee while staking a

claim for political dissent as a patriotic act. This also bifurcated the debate,

differentiating between two versions of, and visions for, America: the “perverted

Americanism” and nativism of the Alien and Sedition Acts, and the patriotism of

communists like Benjamin Davis, who, Robeson argued, were fighting for a better

future for the country and the world.

37 Robeson also wrote a prepared statement that he intended to read during the hearing.

Though he repeatedly asked the committee for permission to read this document, they

refused to grant it. In this statement as in his testimony, he questions the questioners,

calling the committee members out by name and demanding that they take

responsibility for their “un-American” activities:

It would be more fitting for me to question Walter, [James] Eastland and [JohnFoster] Dulles than for them to question me, for it is they who should be called toaccount for their conduct, not I. Why does Walter not investigate the truly “un-American” activities of Eastland and his gang to whom the Constitution is a scrap ofpaper when invoked by the Negro people and to whom defiance of the SupremeCourt is a racial duty? And how can Eastland pretend concern over the internalsecurity of our country while he supports the most brutal assaults on fifteen millionAmericans by the White Citizens’ Councils and the Ku Klux Klan. (“Statement” 977)

In a litany of invitations and endorsements from organizations such as the Workers

Music Association, Ltd., and the South Wales Miners, he also emphasizes the backing

for his case around the world, forcing the committee to look beyond the provincial



15

confines of domestic politics and view its actions in a global perspective. He concludes

by highlighting his contributions to American national life and culture: “By continuing

the struggle at home and abroad for peace and friendship with all of the world’s people,

for an end to colonialism, for full citizenship for Negro Americans, for a world in which

art and culture may abound, I intend to continue to win friends for the best in

American life” (“Statement” 980).

38 On “Red Monday” 17 June 1957, in Yates v. the United States, the Supreme Court

overturned the convictions of communist leaders in California. This ruling was one of

the first steps towards attenuating the Smith Act, but the passport restrictions

remained in effect. Still without his passport in May 1958, Robeson performed a concert

at Carnegie Hall, in New York City, one of the most acclaimed stages in the world. In

this performance, he used music to transport his audience to the other side of the Iron

Curtain, performing political, creative dissent amid a tense period of both personal and

political repression. In this performance, Robeson connected the local with the global,

appealing to an internationalist sense of human connectedness in an affective, defiant

performance indicting the state’s infringement upon his creative liberty and right to

travel. As the concert recording shows, Robeson sang a selection of songs, giving a

transcendent reach not only to spirituals like “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless

Child,” but also to folk standards like “Joe Hill.” One of the most provocative and

emotionally evocative pieces in the concert was his rendition of “The Song of the Volga

Boatmen” in both English and Russian. This is a simple, repetitive work song that was

historically sung by burlaks, or barge-haulers, who were tied together to drag barges

from the water. The song was collected in the nineteenth century and has become an

important cultural symbol of Russian national identity. Through his powerful

performance, Robeson channeled the embodied pain of the Russian worker; yet, rather

than a patriotic anthem of triumph, he lingered over the melancholy notes,

transforming his own experience of political repression at the hands of the state into

an act of creative dissent. One month later, on 15 June 1958, in Kent v. Dulles, the

Supreme Court ruled that “The right to travel is a part of the ‘liberty’ of which a citizen

cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment.” Robeson’s

passport ban was lifted. Although the public witch hunts of the McCarthy era were

finally coming to an end, Hoover’s covert strategies under COINTELPRO (1957-1971)

would serve as the next phase of a brutal campaign of political suppression directly

targeting Robeson’s political descendants, the Black Panther Party, among other left-

wing groups.

Conclusion

39 Although left-wing rhetoric took a more anti-establishment tenor during the 1960s, the

patriotic rhetorical gestures used by figures like Robeson and Seeger remained largely

uncontested by the left-wing press or by fellow artists and activists during this period

of political suppression. Both Robeson and Seeger were celebrated in the Daily Worker

after testifying before HUAC. Robeson’s 1950 passport case was carefully followed by

the Daily Worker and the Sunday Worker, and it received international support from left-

wing political leaders and fellow artists such as Charlie Chaplin and Pablo Neruda. In

fact, Seeger, among other musicians, performed at many of the numerous benefit

concerts organized to raise awareness about Robeson’s passport case. As Barbara J.



16

Beeching has shown, the response to Robeson’s passport case by the black press was

varied, with some papers like the California Eagle, steered by Charlotta Bass,19 showing

unequivocal support, and others offering neutral or negligible coverage. For the left,

Robeson’s defiant testimony before HUAC was the climax in a narrative that had been

unfolding for years. The day after his testimony, Robeson’s story was on the front page

of the Daily Worker with the headline “Un-Americans Cite Robeson as He Blasts Racism.”

40 Although it received less coverage, Seeger’s testimony was also highlighted in the Daily

Worker, in an article by David Platt which featured the lyrics to the song Seeger

attempted to sing before the committee, “Wasn’t that a Time?” Platt describes it as a

“patriotic” song about “Valley Forge, Gettysburg, and the fight against Fascism.”

Emphasizing the lines in the song that express the speaker’s concern about the

encroachment of fascism into the United States, Platt also comments that “The Un-

Americans couldn’t afford to have Pete sing out those truths and thus explode their

preposterous charges of subversion in their faces” (6). After his own trial, which ended

in 1962, Seeger reflected upon his experience and articulated his respect for Robeson’s

strategy with a hint of regret: “I feel I was too damn polite. I wish I had stood up and

shouted at that HUAC, as did Paul Robeson, ‘YOU ARE THE UNAMERICANS!’”

(Incompleat Folksinger 479). In 1998, Seeger went on to add that “one of this country’s

greatest Cold War crimes was the stopping of [Robeson’s] voice, so it could not be heard

by the hundreds of millions” (“Remembering” 59).

41 Although Robeson and Seeger came from two different lineages in American left-wing

thought, they shared many political and musical influences, and their respective

testimonies exhibit some notable similarities. Both responded to allegations of un-

Americanness by situating their stories within historical traditions of American dissent,

emphasizing their familial forefathers, and appealing to American laws, the

Constitution, and such solid ideological foundations as freedom of speech. While

Seeger’s approach to HUAC stressed themes of personal and artistic liberty, Robeson’s

testimony and subsequent trial challenged not only the committee, but the entire

American establishment, confronting the history of racism in the United States and

calling out key players’ complicity in perpetuating racist policies at home and abroad.

42 Examining these testimonies in juxtaposition provides useful insight into how two

radical artists strategically countered constructions of un-Americanness and attempted

to reframe public discourse on radicalism by arguing that left-wing ideas were indeed

American ideas, while connecting this distinctly American radical tradition to a larger

internationalist vision, through politics and the arts. These two testimonies are

foundational documents of a form of American dissent that not only imagined, but

actively fought to make space for radical left-wing political expression in American

public discourse.

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17

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Presidency Project. presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/veto-the-internal-security-bill. Accessed

1 November 2021.

“Un-Americans Cite Robeson as He Blasts Racism.” Daily Worker, 13 June 1956, p. 1.

Secondary Sources

BEECHING, Barbara. “Paul Robeson and the Black Press: The 1950 Passport Controversy.” The

Journal of African American History, vol. 87, no. 3, 2002, p. 339-354.

BÉJA, Alice. “‘Dreaming (Un)American Dreams’: Anarchists and the Struggle to Define

Americanism.” Journal for the Study of Radicalism, vol. 13, no. 1, 2019, p. 1-18.

DUNAWAY, David King. How Can I Keep from Singing? The Ballad of Pete Seeger. New York: Villard

Books, 2008.

DUDZIAK, Mary L. Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy. Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 2000.

HIGHAM, John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925. New Brunswick:

Rutgers University Press, 2002

HORNE, Gerald. Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary. London: Pluto Press, 2016.

“Folk Singer Opposed: Cashmore Lauds Veterans’ Protest on Seeger.” The New York Times (1923-

Current file), 13 April 1956, p. 51. ProQuest. Web. Accessed 18 October 2019.

HORNE, Gerald. Black and Red: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War,

1944-1963. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986.



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http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/veto-the-internal-security-bill

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/veto-the-internal-security-bill

PRESTON, William, Jr. Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals, 1903-1933. Chicago:

University of Illinois Press, 1963.

RANSBY, Barbara. Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Robeson. New Haven: Yale

University Press, 2013.

RANSBY, Barbara. “Eslanda Robeson and Cold War Politics.” Race and Class, vol. 54, no. 4, 2013,

p. 104-109. journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306396813476177. Accessed 2 November

2021.

SCHRECKER, Ellen. “Immigration and Internal Security: Political Deportations during the

McCarthy Era.” Science and Society, vol. 60, no. 4, 1996-1997, p. 393-426. jstor.org/stable/40404675.

Accessed 1 November 2021.

SCHRECKER, Ellen. Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. Boston: Little, Brown, 1998.

WEINGARTNER, James J. “Trophies of War.” Pacific Historical Review, vol. 61, no. 1, 1992, p. 54-67.

NOTES

1. I would like to extend my gratitude to Asha Nadkarni and the American studies Works in

Progress group at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, as well as the two anonymous

reviewers for their insightful comments on early drafts. Special thanks also to Ron Welburn and

Traci Parker who assisted in the development of this article in its incipient stages.

2. Founded in 1946, the Civil Rights Congress was spearheaded by the attorney William Patterson,

a friend of Robeson’s. The organization protected and defended civil rights in the legal system by

publicizing cases and aiding defendants who were caught within a racist court system. Key

campaigns included the case of Willie McGee and the Trenton Six.

3. Albert Einstein, for instance, was opposed to pleading the Fifth, which he felt presumed guilt.

Certainly McCarthy exploited that potential for doubt as he chastised “Fifth Amendment

Communists” in his speeches on college campuses and other organizations. After the Hollywood

Ten pleaded the First on grounds of freedom of speech but were all charged with contempt, the

predominant legal strategy was to invoke the Fifth.

4. Written during the 1950s, John Higham’s work Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American

Nativism, 1860-1925 was a study prompted in part by the resurgence of nativism during the second

Red Scare. In the final chapter of the book, he remarks, “History may move partly in cycles but

never in circles. With every revolution some new direction opens, and some permanent accretion

is carried into the next phase” (330).

5. A friend and ally of Robeson’s, Benjamin J. Davis (1903-1964) was an African American

politician, lawyer, and writer, who served as the editor of the Daily Worker and held various

positions within Communist Party leadership at the local and national levels. A two-term city

council member in New York, Davis among other party leaders was convicted of aiding and

abetting the overthrow of the government under the Smith Act in 1940 and served over three

years in a federal prison. In 1962, he was charged again under the Internal Security Act, but

passed away before the case went to trial.

6. Regarding his time in college, Seeger notes: “I got so interested in politics I didn’t keep up with

my studies, lost my scholarship, dropped out of college, and in NYC joined a ‘Youth Workshop’

part of the YCL (Young Communist League)” (Seeger, “My Political Bio” 92).

7. An anti-communist newsletter, Counterattack: The Newsletter of Facts on Communism was

published by the organization American Business Consultants, Inc. (ABC) and published weekly

into the 1960s. Launched in 1947 by three former FBI agents Theodore C. Kirkpatrick, John G.



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https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306396813476177

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306396813476177

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40404675

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40404675

Keenan, and Kenneth M. Bierly, ABC was devoted to disseminating information about alleged

subversives.

8. An ethnomusicologist, Alan Lomax collected, recorded, and preserved world folk music for the

Library of Congress, the BBC, and Columbia Records. In 1945, Lomax, together with Pete Seeger,

founded People’s Songs, a group of musicians and folk enthusiasts who preserved, created, and

disseminated American labor songs. Robeson was on the board. Due to his interest in folk culture

and his support for the progressive candidate Henry A. Wallace, Lomax was investigated by the

FBI for subversive activities although he was never called before HUAC. He left the United States

for England in 1950 and spent the greater part of the 1950s collecting folk music in Europe.

9. A Canadian-American folk singer who performed with Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, and other

prominent American musicians, Oscar Brand, who was not a communist, caught the attention of

the FBI for his weekly radio show Oscar Brand’s Folksong Festival on WNYC in New York City, which

promoted folk music and free artistic expression. Despite the government’s suspicion, the radio

show ran for seventy years, serving as a bridge between an older generation of folk singers like

Seeger and Woody Guthrie, and newer voices such as Bob Dylan, whose first radio debut was on

the show.

10. In fact, directly after his testimony before HUAC, Seeger performed the patriotic song

“Jefferson and Liberty” outside the courtroom for the press. See also The Incompleat Folksinger,

where he reflects upon his case in 1968 and connects his environmental interest with a list of

dissenting forefathers: “It now is quite clear to millions that the America which Tom Paine and

Jefferson fought to build, which Thoreau, Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, and W.E.B.

Du Bois tried to develop, is steadily being destroyed. Not only are the rivers, the air and streets

polluted, but the gulf between rich and poor becomes wider, the gulfs between different sections

of the population become wider” (Incompleat Folksinger 479).

11. Seeger uses the figure of Christ and the language of religious liberty as a metaphor for his

own experience of political suppression rather than as a literal expression of his own belief.

Regarding his own spiritual views, Seeger observes in a 1992 meditation: “I guess I’ve gradually

come to the opinion that everything’s connected more closely than I realized. You can’t really

solve the problem of poverty on earth unless you can also solve the problem of pollution on

earth. And vice versa. My guess is we won’t solve the problem of racism and sexism and a whole

lot of other things until each of us individually, realizes how much we depend on others—

sometimes those near and dear to us, sometimes those faraway and unknown. It gets you to

thinking about eternity, about the spiritual, about the ways we are connected to one another […].

These days, I look upon God as everything” (“There are No Old Bold, Pilots” 333).

12. Seeger frequently referenced the Swedish mystic theologian Emmanuel Swedenborg

(1688-1772) in his writing, even though he was not a member of the New Church, the religious

movement that was inspired by Swedenborg’s visionary writings.

13. An American folk hero and New Church missionary, Johnny Appleseed (1774-1845?) was best

known for traveling the country and planting nurseries. Certainly, Johnny Appleseed’s

unconventional, itinerant life must have resonated with Seeger’s own mixture of bohemianism

and environmentalism.

14. In his 1941 State of the Union Address, President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously called for a

world built upon four essential freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from

want, and freedom from fear. By exposing racism and discrimination in the United States, black

activists, intellectuals, and artists illuminated the double standards in the country’s domestic and

foreign policies. One of the most important campaigns in this vein was the 1951 “We Charge

Genocide” petition, which showed how lynching, police brutality, and racial discrimination

within the United States accorded with the United Nation’s definition of genocide. On

17 December 1951, Paul Robeson, who did not have a passport, delivered a copy of this document

to the United Nations headquarters in New York, while William Patterson presented it in Paris.



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15. Although not subpoenaed, Jackie Robinson offered to testify before HUAC upon the bequest of

John S. Wood. In his statement, presented in July 1949, Robinson spoke out against racism and

segregation, but did not defend Robeson. Later in his autobiography published in 1972, Robinson

reflected on his experience: “I knew that Robeson was striking out against racial inequality in the

way that seemed best to him. However, in those days, I had much more faith in the ultimate

justice of the American white man than I have today. I would reject such an invitation if offered

now” (Robinson 83).

16. Founded in 1937 as the International Committee on African Affairs, this anti-colonial

organization (for which Robeson served as chairman) provided a link between political struggles

in Africa and the United States. Important campaigns included support for general strikes in

Nigeria in 1945 and a gold mine workers’ strike in South Africa in 1946. Publications such as the

1953 pamphlet “Resistance against Fascist Enslavement in South Africa” informed members

about struggles abroad. In 1953, the CAA was accused of serving as a communist-front

organization by Attorney General Herbert Brownell.

17. Eslanda Robeson’s testimony before this Senate committee, presided over by Joseph

McCarthy, is particularly interesting because she appealed not only to the Fifth Amendment but

also to the Fifteenth, arguing that the committee did not represent the interests of black

Americans due to voting restrictions in the South (Ransby, 2013b 105). See also Barbara Ransby’s

biography Eslanda: the Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson (2013a).

18. A World War II veteran who had allegedly given Franklin D. Roosevelt a letter opener made

from the arm bone of a Japanese soldier, Francis E. Walter was the other name behind the

McCarran-Walter Act (Weingartner 60).

19. The editor of the California Eagle, Charlotta Spears Bass was the first African American woman

to run for vice-presidential nomination in 1952 on the progressive party ticket. She was

monitored by the FBI for her civil rights activism, her publishing work, her political

campaigning, and her affiliations with prominent black leaders like Robeson and W.E.B. Du Bois.

ABSTRACTS

In this paper, I argue that the testimonies delivered by Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson before the

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) shed light on how left-wing artists performed

their radical identities in response to allegations of un-Americanism during the height of

McCarthyism. Situating Seeger’s and Robeson’s testimonies within their respective biographical

contexts, I offer a close reading of these two documents in juxtaposition, analyzing them not only

as historical archives but as rhetorical performances that illustrate how Seeger and Robeson

conceptualized national identity while also addressing internationalist concerns. The methods

that Seeger and Robeson employed to attack the committee are historically significant. While

Seeger’s testimony in August 1955 championed individual liberty and freedom of speech, using

the First Amendment as the foundation for his position, Robeson’s testimony delivered in June

1956 invoked an internationalist sense of social justice, linking left-wing politics, the civil rights

movement within the United States, and decolonization efforts around the world.

Dans cet article, j’analyse la façon dont le témoignage de Pete Seeger et celui de Paul Robeson

devant la commission de la Chambre des représentants sur les activités anti-américaines (HUAC)

éclairent la façon dont les artistes de gauche mettaient en scène leur identité radicale en réaction



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aux accusations d’anti-américanisme dont ils faisaient l’objet pendant le Maccarthysme. Resituer

les témoignages respectifs de Seeger et Robeson dans leur contexte biographique permet une

lecture fine de ces deux documents, qui sont ici analysés en tant qu’archives, mais également en

tant que performances historiques illustrant la manière dont Seeger et Robeson conçoivent

l’identité nationale, tout en demeurant internationalistes. Les méthodes employées par Seeger et

Robeson pour attaquer la commission ne sont pas anodines. Si, en août 1955, Seeger se fait le

porte-voix de la liberté individuelle et de la liberté d’expression, en fondant sa position sur le

premier amendement de la Constitution des États-Unis, Robeson, qui témoigne en juin 1956,

invoque une vision internationaliste de la justice sociale, et associe une position politique de

gauche au mouvement des droits civiques aux États-Unis et aux luttes contre le colonialisme à

travers le monde.

INDEX

Mots-clés: Communisme, Maccarthysme, chasse aux sorcières, HUAC, Paul Robeson, Pete Seeger

Keywords: Communism, McCarthyism, Red Scare, HUAC, Paul Robeson, Pete Seeger

AUTHOR

JODIE CHILDERS

University of Massachusetts, Amherst



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