"I Have Sung in Hobo Jungles, and I Have Sung for the Rockefellers":

Pete Seeger Refuses to "Sing" for HUAC

During the Cold War era, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) interrogated more than 3,000 government officials, labor union leaders, teachers, journalists, entertainers, and others. They wanted to purge Communists, former Communists, and "fellow travelers" who refused to renounce their past and inform on associates from positions of influence within American society. Among the Committee's targets were performers at events held in support of suspect organizations. Pete Seeger acquired a love of American folk music while traveling through the South in the 1930s with his father, a musicologist and classical composer, and as an employee in the Library of Congress' Archive of American Folk Song. As a folksinger motivated by concerns for social justice, cross-cultural communication, and international peace, Seeger performed songs from diverse sources to many kinds of audiences, and in 1948 campaigned for Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallace as part of the folk music organization People's Songs. In the following testimony before HUAC, Seeger refused to invoke the Fifth Amendment, protecting citizens from self-incrimination. Instead he insisted that the Committee had no right to question him regarding his political beliefs or associations. This strategy resulted in prison terms for contempt of Congress for the Hollywood Ten in 1947. Seeger himself was sentenced to a year in prison for contempt, but the verdict was reversed in 1962. Nevertheless, Seeger remained on a network television blacklist until the late 1960s.

The interrogation and Mr Seeger's answers are here. Let's see who among us will behave the same when we are called.