Folk Revival Revivalist

[m77113]

Joan Baez in Vietnam - December 1972

During the height of the war, Joan spent 13 days in North Vietnam witnessing firsthand the atrocities she so ardently protested against. She had to be constantly sheltered in her hotel’s bunkers from the Christmas bombings.

Joan returned with 13 hours of tape recordings of the war’s ambiance, which she used in the album “Where Are You Now, My Son?”

[m77113]

Joan Baez participating in the Selma to Montgomery March, 1965

[m77113]

Today is Joan Baez’s 82 birthday! Here she is with Civil Rights icon MLK Jr.

Photos are from the The Bob Fitch Photography Archive

[m77113]

Pete Seeger’s drawing for “Doodle for Hunger” - May 2002

This is a picture of the Sloop Clearwater with 50 kids on board learning how we must clean up the polluted Hudson River.

[m77113]

Pete Seeger with MLK, Rosa Parks, and Ralph David Abernathy at Highlander Folk School - September 2, 1957

He said of this day:

Anyway, Myles calls me up in 1957. Myles calls me up on the phone and says, "Pete, can you come down and lead some songs? We are having our twenty-fifth anniversary here at Highlander." And three young people drove up from Montgomery, Alabama, Dr. King, Reverend Abernathy, and Rosa, Rosa Parks. Rosa had actually come up to spend two weeks at Highlander and it was Highlander that got her to sit down. At the end of two weeks at Highlander, Myles went around the circle and asked, "What are you going to do when you get home to put into action what you've learned here? Don't just study and then go home." One person said, "Well I'm going to start voter registration," and the next person said, "I've gotta start before that. I've got to start literacy classes." They came to Rosa and she said, "I don't know what I'm going to do." "Well we'll get back to you. You must think of something." They got back to her and she said, "I really don't know what I'm going to do, but I am going to do something." And of course, she did and it changed history. …I met her, I met all three of them that day. As a matter of fact there is a picture taken of us out standing out standing in front of a cinder block wall that they enlarged the barn which became their library and King, Abernathy, Rosa, Me and Miles and Zelphilia's teenage daughter were there. That was the first time I met King. I sang a few songs. I didn't sing "We Shall Overcome" very well, but a friend drove him to Kentucky the next day to a speaking engagement and she remembers him sitting in the back seat saying, “We Shall Overcome,' that song really sticks with you, doesn’t it?”

[m77113]

Dave Van Ronk, Bob Dylan, Delores “Dee” Dixon, and Pete Seeger at Gil Turner’s wedding - August 26, 1962

Also can be seen is John Herald, Gordon Friesen, Agnes Sis Cunningham, Mark Spoelstra, and Rev. Gary Davis

Photos by Joe Alper

[m77113]

Josh White, Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly), and a young Pete Seeger in New York - March 1941

[m77113]

Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Fred Hellerman and Jean Ritchie in the WNYC studios, 1949