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Pete Seeger

1919 New York, New York - 2014 New York, New York

BiographyPete Seeger was a prominent folk artist and social activists that popularized many different songs. He was born to a professor of musicology and a violinist and had learned how to play multiple instruments by the time he was a teenager. Seeger's style was specifically focused on American Folk music with his first group being The Almanac Singers and a later group called The Weavers. Seeger was also a very prominent social activist starting in the 1940s with protest and union songs and continuing well into the next decades. He faced FBI surveillance and investigations by the House of Unamerican Affairs Committee in the U.S. Congress. In 1942 he was drafted into the United States Army and served in Pacific theater. In the 1960s he attended many civil rights movement events including the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery. Seeger was also a prominent anti-war activist in the 1970s against the Vietnam War. He was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996.

Person TypeIndividual