Music and Politics, 1900 to 1970: Union Songs, Blacklists and Freedom Songs

Political art in the twentieth century learned to travel by ear. A cartoon needs a newspaper and a photograph needs a printing press. A song needs a person who remembers it. Lesson 06 followed the camera. This lesson follows the singer from the union hall of 1909 to the Immigration and Naturalization Service of 1975, and it keeps the rule the course set at the start: the works from every direction get the same specific, fair analysis. The record shows protest songs and patriotic songs, union songs and answer songs, and governments that tried to stop several of them.

One housekeeping note. Most songs after 1930 are still under copyright, and the stricter rule for this course is to quote only a title and a few words. Where a lyric matters, the text describes what it says and points to the archive that holds it. That is how a journalist should treat song lyrics too, and lesson 10 explains the fair use reasoning in detail.

Songs as an organizing tool: the IWW and Joe Hill

The Industrial Workers of the World, whose members were called Wobblies, put out the first edition of its songbook in Spokane, Washington in 1909, assembled by a committee of members.⁶ Its original title was Songs of the Workers, on the Road, in the Jungles and in the Shops, according to the IWW's own newspaper, the Industrial Worker.⁷ The phrase "To Fan the Flames of Discontent" seems to have come later: The Big Red Songbook (page 478, as quoted on the We Never Forget site) says an Industrial Worker ad of August 20, 1910 announced a third, "very much improved" edition and that its cover introduced that phrase.⁸ By the count in the Wikipedia article that draws on the IWW's own centennial edition and the scholarly Big Red Songbook (Green, Roediger, Rosemont and Salerno, 2007), thirty-eight editions appeared between 1909 and 2010.⁹ The format was practical. A worker on a street corner competing with a Salvation Army band could not hand out sheet music, but could hand out a booklet small enough for a shirt pocket, with new words printed above the name of a tune everyone knew. The tune carried the song. The new words carried the argument. The term for this is contrafactum, and the songbook's contents list shows it plainly: "Solidarity Forever" is set to the tune of "John Brown's Body."

Joe Hill is the best known of its writers. The Utah State Archives confirms that a Salt Lake City grocer, John Morrison, and his son Arling were killed on January 10, 1914, that Hill appeared at a doctor's office that night with a gunshot wound, and that he was executed by firing squad on November 19, 1915.¹⁰ Its file of Governor William Spry's correspondence also shows that Swedish minister Ekengren asked for a postponement on September 26, 1915, that President Woodrow Wilson asked the same on September 30, that Spry granted a respite on September 30, and that his November reply to Wilson (which the archive marks as a suggested draft) refused to delay again.¹¹ The rest of the details below come from the standard biographies cited in the Wikipedia article (Philip Foner, Gibbs Smith, Franklin Rosemont), and this lesson checked them only through that article, so treat them as secondary until you check the books. That covers his birth name and date, the edition numbers for his songs (Wikipedia dates the third edition to 1911, while the Big Red Songbook places an ad for it in August 1910, so the sources checked do not settle it), Arling Morrison's age, the trial and verdict dates, his choice of a firing squad and the wording of his message to Haywood. Hill was born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund on October 7, 1879 in Gävle, Sweden, and likely joined the IWW in 1910 while working on the Los Angeles docks.¹² "The Preacher and the Slave," a satire of Salvation Army street preaching, first appeared in the third edition in 1911. "Casey Jones the Union Scab" followed in the fourth edition in 1912 and "There Is Power in a Union" in the fifth in 1913.¹³ On January 10, 1914 a Salt Lake City grocer, John Morrison, and his seventeen-year-old son Arling were shot and killed. Hill sought treatment that night for a gunshot wound and refused to name the woman he said the quarrel concerned. He was tried beginning June 17, 1914, convicted on June 28, and chose a firing squad.¹⁴ President Woodrow Wilson asked Utah's governor to delay the execution after the Swedish ambassador appealed, and the governor postponed it once and rejected a second request. Hill was shot on November 19, 1915.

Whether he was guilty is a dispute that the biographies themselves carry. The facts that are not in dispute are the dates, the songs and the telegram: in a message to organizer Bill Haywood he wrote that he did not want to waste time in mourning and urged organizing instead, which became the slogan "Don't Mourn, Organize."¹⁵ A song written for union organizing became, after the execution, a song about the man. Joan Baez sang the later song "Joe Hill," written by Alfred Hayes and Earl Robinson in 1936,¹⁶ at Woodstock in 1969, according to the Labor Arts site and the Bethel Woods Center.¹⁷ That song and the phrase it popularized are a good example of what political music does after the occasion passes: it keeps a person in the repertoire.

Woody Guthrie and the song with the missing verses

The Library of Congress essay for the National Recording Registry says Guthrie wrote what the world knows as "This Land Is Your Land" in 1940, under the title "God Blessed America for Me."¹⁸ It was a reply. Irving Berlin's "God Bless America," introduced by Kate Smith in 1938, struck Guthrie as complacent and unrealistic. He did not record his own song until April 1944, according to the same essay, and the Registry added the recording in 2002.¹⁹ The Woody Guthrie Publications lyrics page lists the copyright years as 1956, 1958, 1970 and 1972 (renewed in two cases), held by Woody Guthrie Publications and TRO-Ludlow Music, and its publisher note is a plain instruction to contact the publisher.²⁰ That detail matters for anyone who wants to quote the song. It is not in the public domain.

The omitted verses are the famous footnote. The Library of Congress essay says the original fifth and sixth verses are often left out of later versions and that Guthrie himself often skipped them in performance.²¹ They describe a sign reading no trespassing with a blank back that faced the walker the other way, and they describe hungry people standing near a relief office and in city squares, with the narrator asking whether the land really belongs to everyone. The essay's reading is that these verses shift the song from a feel-good anthem toward protest. Elementary school songbooks, inaugural concerts and car commercials mostly sing the version without them. Is that censorship? The honest answer is that a song gets trimmed by many hands for many reasons, and nobody has produced a single decision to cut them. What the record supports is narrower: the verses exist, Guthrie wrote them, and they are the part of the song that talks about property and poverty.

Guthrie's guitar bore a hand-painted sign reading "This Machine Kills Fascists," according to the Woody Guthrie Center's biography.²² The same page says he was a prominent songwriter in the Almanac Singers, a group formed in New York (a photograph is dated 1941), that he served in both the Merchant Marine and the Army during World War II, and that he died on October 3, 1967 at Creedmoor State Hospital in Queens.²³ His papers moved to Tulsa in 2013. The Woody Guthrie Center says its archive holds the largest collection of Guthrie and Bob Dylan primary materials in the world, and that researchers can use the reading room by appointment year round.²⁴ That is the place to see manuscripts and not rely on a reprint.

Strange Fruit and the problem of the song nobody wanted to play

Abel Meeropol (1903 to 1986) was a teacher, poet and songwriter who published under the name Lewis Allan. The Library of Congress essay says he brought the song to Billie Holiday in late 1938 or early 1939, and that she recorded it for the Commodore label on April 20, 1939.²⁶ The essay says Holiday booked about nine months of performances at Café Society, the integrated club just opened by Barney Josephson, in December 1938, and that she soon made the song a staple of her evening concerts, often closing her show with it.²⁷ The Registry added the recording in 2002. The song is about lynching, and its power lies in its restraint. It describes a Southern scene in a few images and leaves the listener with the horror. The essay puts the word "inflammatory" in quotation marks when it describes the studio session.²⁸

The Registry essay does not say why larger labels would not release it, and no primary source checked for this lesson does, so the lesson leaves out the popular explanation. That is worth knowing as a reporter. The story that a major label refused the song is repeated everywhere and may be true, but a writer who cannot cite a primary source should say so. What the verified record does show is who wrote it, who sang it, when it was recorded and what it was about, and that is already a better foundation than most retellings have.

Paul Robeson, Peekskill and the passport

Paul Robeson, singer, actor and activist, was both the most famous Black American concert artist of the 1940s and a prominent defender of the Soviet Union, a combination that made him a target after the war. The facts below have good sources. The Civil Rights Congress scheduled a concert for August 27, 1949 at Lakeland Acres near Peekskill, New York. The NYU Tamiment Library's finding aid for the Peekskill collection says "a mob of locals attacked arriving concertgoers with billy clubs, brass knuckles and rocks," that police stood by and intervened only after thirteen people were seriously injured, and that Robeson never reached the site and the concert never took place.²⁹ It was rescheduled for September 4 at the Hollow Brook Golf Course in Cortlandt Manor. About twenty thousand people attended, Robeson performed, and so did Pete Seeger. As people left, they "were forced to run a gauntlet of veterans and outside agitators who threw rocks through the windshields of their cars and buses," and at least 140 people were injured, according to the same finding aid.³⁰ The collection, assembled by filmmaker Barbara Kopple, holds records from the Westchester County district attorney, state police reports, photographs and letters to the editor of the Peekskill Evening Star.

The passport case ran on a separate track. According to History Matters, Robeson's passport was revoked in 1950.³¹ On June 12, 1956 he appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee, in a hearing nominally about his passport suit, and refused to answer questions about his political activities. He told the committee that his father had been a slave. The Supreme Court decided Kent v. Dulles on June 16, 1958.³² The petitioners were the artist Rockwell Kent and Dr. Walter Briehl, not Robeson, but History Matters says Robeson's passport was returned after the ruling.³³ Justice Douglas wrote for the majority that the Secretary of State was not authorized by 22 U.S.C. 211a or 8 U.S.C. 1185 to deny passports because of a citizen's beliefs or associations. The opinion says the right to travel is part of the "liberty" the Fifth Amendment protects. Justice Clark wrote the dissent, joined by Justices Burton, Harlan and Whitaker.³⁴ Kent v. Dulles was about statutory authority, so it did not strike down a law. It did mean the State Department could no longer deny a passport on those grounds without new legislation, and the passport itself became a question for new legislation and for the State Department's own rules.

Seeger, the Weavers and the blacklist

The Weavers formed in November 1948 in Greenwich Village: Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman.³⁵ Their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene," credited to Gordon Jenkins and his orchestra and the Weavers, reached number one in 1950 and stayed there thirteen weeks, according to Wikipedia's article on the song and its chart compilation (Billboard itself was not checked). Secondary accounts disagree on sales, so none is given here. The rest of this paragraph follows the Wikipedia article on the group, which draws on Seeger's own memoirs and on Edward Renehan's study of the blacklist. Then it went wrong. The same article says Seeger's listing in Red Channels brought FBI surveillance of the whole group, that they were barred from radio and television, and that Decca Records dropped them and pulled their records from its catalog in 1953. They gave a sold-out reunion concert at Carnegie Hall in December 1955, recorded and released in 1957.³⁶

On August 18, 1955 Seeger appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee. The transcript on History Matters shows that he did not invoke the Fifth Amendment. When Representative Scherer asked whether he was relying on it, Seeger answered, "No, sir."³⁷ He refused to discuss his associations and his philosophical or religious beliefs, and said he thought these were "very improper questions for any American to be asked."³⁸ Notice the difference from the Fifth. A witness who pleads the Fifth says an answer might incriminate him. Seeger's position was that the committee had no business asking. That is a harder road, and it ended with a criminal charge.

The charge was contempt of Congress under 2 U.S.C. 192,³⁹ a ten-count indictment, one count for each question he refused.⁴⁰ After a jury trial before Judge Thomas Murphy he was convicted and given the maximum sentence of one year on each count, to run at the same time. The Second Circuit decided United States v. Seeger, 303 F.2d 478, on May 18, 1962 (argued April 9).⁴¹ Judge Kaufman's opinion held the indictment defective because it did not properly allege the subcommittee's authority. It cited a June 8, 1955 directive that was only an instruction to the parent committee's clerk and left out the July 27, 1955 resolution that actually authorized the subcommittee. An indictment under section 192, the court said, "is defective if the authority is not pleaded."⁴² It reversed and dismissed. Judge Moore agreed in the result on a different ground, that the government had failed to prove the subcommittee's authority at trial.⁴³ Be careful here. Newspaper summaries often say the First Amendment won. It did not, and could not, on that record. The court never reached it. Seeger won on a drafting error in the indictment, which is a real legal victory and a limited one.

Person	Government action	Case or record	Outcome
Paul Robeson	Passport revoked 1950; HUAC hearing June 12, 1956	Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116, decided June 16, 1958 (petitioners Rockwell Kent and Walter Briehl; Robeson's passport returned afterward)	Court held the passport statutes did not authorize denial for beliefs or associations; five to four
Pete Seeger	HUAC hearing August 18, 1955; ten counts under 2 U.S.C. 192; one year on each, concurrent	United States v. Seeger, 303 F.2d 478 (2d Cir.), decided May 18, 1962	Indictment defective for failing to plead the subcommittee's authority; reversed and dismissed
John Lennon	Deportation proceedings begun March 1972; order March 23, 1973; Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed July 10, 1974	Lennon v. INS, 527 F.2d 187 (2d Cir.), decided October 7, 1975	1968 British cannabis conviction did not make him excludable; order vacated and remanded
The Weavers	Red Channels listing; barred from radio and television; Decca dropped them in 1953	No court case; reported in biographies of Seeger, Hays and the group	Reunion concert at Carnegie Hall, December 1955

We Shall Overcome: a song with an owner

The song's history is a chain of hands. According to the Wikipedia article that draws on Victor Bobetsky's 2015 essays and on Guy and Candie Carawan's Sing for Freedom, Charles Albert Tindley's hymn "I'll Overcome Some Day" was published around 1900 to 1901 in Philadelphia, and scholars think it influenced the later song though the exact lineage is unclear.⁴⁴ In October 1945 mostly Black women in the FTA-CIO union began a five-month strike against the American Tobacco Company in Charleston, South Carolina. A striker named Lucille Simmons led a slow version of the hymn at the end of each day's picketing.⁴⁵ According to the expert report David Garrow filed in the copyright case, Zilphia Horton, music director at the Highlander Folk School, got the song in May 1946 from two strikers, Anna Lee Bonneau and Evelyn Risher, who brought it to a Highlander workshop.⁴⁶ American Heritage says she learned it from the tobacco workers.⁴⁷ Highlander had been founded in 1932 in Monteagle, Tennessee, by Myles Horton, Don West, Jim Dombrowski and others, according to the center's own timeline.⁴⁸ Pete Seeger learned the song from Horton in 1946 or 1947 (Garrow's report notes that Seeger recalled 1946)⁴⁹, changed "will" to "shall" and added verses. People's Songs printed it as "We Will Overcome" in 1948. Guy Carawan succeeded Horton in 1959 and brought the song back, and Garrow's report has Carawan leading the singing at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina on April 16, 1960.⁵⁰ The state of Tennessee revoked Highlander's charter in 1961 and seized its land and buildings. The school reopened the next day under a new name, Highlander Research and Education Center.⁵¹

The Library of Congress essay on the album We Shall Overcome adds that Seeger performed at Carnegie Hall on June 8, 1963, that Columbia issued a condensed LP that year, and that the album went onto the National Recording Registry in 2006.⁵² Lyndon Johnson used the song's phrase when he addressed Congress on March 15, 1965, after the violence at Selma.

Now the copyright. A 1960 registration listed the song as an arrangement by Horton, Carawan, Frank Hamilton and Seeger. The publisher, The Richmond Organization and its subsidiary Ludlow Music, held the publisher's share, and royalties went to the We Shall Overcome Fund administered by Highlander.⁵³ In April 2016 the We Shall Overcome Foundation and Butler Films sued in the Southern District of New York, saying the 1960 and 1963 copyrights did not protect the melody or the familiar first verse, which they argued were in the public domain.⁵⁴ Judge Denise Cote ruled on September 8, 2017, granting summary judgment for the plaintiffs in substantial part.⁵⁵ According to Spin's report, she said the change from "will" to "shall" was "quintessentially trivial."⁵⁶ The defendants had argued that Seeger and the others made "significant contributions to the song." The settlement came in January 2018. In the words quoted by Loeb and Loeb, "the melody and lyrics of those verses of the Song are hereafter dedicated to the public domain."⁵⁷ The 1960s arrangements stayed under copyright.

Dylan, Simone and Cooke: freedom songs as pop records

Bob Dylan's second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, came out in 1963 and, according to his official site's track list, opened with "Blowin' in the Wind" and included "Masters of War," "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," "Oxford Town" and "Talkin' World War III Blues."⁵⁸ Two other 1960s records answered it and the events around it. The Library of Congress essay on Nina Simone's "Mississippi Goddam" says she wrote it in September 1963 right after four girls died in the Birmingham church bombing.⁵⁹ She first performed it at a Los Angeles nightclub about a week later, telling the audience she meant every word. Philips released it as a single paired with "See-Line Woman," and some listeners complained that the song was in bad taste. A few months later, at Town Hall, she introduced it as a show tune for a show that had not yet been written. When she performed it on The Steve Allen Show in September 1964, censors bleeped the word "goddam," so she mouthed it.⁶⁰ Later she updated a verse for St. Augustine, Selma, Watts and Memphis. The Registry added the single in 2018. The essay says nothing about radio bans, and no source checked for this lesson documents one, so none is claimed here.

Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" has an origin story in a Library of Congress essay, which is a guest essay by B.G. Rhule and says its views do not necessarily represent the Library's. The essay calls it "a commonly held truth" that Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" first inspired the song, and says Cooke reportedly heard it on a hotel television during the broadcast of the 1963 March on Washington, an account it gives without independent corroboration.⁶¹ The essay says the song lay dormant for four months. The first pressing came in late summer 1964, as the B side of "Shake," and Cooke died on December 11, 1964.⁶² The Registry added the recording in 2006. A folk singer, a soul star and a singer-pianist reached the same two years with songs about the same events, and none of them sounded alike.

Vietnam, Kent State and a song about class

The song most often tied to Vietnam era class anger is Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son," released in 1969 as the B side of "Down on the Corner," according to the Library of Congress essay. John Fogerty described it there as "a confrontation between me and Richard Nixon," and said it was not a positive image of the people who live on the hill with their big cars.⁶³ The song's lyrics are still under copyright, so no more will be quoted. The Registry list gives the year added as 2013 and the essay's own header gives 2014, a small conflict that is worth recording and not resolving by guess.

On May 4, 1970 the Ohio National Guard fired on students at Kent State University. Kent State's own historical accuracy page says four students were killed and nine wounded, that "between 61 and 67 shots were fired in a 13-second period," and that 28 of the more than 70 Guardsmen fired.⁶⁴ A 1975 federal civil jury voted 9 to 3 that none of the Guardsmen was legally responsible, the Sixth Circuit later ordered a new trial, and the case ended in a 1979 out of court settlement.⁶⁵ Photographer John Filo won the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography, for what the Pulitzer site calls his pictorial coverage of the Kent State tragedy, including the picture that ran on front pages nationwide,⁶⁶ and lesson 06 treats that photograph. Neil Young's song about the shootings is widely discussed, but none of the sources checked for this lesson documents its release, so its details are left out.

Okie from Muskogee and the answer song

Merle Haggard was born April 6, 1937 in Bakersfield, California. The Country Music Hall of Fame says he was caught burglarizing a roadhouse in 1957, was sent to San Quentin after an escape attempt from county jail, and was paroled in 1960.⁶⁷ Capitol released "Okie from Muskogee" in 1969. It was number one for four weeks and won the Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association Single of the Year awards for 1970. "The Fightin' Side of Me" followed in 1970 and was angrier in tone. Haggard was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1994.

The record's reputation is bigger than its lyric, and Haggard's own comments are the best evidence of how he saw it. The Hall of Fame page records a 1974 joke to a Michigan reporter: "Son, the only place I don't smoke is Muskogee." About a dozen years later he described the song to the Birmingham Post-Herald as a patriotic song that hit the top of the charts when patriotism was less popular.⁶⁸ Those two remarks sit awkwardly together, and that is the point. Listeners heard a satire, a sincere anthem, or both, and the author gave answers that shifted with the audience. A fair analysis takes the record, the date and the author's recorded remarks, then says plainly where they disagree. It does not decide for him.

Country music has always answered itself. A hit song provokes a reply, and the reply is its own record with its own chart life. That tradition is why an answer song is a real political form and not a joke. It lets the same audience hear two arguments in the same format, and Haggard's pair of 1969 and 1970 records are an example of one artist doing it to himself.

Song	Year	Artist	What it answered or stood for	Verified controversy or record
The Preacher and the Slave	1911 edition	Joe Hill, IWW songbook	Satire of Salvation Army street preaching	First printed in the third edition of the Little Red Songbook, by Wikipedia's account (not checked against the book)
God Blessed America for Me (later This Land Is Your Land)	1940	Woody Guthrie	Reply to God Bless America	Fifth and sixth verses often omitted; still under copyright
Strange Fruit	Recorded April 20, 1939	Billie Holiday (words by Abel Meeropol)	Lynching	On the National Recording Registry since 2002
We Shall Overcome	Learned by Seeger 1946 or 1947; published 1948; registered 1960	Many	Labor and civil rights movements	Copyright claim ended by January 2018 settlement
Mississippi Goddam	September 1963	Nina Simone	Birmingham church bombing	Bleeped on a September 1964 television broadcast
A Change Is Gonna Come	First pressing 1964	Sam Cooke	Inspired by Blowin' in the Wind and the March on Washington	Released as a B side; Cooke died December 11, 1964
Fortunate Son	1969	Creedence Clearwater Revival	Class and the draft; Fogerty cited Nixon	B side of Down on the Corner
Okie from Muskogee	1969	Merle Haggard	Small town pride, countercultural habits	Number one for four weeks; Single of the Year awards for 1970

John Lennon and the deportation case

The last story in this lesson shows the government reaching for a pretext. The case record in Lennon v. INS, 527 F.2d 187, is the source for the facts, and Chief Judge Irving Kaufman wrote the opinion. On October 18, 1968 Scotland Yard detectives searched Lennon's London apartment and found half an ounce of hashish.⁶⁹ Lennon pleaded guilty on November 28, 1968 to possessing cannabis resin and was fined. He and Yoko Ono entered the United States on August 13, 1971 to seek custody of her daughter. The Immigration and Naturalization Service waived excludability and issued temporary visas. Deportation proceedings began about March 6, 1972, three days after the Lennons filed third-preference petitions, and the INS did not act on the petitions. An immigration judge ordered him deported on March 23, 1973, and the Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed on July 10, 1974.⁷⁰

The Second Circuit ruled on October 7, 1975. It held that the 1968 conviction did not make him excludable under section 212(a)(23) of the immigration act, because British law as interpreted in the Warner case made guilty knowledge irrelevant to possession, and a foreign conviction under such a law could not support excludability. It vacated the denial of adjustment of status and the deportation order, and remanded. On Lennon's argument that he was singled out for political reasons, the court wrote: "The courts will not condone selective deportation based upon secret political grounds."⁷¹ It declined to decide the claim because the claim was not before it, and noted that a federal district judge would hear it if relief was denied. A footnote described INS records showing 1,863 deportable aliens granted nonpriority status, more than 150 of them with narcotics convictions and some with far more serious records than Lennon's, which Lennon cited as evidence of selective treatment.⁷² Judge Mulligan dissented on a different reading of British law. The panel included Judge Gurfein. The record does not say that the Nixon White House ordered the case. It does say the court was concerned enough to write about secret political grounds, and it supplies the numbers a reporter would need to test the claim.

Questions and answers

What is a Wobbly songbook, and why did it use old tunes?

The IWW's Little Red Songbook, first published in Spokane in 1909, printed new words under familiar tunes, a practice called contrafactum. A crowd could join in at once because nobody had to learn a melody. By the count in the article that cites the IWW's centenary edition, thirty-eight editions appeared between 1909 and 2010. Later covers carried the phrase "To Fan the Flames of Discontent." See the Little Red Songbook overview.

When did Guthrie write This Land Is Your Land, and what was the first title?

The Library of Congress says he wrote it in 1940 under the title "God Blessed America for Me," as a reply to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America." He first recorded it in April 1944. The Registry added the recording in 2002. The essay is at the Library of Congress.

Which verses are usually left out, and who removed them?

The fifth and sixth verses, about a no trespassing sign and about hungry people near a relief office, are often omitted, and the Library of Congress essay notes Guthrie often skipped them himself. No document I found shows one person or body deciding to cut them. The fair statement is that later versions often drop them, and that they carry the song's sharpest social comment.

Who wrote Strange Fruit?

Abel Meeropol, a teacher and poet who published as Lewis Allan, according to the Library of Congress Registry essay. Holiday recorded it for Commodore on April 20, 1939. The Registry added it in 2002.

What happened at Peekskill in 1949?

A concert planned for August 27 at Lakeland Acres never took place after a mob attacked arriving concertgoers and thirteen people were seriously injured. A rescheduled concert on September 4 drew about twenty thousand people, with Robeson and Seeger performing, and at least 140 people were injured as the crowd left. The NYU finding aid has the descriptions.

Did the Supreme Court say the government could never deny a passport over political views?

No. In Kent v. Dulles the Court held that Congress had not authorized the Secretary of State to deny passports because of beliefs or associations. It did not decide whether Congress could do so by a clearer statute.

Did Seeger win on the First Amendment?

No. The Second Circuit reversed on May 18, 1962 because the indictment did not plead the subcommittee's authority. See the opinion. The First Amendment argument was not decided.

Is We Shall Overcome in the public domain?

The melody and lyrics of the song's verses were dedicated to the public domain by the January 2018 settlement, according to the case summary by Loeb and Loeb. The 1960s arrangements remained under copyright. So a performance of the song is free, and a copy of a specific protected arrangement may not be.

Hard questions

Isn't a protest song just propaganda with a tune?

Some are, and the IWW's songbook was designed to persuade. The useful test is the one lesson 01 sets out, which is whether the work does a job beyond persuasion: witness, record or memory. Strange Fruit describes a scene and does not give an argument, and Mississippi Goddam was written within days of a specific bombing. Both can be checked against what happened. Calling them propaganda does not tell a listener what to check.

Wasn't the government right to investigate people connected to a hostile foreign power?

The government has the power to investigate, and the Cold War produced real intelligence cases. What the record in this lesson shows is a narrower question about means. Kent v. Dulles asked whether Congress had authorized passport denial for beliefs and found that it had not. The Seeger indictment failed on its own terms. Those rulings do not say that every investigation was wrong. They say these particular tools were used without the legal authority they required.

Doesn't Okie from Muskogee show that protest music only runs one way?

It shows the opposite. The record sat at number one for four weeks in 1969 and won both major Single of the Year awards for 1970 according to the Country Music Hall of Fame. A song defending small town habits against a protest culture was as political as any union song. That is why this course treats it with the same method.

Why not just skip the lyrics and describe them? Doesn't that rob the reader?

It costs something, and the answer is to link the source. Copyright law allows short quotation for criticism and news reporting, and the four factors in 17 U.S.C. 107 turn on how much you take and whether you substitute for the original. Lesson 10 applies them. For most readers a link to the Registry essay or the archive does more than a copied verse would.

Did the Nixon administration really try to deport Lennon for his politics?

The court did not decide that. It decided that the 1968 conviction did not make him excludable, wrote that it would not condone selective deportation on secret political grounds, and noted that a separate claim was pending in the district court. It also recorded INS data on 1,863 deportable aliens granted nonpriority status. That is evidence a reporter can examine, and it falls short of a finding about motive.

Learn more

• Wikipedia, Joe Hill (activist): A starting point for his biography and its cited books; check the books before you print details.
• Library of Congress, This Land Is Your Land: The Registry essay on Guthrie's song, with its dates and the omitted verses.
• Woody Guthrie Center archives: Where the manuscripts are held, by appointment.
• NYU Tamiment Library, Peekskill collection: The finding aid for the 1949 concert records.
• History Matters, Seeger before HUAC: The 1955 transcript, so you can read his answers yourself.
• Kent v. Dulles: The opinion on passports, with Douglas for the majority and Clark in dissent.
• United States v. Seeger: The Second Circuit opinion that reversed the conviction on the indictment.
• Loeb and Loeb, We Shall Overcome case summary: The settlement and the court history of the song's copyright.
• Lennon v. INS: The full opinion, including the passage on selective deportation.

Notes

1. Utah State Archives, The State of Utah vs. Joe Hill. Killings of January 10, 1914 and execution of November 19, 1915. Read it online. ↩
2. United States v. Seeger, 303 F.2d 478 (2d Cir. 1962), OpenJurist. Decision of May 18, 1962. Read it online. ↩
3. Lennon v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 527 F.2d 187 (2d Cir. 1975), OpenJurist. Decision of October 7, 1975. Read it online. ↩
4. Loeb and Loeb, We Shall Overcome Foundation v. The Richmond Organization (S.D.N.Y.), case summary. Settlement language and January 2018 date. Read it online. ↩
5. Country Music Hall of Fame, Merle Haggard. Chart run and Single of the Year awards. Read it online. ↩
6. Wikipedia, Little Red Songbook (1909 Spokane first edition; subtitle; 38 editions 1909 to 2010; Historylink citation). First edition, Spokane, 1909. Read it online. ↩
7. Industrial Worker (IWW), For the Little Red Songbook (1909 first publication, Spokane, original title). Original title of the first edition. Read it online. ↩
8. We Never Forget, quoting The Big Red Songbook p. 478 on the third edition and the phrase To Fan the Flames of Discontent. The Big Red Songbook, page 478, on the third edition. Read it online. ↩
9. Wikipedia, Little Red Songbook (1909 Spokane first edition; subtitle; 38 editions 1909 to 2010; Historylink citation). Edition count drawn from the IWW centennial edition and The Big Red Songbook. Read it online. ↩
10. Utah State Archives, The State of Utah vs. Joe Hill. Account of the case file. Read it online. ↩
11. Utah State Archives, Swedish minister's and President Wilson's requests for postponements of execution and Spry's reactions. Requests of September 26 and 30, 1915 and Spry's reply. Read it online. ↩
12. Wikipedia, Joe Hill (activist), with its cited biographies (Foner, Smith, Rosemont) used for dates and trial facts. Birth name, date and place, from the cited biographies. Read it online. ↩
13. Wikipedia, Joe Hill (activist), with its cited biographies (Foner, Smith, Rosemont) used for dates and trial facts. Songs and edition numbers, from the cited biographies. Read it online. ↩
14. Wikipedia, Joe Hill (activist), with its cited biographies (Foner, Smith, Rosemont) used for dates and trial facts. Trial and verdict dates. Read it online. ↩
15. Wikipedia, Joe Hill (activist), with its cited biographies (Foner, Smith, Rosemont) used for dates and trial facts. Message to Bill Haywood. Read it online. ↩
16. Labor Arts, Earl Robinson, Joe Hill (written 1936; Baez at Woodstock 1969). Song "Joe Hill" and Baez at Woodstock. Read it online. ↩
17. Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, Joan Baez at Woodstock. Baez at Woodstock, 1969. Read it online. ↩
18. Library of Congress, National Recording Registry essay: This Land Is Your Land (Woody Guthrie). Writing date and original title. Read it online. ↩
19. Library of Congress, National Recording Registry essay: This Land Is Your Land (Woody Guthrie). April 1944 recording and Registry listing. Read it online. ↩
20. Woody Guthrie Publications, This Land lyrics page with copyright notice. Copyright years and holders. Read it online. ↩
21. Library of Congress, National Recording Registry essay: This Land Is Your Land (Woody Guthrie). The omitted fifth and sixth verses. Read it online. ↩
22. Woody Guthrie Center, biography. The guitar sign, the Almanac Singers and military service. Read it online. ↩
23. Woody Guthrie Center, biography. Death. Read it online. ↩
24. Woody Guthrie Center archives page (Tulsa; transferred 2013). Archive holdings, reading room and the 2013 move to Tulsa. Read it online. ↩
25. Peter B. Hirtle, Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States, Cornell University Library. Public domain rule for works published before 1931 and the renewal rules for 1931 to 1963. Read it online. ↩
26. Library of Congress, National Recording Registry essay: Strange Fruit (Billie Holiday). Meeropol, Holiday and the recording session. Read it online. ↩
27. Library of Congress, National Recording Registry essay: Strange Fruit (Billie Holiday). Café Society engagement and the song as a staple. Read it online. ↩
28. Library of Congress, National Recording Registry essay: Strange Fruit (Billie Holiday). Use of the word "inflammatory" and the 2002 Registry listing. Read it online. ↩
29. NYU Tamiment Library, Peekskill Riots collection TAM.307 finding aid. Quoted description of the August 27, 1949 attack and the thirteen seriously injured. Read it online. ↩
30. NYU Tamiment Library, Peekskill Riots collection TAM.307 finding aid. The September 4 concert, attendance and injuries. Read it online. ↩
31. History Matters, Paul Robeson before HUAC, June 12, 1956. Passport revocation and the June 12, 1956 hearing. Read it online. ↩
32. Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116 (1958), Justia. Decision date and parties. Read it online. ↩
33. History Matters, Paul Robeson before HUAC, June 12, 1956. Return of the passport. Read it online. ↩
34. Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116 (1958), Justia. Douglas majority, Clark dissent and the Fifth Amendment liberty language. Read it online. ↩
35. Wikipedia, The Weavers (formation 1948; Decca 1953; Carnegie Hall December 1955), with cited biographies. Formation in November 1948. Read it online. ↩
36. Wikipedia, The Weavers (formation 1948; Decca 1953; Carnegie Hall December 1955), with cited biographies. Red Channels, the blacklist, Decca in 1953 and the December 1955 reunion concert. Read it online. ↩
37. History Matters, Pete Seeger before HUAC, August 18, 1955. Transcript of the August 18, 1955 hearing. Read it online. ↩
38. History Matters, Pete Seeger before HUAC, August 18, 1955. Seeger's refusal and the quoted words. Read it online. ↩
39. Cornell LII, 2 U.S.C. 192 (penalty for refusing to testify, one to twelve months). Statute penalizing refusal to testify before Congress. Read it online. ↩
40. United States v. Seeger, 303 F.2d 478 (2d Cir. 1962), OpenJurist. Ten counts, sentence and the trial before Judge Murphy. Read it online. ↩
41. United States v. Seeger, 303 F.2d 478 (2d Cir. 1962), OpenJurist. Decision and argument dates. Read it online. ↩
42. United States v. Seeger, 303 F.2d 478 (2d Cir. 1962), OpenJurist. Kaufman opinion on the defective indictment. Read it online. ↩
43. United States v. Seeger, 303 F.2d 478 (2d Cir. 1962), OpenJurist. Judge Moore concurring in the result. Read it online. ↩
44. Wikipedia, We Shall Overcome (origins, 1960 registration, 2016 suit, 2018 settlement), with cited sources including Graham in The Atlantic and Karr for NPR. Tindley hymn and the song's origins. Read it online. ↩
45. Wikipedia, We Shall Overcome (origins, 1960 registration, 2016 suit, 2018 settlement), with cited sources including Graham in The Atlantic and Karr for NPR. 1945 to 1946 Charleston tobacco strike. Read it online. ↩
46. David J. Garrow, expert report in We Shall Overcome Foundation v. The Richmond Organization (April 14, 2017), history of the song. Horton learning the song in May 1946. Read it online. ↩
47. American Heritage, We Shall Overcome. Horton and the tobacco workers. Read it online. ↩
48. Highlander Research and Education Center, history timeline. Founding of Highlander in 1932. Read it online. ↩
49. David J. Garrow, expert report in We Shall Overcome Foundation v. The Richmond Organization (April 14, 2017), history of the song. Seeger learning the song from Horton. Read it online. ↩
50. David J. Garrow, expert report in We Shall Overcome Foundation v. The Richmond Organization (April 14, 2017), history of the song. Carawan at the SNCC founding meeting. Read it online. ↩
51. Highlander Research and Education Center, history timeline. Charter revoked in 1961 and the school's reopening. Read it online. ↩
52. Library of Congress, National Recording Registry essay: We Shall Overcome (Pete Seeger at Carnegie Hall, 1963). Carnegie Hall performance of June 8, 1963, the Columbia LP and Registry listing. Read it online. ↩
53. Wikipedia, We Shall Overcome (origins, 1960 registration, 2016 suit, 2018 settlement), with cited sources including Graham in The Atlantic and Karr for NPR. 1960 registration, publishers and royalty arrangement. Read it online. ↩
54. Loeb and Loeb, We Shall Overcome Foundation v. The Richmond Organization (S.D.N.Y.), case summary. 2016 suit by the We Shall Overcome Foundation and Butler Films. Read it online. ↩
55. Spin, report on the September 2017 ruling by Judge Denise Cote. Ruling of September 8, 2017. Read it online. ↩
56. Spin, report on the September 2017 ruling by Judge Denise Cote. Judge Cote on the change from will to shall. Read it online. ↩
57. Loeb and Loeb, We Shall Overcome Foundation v. The Richmond Organization (S.D.N.Y.), case summary. Settlement language quoted in the case summary. Read it online. ↩
58. Bob Dylan official site, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan track list. Track list of the 1963 album. Read it online. ↩
59. Library of Congress, National Recording Registry essay: Mississippi Goddam (Nina Simone). Writing, first performance and release of the single. Read it online. ↩
60. Library of Congress, National Recording Registry essay: Mississippi Goddam (Nina Simone). Steve Allen Show appearance of September 1964 and the 2018 Registry listing. Read it online. ↩
61. Library of Congress, National Recording Registry essay: A Change Is Gonna Come (Sam Cooke). Rhule essay on the song's origin. Read it online. ↩
62. Library of Congress, National Recording Registry essay: A Change Is Gonna Come (Sam Cooke). Release as a B side to Shake and Cooke's death. Read it online. ↩
63. Library of Congress, National Recording Registry essay: Fortunate Son (Creedence Clearwater Revival). Fogerty quotation and release as the B side of Down on the Corner. Read it online. ↩
64. Kent State University, May 4 historical accuracy page. Casualties and shots fired on May 4, 1970. Read it online. ↩
65. Kent State University, May 4 historical accuracy page. 1975 civil jury verdict and later history. Read it online. ↩
66. The Pulitzer Prizes, John Paul Filo, 1971 Spot News Photography. 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography. Read it online. ↩
67. Country Music Hall of Fame, Merle Haggard. Haggard biography. Read it online. ↩
68. Country Music Hall of Fame, Merle Haggard. Haggard remarks and the 1969 release; inducted 1994. Read it online. ↩
69. Lennon v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 527 F.2d 187 (2d Cir. 1975), OpenJurist. Facts of the 1968 search and conviction. Read it online. ↩
70. Lennon v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 527 F.2d 187 (2d Cir. 1975), OpenJurist. Deportation proceedings, 1972 to 1974. Read it online. ↩
71. Lennon v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 527 F.2d 187 (2d Cir. 1975), OpenJurist. Quoted language of the Second Circuit. Read it online. ↩
72. Lennon v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 527 F.2d 187 (2d Cir. 1975), OpenJurist. INS data on nonpriority status and the Mulligan dissent. Read it online. ↩