Peter Seeger May 3, — January 27, was an American folk singer-songwriter, musician and social activist. He was a fixture on nationwide radio in the s, and had a string of hit records in the early s as a member of The Weavers , notably their recording of Lead Belly 's " Goodnight, Irene ," which topped the charts for 14 weeks in Members of the Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the s, Seeger re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament , civil rights , workers' rights , counterculture , environmental causes , and ending the Vietnam War.
To Everything There Is a Season ", which has been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement. Seeger was one of the folk singers responsible for popularizing the spiritual " We Shall Overcome " also recorded by Joan Baez and many other singer-activists , which became the acknowledged anthem of the civil rights movement , soon after folk singer and activist Guy Carawan introduced it at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee SNCC in Charles established the first musicology curriculum in the United States at the University of California, Berkeley in the s.
In , Charles was hired to establish the music department at UC Berkeley, but was forced to resign in because of his outspoken pacifism during World War I.
When Peter was eighteen months old, Charles and Constance set out with him and his two older brothers in a homemade trailer to bring musical uplift to the working people in the American South.
At four, Peter was sent away to boarding school, but was brought home a year and a half later when his parents learned the school failed to inform them that he had contracted scarlet fever.
