Folk Singers, the FBI, and the Second Red Scare

ID : 3163

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Some of the most prominent folk singers of the 20th century, including Woody Guthrie, Sis Cunningham, Pete Seeger, and Burl Ives, were also political activists with ties to the American Communist Party. As a result, the FBI, along with other government and right-wing organizations, kept meticulous files on them and worked to push them out of the cultural realm. Through music, video, news clippings, and records from Freedom of Information Act filings, we will explore these artists’ lives and the systematic ways they were subjected to government surveillance and suppression.

Aaron Leonard is an author and American historian whose writing focuses on the interplay of radicalism and governmental repression in the 20th century. Among his books are Heavy Radicals, The Folk Singers and the Bureau, and Menace of Our Time: The Long War on American Communism. Leonard has a BA in Social Sciences and History, magna cum laude, from New York University.
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