Folk Group The Weavers’ Concert at Carnegie Hall Signals End to Blacklist and the Worst of the Cold War
The folk music group The Weavers, who had been blacklisted during the Cold War, gave a historic concert at Carnegie Hall on the evening of this day that signaled both an end to the blacklist against them and also an end to the worst of the Cold War hysteria.
The Weavers, which included Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays and Fred Hellerman, had been accused of Communist Party associations in testimony before HUAC in early 1952. At the time they were one of the most popular singing groups in the country, and had had a Number One record, “Goodnight Irene” in 1950. On tour at the time, the HUAC attack immediately led to a blacklist, which ended their commercial career. Members of the group managed to survive with concerts for left-wing groups and on college campuses. Pete Seeger, in fact, began to build a new career singing on campuses that eventually became hugely successful and influential.
Although the Weavers’ manager Harold Leventhal was very uncertain about the likely success of the Carnegie Hall concert, in fact the tickets quickly sold out and the concert was a huge success. An LP album of the concert, The Weavers at Carnegie Hall was released on the Vanguard label and sold very well, reviving the groups recording career.
The success of the concert was one of several events that signaled the beginning of the end of the Cold War hysteria. Particularly important in this regard were the successful challenges to Senator Joe McCarthy and “McCarthyism” (see the birth of “McCarthyism” on February 9, 1950). CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow devoted his entire March 9, 1954 See it Now program to criticisms of McCarthy and his tactics, and then in December 2, 1954, the U.S. Senate officially censured the Senator for his abusive conduct as a Senator. The two attacks succeeded, and McCarthy immediately lost much of his influence (although the anti-communist movement continued for at least another decade).
In between the two attacks on McCarthy, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its historic decision in Brown v. Board of Education on May 17, 1954 declaring racially segregated schools unconstitutional. The decision had an enormous impact as the first major court blow to racial segregation in America, giving hope to civil rights and civil liberties activists across the country that a brighter day for individual rights lay ahead.
Read the great new book on the Weavers and the blacklist: Jesse Jarnow, Wasn’t That a Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and Battle for the Soul of America (2018)
Learn about “Folk Singers, Social Reform, and the Red Scare” at the Library of Congress
And more at the Pete Seeger web site