Theling passes so many decades, it felt like he had been around forever. He died monday night at 94. He kept abreast of movements and struggles worldwide, collected and spread a love for music of the world to the world. He dmroed the exultation of the rich over the poor, race hatred and snobbery. He was a man of many parts, we want to harvard though he didnt stay long enough for a degree, served in world war two, was black listed after he declined to name names and loved his country deeply. He believed in the transformative power of art, in the necessity of protest, resistance and talking back to power. Do we today . Do we in the same way . This land was made for you and me. In 2009, as president obamas pr preinaugural gala on the steps of the lincoln memorial, he took center tape and red the crowd in a rousing rendition of the Woodie Guthrie standard. E was 89 but far from done singing songs about the causes that moved him. I tell people, nobody can prove a thing. Obviously, if i didnt think music could help save the human music. Seeger put musical notes to the cause for change, end of war, equality, labor rights and the environment. He used elements of old gospel songs to write we shall overcome which became the agent them of the Civil Rights Movement and his hit, where have standard. Normally, i am against big things. I think the world is going to be saved by millions of small things. Too many things can go wrong when they get big. But any suggestion seeger himself had become big made him blanche. He spurned commercialism though he had been inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame. All of this after a long ban on commercial radio and television. In 1955, seeger found himself on the house on american activities schmidt refusing to answer questions with about his membership of the communist party and to name names of others who were. Charged with contempt of congress, seeger was sentence today a year in prison. That was later overturned. In 2009, generations of folk stars showed up to salute him at a 9th birthday concert at Madison Square garden. Bruce springsteen called him a living archive, a testament of the power of song and culture to nudge history along. In ok occupy wall streeters camped on the in the lower manhattan. Today, president obama issued a statement on the passing of seeger saying pete seeger believed 2k50e7ly in the power of song and in the power of community to stand up for whats right, speak out against whats wrong and to move this country closer to the america he knew we could be. Pete seegers passing it comes at a time of national discontent that rivals the earlier years of his activistlvism. Six in ten americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction. Seeger saw the injustice and indifference in the country he law and through music sought to repair the breach. Joining us to talk dabout his legacy and the state of modern protests from madison, wisconsin, john nicholnichols; from new orleans a singer and song writer who performed at seegers birthday celebration, she collaborated with him on the 2012 album which side are you on . Joe yulinea for example musician. He is the founding president of the environmental group, voices for a sustainable feature and an occupy wall street film maker, she 1960s. If you went to a concert, you could hear a song sun by the Abraham Lincoln brigades, a song sung by South African workers in the gold mines, a song sung by freedom riders heading south on buses. Is he a product of a time and a product of a time that cant be repeated. I dont think so. If you knew pete seeger, he was time. He loved to go back through history. He had deep roots in much of the american story, but he was always updating that history, bringing it up to the present. So when you saw him at those occupy wall street marches, you know, you could sigh the joy in the faces of the young people, some of whom had heard his songs as kids in day care. Its notable in 2011 at the age of 92, he didnt just show up at that occupy wall street event. He led a march through the city streets. I think he went the better part of 30 blocks with thousands of people gathering around him. Soo this is a guy who is very electric and whose moment did not pass during his life. Onni defranco, you started your record label as a critique in which the way the muses tick works in the United States. I imagine it comes in and out of fashion, like anything, being political, but, oh, well, you know. I dont think that ever mattered much to pete, you know. And nor i, you know, or anybody who is really dedicated from their soul in that work, you know. And i think probably pete over the course saw that ebb and flo a lot, the popularity of folk music and political song, peoples music. But is it never stopped him or deterred him. Sandy, just a moment ago, we heard pete seeger talk about the possibility that music could save the human race. Its a charging idea but sounds almost too row mantic by half for these grim times. He really believed that. Didnt he . Yeah. And i was lucky enough, first of all, i got to say i have honored to be here and honored to have met pete twice in my life, with a 54year hiatus in the middle. He believed in the healing of that damn banjo in leading people and singing. If you ever saw him, he was 94 years old and people would say, i dont think pete will show up. He is frail. He would get on that stage and he wasnt 94. And watch his face when he is, you know, asking the audience to join in. He is a child, you know, a perpetual child, beautiful man. I think toos important important to remember because i think a lot of people think of art put into the service of social movements as a kind of grim, almost humanless thing, all. No. When you think about it through over seven decades, he added his voice and his music to every Great Social Movement of the 20th and 21st sent re, and he always did it with a spirit of joy and community and involvement. He was never a down kind of guy. Always looking forward. Always looking up. And, can we look around and see his like or his successors or those who walk in those footsteps today . Everywhere. Their in every dorner of the land. When he was black listed, he went into schools and churches and festivals. He taught children through song, through the great labor arts exchange, he taught hundreds of trade unionists who wanted to use art to build the movement. They are everywhere now, singing and recording and doing con sertsdz. They are all over. Joe uline is with us. Our guests are across the country. We will take a short break. When we come back, we will talk about whats changed in the culture in the way we hear things and find them out that makes it easier for harder to be A Pete Seeger in the 21st century. This is inside story. No doubt about it, innovation changes our lives. Opening doors. Opening possibilities. Taking the impossible from lab. To life. On techknow, our scientists bring you a sneakpeak of the future, and take you behind the scenes at our evolving world. Techknow ideas, invention, life. On Al Jazeera America every morning from 5 to 9am Al Jazeera America brings you more us and global news than any other American News channel. Find out what happened and what to expect. Start every morning, every day, 5am to 9 eastern with Al Jazeera America. Welcome back to inside story. Thats pete seeger at the occupy wall street protests, a clip shot by one of our guests today, sandy bacob. We are talking about pete seeger who passed away monday and also about the way music has intersected with political movements in this country, and onni, i want to talk about how and whether thats possible today. If you were on if peter, paul, and mary were on ed sullivan, they could talk to a quarter of all of the people in the country. In dick gregory was on a late night show, he could talk to millions at one time about the vietnam war. When the smothers brothers sang on sunday night, they could project their concerns to a much wider audience. I am wondering if its possible to do that in a post top40 world where our culture is broken up into much smaller little bits and communications go to much more direct communities of interest than they did before when we had a more mass media. Uhhuh. Well, i imagine you could say its even easier, these days, you know, you can you dont even need to be on television. You could go right from your bedroom to the world through the internet. So, you know, my sincere guess is that its not getting harder or easier, you know, to do the work of political justice, social justice. I think its just, you know, it springs eternal, and its work that you i know that pete, you know, its one of the many things he taught me, that you dont do it even to win. You know, you do it because the doing of it is so joyful. And it gives your life purpose and, in doing so, you will meet all kinds of people you will be lucky to know. You do so, so that maybe you give your children a head started on that very same fight if you dont achieve, you know, the goal, yourself. So, i think, you know, pete would have carried fourth no matter what the technology or circumstance or and been equally effective in any era. How is it different now . You have been looking at this over the long haul, a long time in the struggle, yourself. Uhhuh. L with, like i said, there are a lot more people doing it. Pete played a huge role in. I think o. This ni is right. Many of the people doing political music today arent signed to big labels. Big concert halls they are playing environmental rallies and coffee shops and smaller concert halls and spreading that world through twitter and facebook and using the internet like onni said. I think its a huge advancement. Well, john nichols through your journalism, you are talking to some of those communities of interest today. Whats different about now and when we might have seen pete seeger rallying for a cleaner hudson river in the 1980s or to an ends to the vietnam war or a Voting Rights act in the 1960s . Well, pete seeger lived such a long life that he went through all of the communications platforms. Remember, he was born before radio was pin popular usage and came of age before television was in popular usage. And yet passed away in the digital era, and this is an important thing to talk about. I think you are getting at something thats vital here, ray. It is absolutely true what onni and joe say about our ability to communique on many, many platforms now and to reach people that we might not have been able to reach in the past but that universal communication, that broad communication that you saw for a period in the 60s and early 70s, it is it is harder to bring people together and get them on the same page. But i think musics vital here, and i have to tell you, i was at the wisconsin protests in 2011 when hundreds of thousands of people came out in bitter cold weather, and some of the most Magic Moments of that time came with Something Like tom morello strapped on a guitar and stood out in the cold and sang A Pete Seeger song. I still think even as we talk about how divided we are and these Communications Vehicles and platforms, the reality is there are those moments where great masks of people come together. The one thing that seems to touch every heart is a song and pete seeger, i think he taught us that and i think he taught a generation of younger musitions, people like bruce spring sting who really do have the ability to jump across platforms from the digital zone to television to radio. I am not fretful about it. I think this is a challenge because uniting everybody, getting everybody on the same page is sometimes harder. Sandy backum, you have been trying to jump in. Go ahead. I filmed most of the musicians, most of the artists who came to occupy wall street. I was in rolling stone, shooting my camera in the background but okay pie wall street is a hash tag revolution in my humble opinion. You can connect to the arab spring with a hash tag. The guy was tweeting from Tahrir Square or wherever he was. Buzz i was in ducati park once and the kids were singing with acoustic guitars. There was always music at occupy wall street. Joan baez, one of the high points of my career was standing on the stand and joan baez who had been doing this for a vang long time. She tailta i tailored her lyrics, salt of the earth to occupy and the newsitions were drawn to us musicians were drawn to us. I grew up in the 60s. We held hands and when i met pete thats when that songs was introduced he changed it to we shall overcome. There is always music in revolutions. These kids in ducati park didnt know the lyrics to the songs i grew up with and they were reading them off of their i phones. They said, please, teach us the lyrics to this song. I am glad you brought up reading them off your iphone. You could read it off of an iphone on the other side of a planet, sort of enlivening and inspiring but isolating at the same time. Occupy wall street was one of those exceptional moments where people did come together and Stay Together in encampment around the country. Activismcan be a solitary activity in the 21st 70 tree in before. Yeah. Instead of storming the pentagon, lets say, during the moratoriu may m days, you can sit back home in des moines or boston or sants a bellla island and watch it on your two and a half inch screen in your pocket. One of the kids asked me, if you dont mind me saying, how did you get together in groups . How did you know in the 60s, there was nothing . You know, there wasnt any twitter. There werent any cell phones and i believe that we listened to public radio and there was the free press, and there were certain, like, liberal lefty publications and there was the campuses. You know, many of these many of these protest movements started on the campuses. The kids were my age. But now, just put a hash tag on it, you know, and good to go. Activi activism. We are going to take a short break. When we come back, we will talk more about the legacy of pete seeger and what it will mean for the rest of the country, for the rest of the century. This is inside story. Every sunday night Aljazeera America presents eye opening documentaries. They are impartial. If you wanted to be a good journalist in iraq, you have to risk your life. They observe. And report. Kidnapping is a very real problem. Journalists on the front line sometimes that means risking death getting the story, no matter what it takes thats what the forth estate is all about. Thats why im risking my life. Killing the messenger on Al Jazeera AmericaAl Jazeera America is a welcome back to inside story. I am ray suarez. We are talking about pete seeger who died monday at the age of 94. Still with us from madison, wisconsin, job nichols, a Political Writer from the nation. And oni defranco and joe ulinea folk singer and laborogers and sandy backum. One of the largest demonstrations i have seen in my life of covering demonstrays were the protests around the Republican Convention in new york in 2004. What struck me was unlike other mars that had a unifying idea, this is what we are here about. There were will 80 different causes on display in front of Madison Square garden that day, and i am wondering whether thats a motif of the age that really there arent one or two or three big causes the way there might have been in other times. But peoples attention is going to a lot of different things. I think thats right. I think in the introduction where we heard pete talk about big things and little things, you know, he once sitting in a bar explained to me what he called his pomegranite strategy and some other guests may have heard about this. When you open it up, there are thousands of little seeds. He viewed art as sort of being those seeds and going out into all of the various communities that are working to build a better world. And so its not just labor rights or enenviron mental rights. Pete viewed it as those things together. And he identified the comm commonalties before many people did between a lot of these movements, and he helped bridge thi them. So oni, how does art intersect with activism now . Inextricabley as far as i am concerned. Yeah, i mean, you know, i hear what you are saying, you know. There is diversity of purpose. Its so more complex to fight the good fight. I am hoping thats a good thing. There is a diversity of need and per specti perspective. Beware of the platform that is too big. There is so much good change you can make by reaching out with what you can reach, you know. I mean i plan to sort of carry petes legacy forward in my also way and do that, you know, on a nightly basis at my shows or when um talking to people in interviews and try to carry the work forward in little incremental every day ways and not very about, you know, changing everything all at once. Last year, i was interviewing delores juerta for something i was writing. I said, isnt that over when she was talking about the spirit of the times when she and cesar chavez were working to create the United Farm Workers Union and she was insulted by the suggestion. She said, oh, no. Absolutely not its every bit the same today as it was then. Is it . Sure, it is. The president of the United States is going to give a state of the Union Address tonight. Most people expect he will talk about a rapidly widening income inequality gap. The fact of the matter is that we revisit many of the fundamental questions again and again and again. And that was something that pete seeger understood very, very well. A long life, life in which at times you are prominent. He topped the popular music charts in the early 1950s and went to being pushed away from any sort of prominent entertainment spot in the late 50s. When you have had these experiences, you get a calmness about it. You get to recognize it is a long, good fight. And this is an important thing to understand. You brought up delores juerta. One of the passes of pete seeger was the struggle of farm workers. And if pete was around today, he would tell that you that struggle goes on. There is organizing going on today. One of the petes closest allies, i guess, or somebody he loved to sing with was a man named baldamara valesquez. Pete would always find time to go and do a fundraiser, go and do an event for it. Nobody else was paying attention or very few people but thats how you build movements. You build them by keeping at it over long periods of time, making your commitment where you could and i think that, you know, i look at onni, who is with us today. She has done that on soap many levels. Other artists are doing it. There are a lot of people who learned how to be a musician activist from pete seeger. I dont think anything is going to die with him. I think i planted a lot of those pomegranite seeds. Sandy, in a few seconds we have left, it seemed he was ready to do it all the way up to the end of his life . Oh, my god, i was at his house that he built with his hands. He took me for a tour with his electric truck. It was phoning for musicians united to save bristol bay. Up to the end, he was available. I want too say at what it said on his banjo. This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender. Thats pete. What the a different spirit that said this machine kills fascists, a gentler take. Today. Brings us to the ends of this edition of inside story. Thanks for being with us. In washington, i am ray suarez. [ music ] she got what she wanted. Thailands Prime Minister and millions of others vote in a general election, but. Protesters shut down some polling centres. Is the vote valid . Were live in bangkok. Hello, welcome to Al Jazeera America, live from doha al jazeera, live from doha. Also ahead get him out of here. A ukrainian activist who was tortured