Pete Seeger and Pals Attend New York Protest Action

By Cristian Salazar
Associated Press
October 22, 2011

http://news.yahoo.com/pete-seeger-pals-attend-nyc-protest-action-035234032.html

    [Photos: http://tinyurl.com/432eo6q Activist
    musician Pete Seeger, 92, center, marches with
    nearly a thousand demonstrators.]

    [Video via AlterNet: http://tinyurl.com/43sosny ]

NEW YORK

Folk music legend Pete Seeger joined in the Occupy Wall
Street protest Friday night, replacing his banjo with
two canes as he marched with throngs of people in New
York City's tony Upper West Side past banks and shiny
department stores.

The 92-year-old Seeger, accompanied by musician-
grandson Tao Rodriguez Seeger, composer David Amram,
and bluesman Guy Davis, shouted out a verse as the
crowd of about 1,000 people sang and chanted.

They marched peacefully over more than 30 blocks from
Symphony Space, where the Seegers and other musicians
performed, to Columbus Circle. Police watched from the
sidelines.

At the circle, Seeger and friends walked to the chant
of "We are the 99 percent" and "We are unstoppable,
another world is possible." Seeger stopped to bang a
metal statue of an elephant with his cane - to cheers
from the crowd.

At the center of the circle, Seeger and Amram were
joined by '60s folk singer Arlo Guthrie in a round of
"We Shall Overcome," a protest anthem made popular by
Seeger.

After more singing, Seeger asked for a mic check to
tell the crowd: "The words are simple: I could be happy
spending my days on the river that flows both way-ay-
ays."

During the march, the younger Seeger, in troubadour
fashion like his grandfather, walked among the
protesters playing songs. Amra took up a flute and
others enlivened the night protest with the sounds of
the accordion, banjos, and guitars.

At the front of the throng, marchers held American
flags and a large blue flag that said: "Revolution
Generation ... Debt is Slavery." Along the way, the
crowd sang protest songs made popular or written by
Seeger, Woody Guthrie and others of the protest era.

Occupy Wall Street began a month ago in lower Manhattan
among a few young people, and has grown to thousands
around the country and the world. An Associated Press-
GfK poll says more than one-third of the country
supports the Wall Street protesters, and even more - 58
percent - say they are furious about America's
politics.

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