1965 Sing-In For Peace

On Friday evening September 24, 1965 at 8:30 PM there was a Sing-In For Peace. The program stated that “The undersigned are gathered for one purpose: to protest the immoral, irrational and irresponsible act of war which are government carries out in Viet-Nam in our names. The folksinger, like the poet, artist, and writer everywhere must be in touch with what is human in himself as well as those around him. He responds to life, and expresses his dismay at death-ward motions of every kind…”where have all the flowers gone?” While he does not necessarily consider himself a political being, he asks serious questions…“what heave they done to the rain?” And while the government need not fear the musician and the poet when he raises his gentle weapons of sanity, it cannot deny his questions, for “the answer is blowing in the wind.”

Irwin Silber, editor of Sing Out!’ magazine, Barbara Dane, and Pete Seeger, and other folk musicians organized “Sing-In For Peace.”