HOMESTEAD, Pennsylvania—The Pinkertons came up the river by barge and landed at dawn the morning of July 6th, 1892. There were about 300 of them, armed with Winchester repeaters and hired to bust the strike at Carnegie Steel Works. They were met by 10,000 strikers, also armed and ready for a fight. In the battle that ensued, ten were killed and scores injured, but the strikers held. The Pinkertons were put to rout and surrendered.
A mural of the battle of Homestead was hanging behind Pete Seeger when he came onstage at the funky old Leona Theater on January 22nd, but most of the crowd of over 1000 persons didn’t have to be reminded of the symbolism. They were steelworkers and left-leaning supporters, old and new. They had paid $6 each, grabbed seats on a first-come, first-served basis, and they knew what it meant for Pete Seeger to be doing a fund-raiser for Ed Sadlowski, the young insurgent running for president of the Steelworkers Union.
SOURCE Rolling Stone 234, March 10, 1977, 18–19.
Seeger seemed almost stunned by the explosion from the audience when he hopped onto the stage. Then, standing taller and straighter and more rigidly proud than ever, he started singing “John Henry” and, to his delight, the crowd spontaneously began to sing along. Several young workers hung a banner at the rear of the hall: UNIVERSAL ATLAS CEMENT SAYS PETE SEEGER IS THE VOICE OF WORKING MAN.
More than 35 years ago, Seeger would play these sorts of shows all the time. With Woody Guthrie and the other Almanac Singers, he traveled the country helping to organize labor unions. But when the communists were purged from the unions in the late 1940s, the invitations to sing stopped coming. Seeger was blacklisted not only by the entertainment business, but also by the labor movement.
For Sadlowski, the return of Seeger had a double significance. Throughout his election campaign, which was to end on February 8th, Sadlowski had been red-baited by the union hierarchy. One opposition leader even resurrected the old “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck …” line from the McCarthy era. Sadlowski’s rival, Lloyd McBride, had been a bit more circumspect. He said he wasn’t sure if Ed was a communist, but “he hasn’t repudiated the support he’s getting from the Daily World and other left-wing groups.”
The Seeger concert was Sadlowski’s way of telling the old guard that he wouldn’t be intimidated by the red-baiting. “That kind of crap doesn’t work anymore,” he said. What’s more, the concert was a good way to raise funds for the campaign and a chance to sing the old labor songs that Sadlowski loves. He drove down through the snow from Buffalo and arrived in the hall as Seeger was teaching the crowd a long-forgotten song of the Homestead strike. Sadlowski took a seat up front and began to sing along.
Seeger is well known for his unlimited repertoire, and he trotted out some old labor songs and Pittsburgh songs and even Pittsburgh labor songs for the occasion. When he faltered on a verse of “Monongahela Sal” several members of the audience shouted out the words for him. He sang “Joe Hill” and “Banks of Marble” and, surprisingly, a whistling song about Ho Chi Minh that was very well received.
After intermission, the emotion built steadily through “Lonesome Valley” and “Amazing Grace” to the evening’s climax, a song requested by Sadlowski—“Pittsburgh is a Smokey Old Town”—which includes the line, “What did Jones and Laughlin Steel in Pittsburgh?” Then Seeger invited Sadlowski up onstage, they shook hands and Sadlowski said, in a voice that was even more gravelly than usual, “People ask what the significance of Pete Seeger in Homestead is. Well I’ll tell you. This is the significance,” he said, pointing to the mural on the wall behind them. “The significance is that 85 years ago steelworkers fought to establish their union and now, 85 years later, they’re fighting to get their union back.” The crowd roared, Seeger started “This Land Is Your Land” and everyone was up on their feet, cheering and singing.
Later, there was a party for Seeger at the Sadlowski campaign headquarters down the block from the theater. Pete ate a hot dog and drank some beer, shook some hands but didn’t say all that much, and left early. Sadlowski stayed on, though, and when the crowd had gone he collected all the “Pete Seeger at Homestead” concert posters he could find and took them home. He knew that, win or lose, the concert would be remembered. Whether it would be remembered as the beginning of a new era of trade union activism, or as just a momentary indulgence in nostalgia, would be determined by the outcome of the election.