February Marxist IQ for African-American History Month and the Memory of Pete Seeger by Norman Markowitz

by: Saturday 1 February 2014

 

To the memory  of Pete Seeger, who did overcome for more than seven decades, and the working people and oppressed minorities of the U.S and the world, whom he both educated and entertained 

 

1.       Of all  Pete Seeger’s  achievements that will live in history, this song he wrote is perhaps the most significant today

a.        “We Shall Overcome,” the anthem of the civil rights movement

b.      The environmental movement’s “What have they Done to the Rain.”

c.       The anti-Vietnam War song “The Big Muddy”

d.      The satirical song on the press “I Read it in the Daily News”

 

2.        Abel Meeropol, who wrote the classic anti-lynching song, “Strange Fruit” performed by Billie Holliday was

a.       A New York City High School teacher and union activist

b.      A CPUSA activist who wrote on  major questions of U.S. history and society  under the name of Lewis Allen

c.       The man who adopted Michael and Robert Rosenberg, the children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who today bear his name, after their political show trial execution in 1953

d.      All of the Above

 

 

3.       Marxists see racism as

a.       a question of ethnic identity

b.      the failure to understand “the other”

c.       a political economic system to distract and divide the working class

d.      a.  failure of education

 

4.        Racist policies provide capitalists with “extra profits” by

a.       paying minority workers less, which also depresses general wage rates

b.      encouraging more people to become “entrepreneurs”

c.        segregating workers so that they can develop their “natural abilities.”

d.      Employing more efficient, productive “racially superior” workers 

 

5.        The three most prominent African-Americans of the 20th century, W.E.B. Dubois, Paul Robeson, and Martin Luther King

a.        all fought for a peace based on economic and social justice

b.      All saw the liberation of the African American people as part of a larger struggle for the liberation of all people

c.       all were formally listed at one time or another by FBI Director J.Edgar Hoover as Communists and subject to official harassment and abuse for that reason

d. all of the above

Correct Answers to January's  Marxist IQ

1.c

2.d

3.c

4.d

5.c

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Comments

  • 1. a

    2. d

    3. c

    4. a

    5. d

    Posted by Sean Mulligan, 02/10/2014 2:57am (11 years ago)

  • Norman Markowitz-you are very welcome-of course, my "anti-slave" there, should be anti-slavery. Earlier still, I should have written Phillip Luke Sinitiere, not Philip.
    There are astonishing connections in the music and struggle history of African Americans, (in this instance, involving the great Pete Seeger) music in its many genres, in their interconnection, (Blues, Gospel, Spirituals, Jazz, Rap) which pushed the great Du Bois to his profound statement around the early 20th century that, "We are the people whose subtle sense of song has given America its only American music."
    Before the month's end, the present author wishes to submit a piece to PA on this very subject-touching Robeson's pentatonic scale, musicians and orators like Thomas Andrew Dorsey, Ma Rainey, M L K, Fred Shuttlesworth, Charles Albert Tindley, tobacco workers from South Carolina, Guy Carawan, Lydon Baines Johnson, Louise Schropshire, the great Communist theorist James E. Jackson, and many more.

    Posted by E.E.W. Clay, 02/07/2014 6:27pm (11 years ago)

  • I thank E.E. W. Clay for his excellent comments, which are wonderfully true.
    Norman Markowitz

    Posted by , 02/06/2014 12:47pm (11 years ago)

  • 1. a
    2. d
    3. c
    4. a
    5. d

    Pete Seeger's We Shall Overcome (and not We Will Overcome) is a positive mutation of anti-slave, No More Auction Block, sang by many abolitionists in the U. S. and all over the world, perhaps most famously by Paul Leroy Robeson.
    Sadly, the thousands and even millions of activists who have sung this miraculous song, probably know little of the connection between both "little c and big C communists",(including Du Bois, Robeson, King and Seeger) who selflessly worked with and through millions to win gains of civil, human and labor rights, which help us struggle today-thereby largely ignorant of their roots of struggle.
    Pete Seeger, and his folksy, anti-racism, anti-imperialism, anti-war, peace and positive environmentalism, will live on in fame, forever, and in his connection with African American history.

    Posted by E.E.W. Clay, 02/03/2014 2:27pm (11 years ago)

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