April 30, 1971

Folk-singer Pete Seeger performed in a benefit for Hudson River Sloop Restoration Inc. and the Sierra Club. A Hudson Valley resident and frequent visitor to Vassar, Seeger was a co-founder in 1966 of the sloop restoration group, which launched the sloop Clearwater in 1969.

Seeger’s first performance at Vassar, for freshman week in 1962, was protested by the American Legion and other local groups on the grounds that his conviction for refusing to answer questions from the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955—under appeal and eventually overturned—made him a “condemned criminal.”