Epistles from a Public Health Metaphysician - Appreciating diversity

Where’s Pete Seeger When We Really Need Him – Again?

During the intermission of a 1971 Pete Seeger concert, the leader of an activist student group on campus stepped on stage to ask for donations to help support their cause and pay the legal fees of some of the group’s members who had been arrested during a protest. The audience immediately erupted: vociferous shouts and pejorative epithets echoed throughout the pavilion – campus sentiments mirroring the bitter political enmity tearing through the nation.

Then, Pete walked back onstage with his banjo and offered something remarkable:

“I don’t fully agree with what that gentleman is demanding, but I fully support his right to voice those demands. Because of that, I will donate my fee tonight to their legal fund. I am confident that this will eventually benefit everyone here.”

He then started to play “All Mixed Up”, a lively and simple song celebrating diversity of language, culture, opinion, and race which affects all aspects of society. Within moments, the angry and agitated voices gave way to a unified chorus and a palpable sense of community.

Seeger himself placed this song at the beginning of his autobiography Where Have All the Flowers Gone? and at the beginning of his second set of the concert for a reason: it embodies his lifelong mission to foster unity amidst diversity.

It opens by celebrating the mosaic of our language – part German, part Latin, and part Greek, /With some Celtic and Arabic and Scandinavian all in the heap – and ends with a reminder:

“No race on earth is completely pure,
Nor is anyone’s mind and that’s for sure.
The winds mix the dust of every land,
And so will woman and man.”

The song doesn’t demand conformity. It celebrates “different faces and different names” – while urging unity through shared humanity and respect.

As Seeger’s chorus predicted, “this whole world, soon gonna be get mixed up” has come to fruition. In multiple ways, today’s world is more mixed up than ever – racially, culturally, and politically. Debates over immigration, identity, values, diversity, and inclusion dominate our news. Pete Seeger would have encouraged us to see this diversity not as a danger but as our destiny and he would have challenged us to embrace our intertwined identities and communities across current divides.

Today, we navigate a world more connected and more polarized than ever, with multiple “pavilions” created by social media that readily amplify our divisions. Sadly, these pavilions leave little space for a Pete Seeger to share his wisdom. But Seeger’s song and its sentiment lives on and remains a beacon: diversity isn’t a threat, but our greatest collective strength – and something to celebrate as Pete suggested in the last verse “take a tip from La Belle France, “Vive la difference.”

If we can pause the shouting, remember we're all mixed up, and sing together, we can find our way forward with hope and unity and harmony – just as we did in that pavilion long ago. With or without Pete leading us.