Pete Seeger’s death has prompted several reminiscences about his 1955 appearance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). And for good reason. Two good reasons, in fact.

First, Seeger refused to answer questions about his beliefs and associations — up until the 1940s, he had been a member of the Communist Party — not on the basis of the Fifth Amendment, which protects men and women from self-incrimination, but on the basis of the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of speech. While invoking the Fifth was not without its perils — most important, it could put someone on the blacklist; individuals who invoked it frequently found themselves without work — it had the advantage of keeping one out of jail. But the cost of the Fifth was clear: though you could refuse to testify about yourself, you could not refuse to testify about others. Seeger invoked the First Amendment instead. A far riskier legal position: the Court had already held, in the case of the Hollywood 10, that the First Amendment did not protect men and women who refused to testify before HUAC — it was the more principled stance. As Seeger explained later, “The Fifth means they can’t ask me, the First means they can’t ask anybody.” And he paid for it. Cited for contempt of Congress, he was indicted, convicted, and sentenced to a year in prison. Eventually the sentence got overturned.

Second, not only did Seeger refuse to answer questions about his associations and beliefs, but he also did it with great panache. When asked by HUAC to name names, he refused — and then almost immediately offered to sing songs instead. Much to the consternation of the Committee chair, Francis Walters, Seeger followed up with a more personal offer: “I know many beautiful songs from your home county, Carbon, and Monroe, and I hitchhiked through there and stayed in the homes of miners.”