Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest, Episode 7: Bessie Jones and Children from the Downtown Community School
1965
▶ Watch on Internet Archive⚠ Unverified — hosted on the Internet Archive, not confirmed public domain. Opens on archive.org; nothing plays here directly.
Bessie Jones and the children of the Downtown Community School sing and dance children's play-party songs such as "Thread & Needle" and "Drawing a Bucket of Water." Pete Seeger sings Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and several children's songs. Seeger had taught singing at the experimental, racially integrated Downtown Community School in the 1950s while blacklisted from other work for his refusal to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee. Rainbow Quest was a television program produced for one series run in 1965 and 1966 by the Advertisers Broadcasting Company for UHF station WNJU-TV in New York City. Throughout the show's 39-episode run, writer and curator of American folk songs Pete Seeger hosted many guest musicians. He also himself presented the histories of diverse American and international folk music traditions through spoken and musical segments.