New York, January 28 (RHC)-- U.S. peace activist, environmentalist, songwriter, and folk legend Pete Seeger died on Monday at the age of 94. Confirmed by family members, Seeger is reported to have died of natural causes at a hospital not far from his longtime home in the town of Beacon, New York along the Hudson River.

A banjo and guitar player who once traveled the U.S. with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger was a giant of the folk music revival of the Twentieth Century, playing for audiences and children all over the world. As well known for his political activism and consistent voice against war, destruction, and oppression, Seeger was often shunned by the powerful but never wavered in his commitment to justice, beauty, and the power of music to bring people together.

Throughout his career, that spanned nearly eighty years, Pete Seeger used his banjo playing and singing to support labor struggles, the civil rights movement, anti-war campaigns and environmental causes. In an interview in 2009, he said: “My job is to show folks there’s a lot of good music in this world, and if used right it may help to save the planet.”

Blacklisted during the 1950s due to his membership in the Communist Party USA, Pete Seeger said: "I believe the only chance for the human race to survive is to give up such pleasures as war, racism and private profit."