Lee Hays (March 14, 1914 - August 26, 1981), was an American folk-singer and songwriter, best known for singing bass with The Weavers. Throughout his life, he was concerned with overcoming racism, inequality, and violence in society.
Hays was born in Little Rock, Arkansas to William Benjamin Hays and Ellen Reinhardt Hays. William was a Methodist preacher who moved from parish to parish, so Lee lived in several towns in Arkansas and Georgia during his childhood and learned to sing sacred harp music in his father's church. When he was five, he witnessed public lynchings of African-Americans.
He studied at Commonwealth College, in Arkansas, during the Great Depression. At the same time, he preached in local churches and wrote stories, plays, and songs. Eli Jaffe, a playwright and fellow student, said that Hays "was deeply religious and extremely creative and imaginative and firmly believed in the Brotherhood of Man." "If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)" is a song written by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays. It was written in 1949 in support of the progressive movement, and was first recorded by The Weavers, a folk music quartet composed of Seeger, Hays, Ronnie.