We Shall Overcome

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"We Shall Overcome" is a protest song that became a key anthem of the US civil rights movement.

Contents 1 Origins 2 Role of Highlander Center 3 Widespread adaptation 4 Copyright and royalties 5 See also 6 Notes 7 External links 8 References

[edit] Origins

The phrase is derived from the lyrics to a 1901 hymn or gospel musical composition by Rev. Charles Tindley of Philadelphia. Tindley was a African Methodist Episcopal Church minister who composed many hymns and lyrics, some 50 of which are known to have survived. The lyrics to "We Shall Overcome" were combined with Tindley's original melody at a later date. The new lyrics contained the repeated line "I'll overcome someday," but more likely a later gospel song containing the line "Deep in my heart, I do believe / I'll overcome someday." However, there are also earlier acknowledgements of the song, with Pete Seeger, one of the first artists to record it, noting that various versions can be traced to integrated meetings of black and white coal miners in the early 1900s and to black churches in the 1800s.^[1]

According to James J. Fuld,^[2] Charles Albert Tindley wrote words that are similar to the song we now know, but his tune was different. Sometime between 1900 and 1946, someone married Tindley's words to a 1794 hymn called "O Sanctissima." Atron Twigg is possibly responsible for the change. ^[3].

[edit] Role of Highlander Center

In Charleston, South Carolina in 1946, striking employees of the American Tobacco Company, mostly African American women, were singing hymns on the picket line. A woman named Lucille Simmons sang a slow "long meter style" version of the song, as "We'll Overcome". Zilphia Horton, a white woman and the wife of the co-founder of the Highlander Folk School (later Highlander Research and Education Center) learned it from her. The next year she taught it to Pete Seeger.^[4]

Pete Seeger (or someone else, possibly Waldemar Hille, he himself isn't sure and writes that it may have been Highlander's Septima Clark) changed "We will overcome" to "We shall overcome." He added some verses ("We'll walk hand in hand", "The whole wide world around") and taught it to Californian singer Frank Hamilton, who taught it to Guy Carawan, who re-introduced it to Highlander in 1959. In the PBS video We Shall Overcome, Julian Bond credits Carawan with teaching and singing the song at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Raleigh, N.C., in 1960. From there, it spread orally and became an anthem of southern African American labor union and civil rights activism. ^[5] Seeger has, on occasion, in concert, credited Carawan with the primary role in teaching and popularizing the song with the civil rights movement.

[edit] Widespread adaptation

From 1963, the song was often associated with Joan Baez, who recorded it and performed it at a number of Civil Rights marches and years later at the 1969 Woodstock Festival.^{[citation needed]} On March 15, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson used the phrase "We shall overcome" in a speech before Congress.^[6] Only a few days before, "Bloody Sunday" had occurred on the Selma to Montgomery marches. The melody alone is used in William Rowland's Symphony #4 in which it is quoted with due credit to Tinsley and a set of variations and arrangements are developed from it for the fourth movement of this work. This is in the great tradition of composers of symphonic works using such works in their works such as Charles Ives (America Gem of the Ocean,Swing Lo Sweet Chariot) and various hymns), Shostokovitch, who quotes a number of well known works in his Symphony #15, Tchaikovsky who uses the Russian Hymn and French National Anthem in his 1812 Overture, Beethoven--who quotes God Save the King in some of his works Dvorak--who quotes in full "Going Home" et al.

The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association used the phrase during marches^[7] and named the organizations' retrospective autobiography We Shall Overcome - The History of the Struggle for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland 1968-1978.^[8] The film Bloody Sunday depicts march leader MP Ivan Cooper and his marches singing the song shortly before the Bloody Sunday shootings.

Farmworkers in the United States sang the song in Spanish during strikes and grape boycotts of the late 1960s.^{[citation needed]}

Bruce Springsteen re-interpreted the song, which has been included on Where Have All the Flowers Gone: A Tribute to Pete Seeger, and his 2006 album We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.

In 1999, National Public Radio included this song in the "NPR 100," in which NPR's music editors sought to compile the one hundred most important American musical works of the 20th century.[1]

The song found its way to South Africa in the later years of the anti-apartheid movement.^[9] The song was notably sung by the U.S. Senator for New York Robert F. Kennedy, who led anti-apartheid crowds in choruses from the rooftop of his car while touring the country in 1966. ^[10]

It was also the song Abie Nathan chose to play as the Voice of Peace on October 1, 1993.^{[citation needed]}

"In Prague in 1989, during the intense weeks of the Velvet Revolution, hundreds of thousands of people sang this haunting music in unison in Wenceslas Square, both in English and in Czech. With special emphasis on that glorious phrase 'I do believe.' This song’s message of hope and faith in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds gave these protesters the strength to carry on until the evil powers-that-be finally gave up hope themselves. Ironically, the song had been introduced and popularized here thanks to the globetrotting efforts of Pete Seeger, who had been a card-carrying member of the Communist Party of the USA from 1942-1950. In the Prague of 1964, Seeger was stunned to find himself being whistled and booed by crowds of bold Czechs when he spoke out against the Vietnam War. But those same crowds loved, learned, and never forgot his rendition of 'We Shall Overcome.' History is full of such rich ironies … if only you are willing to see them."Template:Mark Allen, Prague Symphony, 2008

In India, its literal translation in Hindi "Hum Honge Kaamyab / Ek Din" became a patriotic/spiritual song during the 1980s, particularly in schools, and the song's popularity has continued.

In Bengali-speaking India and in Bangladesh there are two versions, both popular among school-children and political activists. "Amra Karbo Joy" (a literal translation) was translated by the Bengali folk singer Hemanga Biswas and re-recorded by Bhupen Hazarika. Another version, translated by Shibdas Bandyopadhyay, "Ek Din Surjyer Bhor" (literally translated as "One Day The Sun Will Rise") was recorded by the Calcutta Youth Choir arranged by Ruma Guha Thakurta during the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence and became one of the largest selling Bengali records. It was a favourite of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and regularly sung at public events after Bangladesh gained independence.^{[citation needed]}

In the Indian State of Kerala, the traditional Communist stronghold, the song became popular in college campuses in late 1970s. It was the struggle song of the Students Federation of India SFI, the largest student organisation in the country. The song translated to the regional language Malayalam by N. P. Chandrasekharan, an activist of SFI, in 1980. The translation followed the same tune of the original song. Later it was also published in Student, the monthly of SFI in Malayalam.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Copyright and royalties

Under US Copyright Law, the music of "We Shall Overcome" is the intellectual property of Rev. Charles Tinsley and any family members of successive generations or the African Methodist Episcopal Church if Tinsley so assigned it. As this work was composed in 1901, it is as of 2008 public domain. However, Seeger's arrangement and words belong to him et al. Current (2008) US Copyright Law provides 100 years for musical works before they become public domain. Copyright on the song as arranged by Seeger is held by Seeger, Carawan and Hamilton. Seeger explained that he took out a defensive copyright on advice of his publisher to prevent someone else from doing so and "At that time we didn't know Lucille Simmons' name."^[11] All royalties go to the "We Shall Overcome" Fund, administered by Highlander and used to give small grants for cultural expression involving African Americans organizing in the U.S. South.^[12] However, in a similar legal case involving the Kingston Trio or similar group in the case of "Tom Dooley---Hang your Head down Tom Dooley," the court ruled that they had infringed upon a Yadkin County, North Carolina man's ownership of this song. It is likely that a court would rule the same in the case of the Seeger case outside any arrangements that he has made.

[edit] See also

• American Civil Rights Movement Timeline
• Pete Seeger
• We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
• Guy Carawan

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Susanne´s Folksong-Notizen, excerpts from various articles, liner notes, etc. about "We Shall Overcome".
• Musical Transcription of "We Shall Overcome". Based on recording of SNCC Freedom Singers with Pete Seeger.
• NPR news article including full streaming versions of Pete Seeger's classic Carnegie hall live recording and Bruce Springsteen's tribute version.
• "Something about that song haunts you" essay on the history of "We Shall Overcome," Complicated Fun, June 9, 2006

[edit] References

• Dunaway, David, How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger, (orig. pub. 1981, reissued 1990). Da Capo, New York, ISBN 0-306-80399-2.
• Seeger, Pete and Blood, Peter (Ed.), Where Have All the Flowers Gone?: A Singer's Stories, Songs, Seeds, Robberies (1993). Independent Publications Group, Sing Out Publications, ISBN 1-881322-01-7
• ___, "The We Shall Overcome Fund". Highlander Reports, newsletter of the Highlander Research and Education Center, August-November 2004, p.3.
• We Shall Overcome, PBS Home Video 174, 1990, 58 minutes.

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