Overcome: The Theme Song of the Civil Rights Movement
Music can serve many purposes. It can bridge the gap between differentiating ideals and cultures. It can promote harmony and well-being while at the same time exhibiting and aura of peace. And finally, music can inspire. It can compel individuals to continue to move and push forward toward a goal even when it may seem as if all of their energy has been exhausted. The song, “We Shall Overcome,” does all of these things. From 1954 to 1968, “We Shall Overcome” emerged as the anthem and unified rallying cry for one of the most pivotal and extraordinary eras in American history, the Civil Rights Movement. Every aspect of the song unified individuals under the common banner of equality and it did so while maintaining the foundation of peaceful protest that the Civil Rights Movement was built upon.
There is no official author to “We Shall Overcome” as the song originated during the times of slavery and was utilized by slaves to encourage one another to “overcome” their difficulties and hardships because they believed that better times were not far away. The slaves would sing, “I’ll be alright someday.” The song made its way from the cotton fields of the south into the black churches and in 1901, a Methodist minister named Charles Tindley published his own version entitled, “I’ll Overcome Someday.” In Charleston, South Carolina during the year 1945, the members of the Food and Tobacco Workers Union took part in a five month strike against the American Tobacco Company to fight poor salaries (workers made only 45 cents per hour) and unfit working conditions. The majority of the workers were black females and “We Shall Overcome” was sung in the picket lines as a way to motivate one another to continue to work toward better conditions and brave the cold winter. The worker’s sang, “We will overcome, and we shall earn our rights someday.” Yet the song would not become well-known until it was brought to the attention of a man who could share it with the entire nation.
Two years after the worker’s strike, a few members from that same union attended a convention at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. Highlander (founded in 1932 by Myles Horton) was a well-known inter-racial training center where labor and civil rights activists could congregate to discuss pressing matters in society. Highlander was a widely disputed because it became the home for many radical progressive ideas regarding civil rights. Blacks and whites were also treated as equals, a concept that infuriated the white southerners who had lived under the segregation laws that they themselves had enacted. When the members of the worker’s union descended upon Tennessee for the convention, they taught Highlander’s music director Zilphia Horton (the wife of founder Myles Horton), the lyrics to their battle cry, “We Will Overcome.” Horton was enamored with the song and began to include it in all of her workshops and teachings. Finally, in 1947, a folk singer named Pete Seeger who was also a civil rights activist in his own right, learned the song on one of his many trips to the Highlander Folk School. Like so many before him, Seeger was captivated by the songs inspirational qualities and after applying slight modifications to its lyrics such as changing its official title to “We Shall Overcome,” Seeger published the song in the 1948 September issue of People’s Songs Bulletin for the entire nation to read. In 1959, Highlander’s new director of music, Guy Carawan, adjusted Seeger’s version and at last, “We Shall Overcome” had been finalized. The Civil Rights Movement had its anthem.
The lyrics to “We Shall Overcome” are as follows:
We shall overcome,
We shall overcome,
We shall overcome, some day.
Oh, deep in my heart,
I do believe
We shall overcome, some day.
We'll walk hand in hand,
We'll walk hand in hand,
We'll walk hand in hand, some day.
Oh, deep in my heart,
I do believe
We shall overcome, some day.
We shall
