We Shall Overcome

About We Shall Overcome

"We Shall Overcome" is a gospel song which became a protest song and a key anthem of the Civil Rights Movement. The song is most commonly attributed as being lyrically descended from "I'll Overcome Some Day", a hymn by Charles Albert Tindley that was first published in 1900. The modern version of the song was first said to have been sung by tobacco workers led by Lucille Simmons during a 1945 cigar workers strike in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1947, the song was published under the title "We Will Overcome" in an edition of the People's Songs Bulletin (a publication of People's Songs, an organization of which Pete Seeger was the director), as a contribution of and with an introduction by Zilphia Horton, then-music director of the Highlander Folk School of Monteagle, Tennessee (an adult education school that trained union organizers). Horton said she had learned the song from Simmons, and she considered it to be her favorite song. She taught it to many others, including Pete Seeger, who included it in his repertoire, as did many other activist singers, such as Frank Hamilton and Joe Glazer, who recorded it in 1950. more »

Year:

1993

4:40

95 Views

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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
We'll walk hand in hand, some day

Deep in my heart
Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
I do believe
We shall overcome, some day
We shall overcome, some day

We shall live in peace
We shall live in peace
We shall live in peace, some day
We shall live in peace, some day

Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome, some day

The most important verse if the one they wrote down in Montgomery Alabama
They said 'We are not afraid'
And the young people taught everybody else a lesson
All the older people that had learned how to compromise
And learned how to take it easy, and be polite, and get along
And leave things as they were
The young people taught us all a lesson

We are not afraid
We are not afraid
We are not afraid, today

Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome, some day
We shall overcome, some day

The whole wide world around
The whole wide world around
The whole wide world around
The whole wide world around, some day

Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome, some day

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Pete Seeger

Peter "Pete" Seeger (born May 3, 1919) is an iconic American folk singer. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene", which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. Members of The Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, he re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, and environmental causes. more »

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