
They were furious…running around with flashlights. They demanded the lights be turned on, but they couldn't get anybody at Highlander to do it. They must have been vigilantes and some police officers, but they weren't in uniform. Suddenly, raiders came in with flashlights.
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…They were looking at a movie called Face of the South. When white thugs staged a nighttime raid on Highlander in the late 1950s, it inspired a new verse for “We Shall Overcome.” According to one of the founders of Highlander Folk School, Myles Horton: "A group of young people, a youth choir…was at Highlander. How “We Are Not Afraid” Got Its Own Verse promised a measure of equality for its black citizens. confront one of the most complex and controversial issues in its history-race relations. “We Shall Overcome” and other protest songs provided the soundtrack to the Civil Rights Movement. President Lyndon Johnson - 1964 address to CongressĪ year later, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, a federal law that protected African Americans’ right to vote. And these enemies too, poverty, disease and ignorance, we shall overcome." They are the enemies and not our fellow man, not our neighbor. These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease. In a special speech before Congress, he used the title of the song to make clear his beliefs, saying: "This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to all: black and white, North and South, sharecropper and city dweller. Johnson, a southerner from Texas, signed the landmark legislation on August 6, 1964. The new law banned racial segregation in schools, restaurants, theaters, and hotels. At long last, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 nearly a century after the U.S. Slowly, gradually, more Americans of all races recognized the justice of the civil rights cause. “It’s the genius of simplicity,” Seeger said about the song in a later interview. “We Shall Overcome” proved easy to learn and sing at different types of civil rights protests such as sit-ins, marches, and huge rallies. At some point, the nationally known folk singer revised the lyrics “We will” to “We shall.” Zilphia Horton, head of the school’s cultural program, learned it and later taught it to Pete Seeger. In 1947, Simmons brought the song to Highlander Folk School and shared it with other labor activists there. Other lyrics were improvised for pro-union purposes, including “We will organize,” “We will win our rights,” and “We will win this fight.” But she gave the song a powerful sense of solidarity by changing the “I” into “We” as they sang together. “I Will Overcome” was a favorite song of Lucille Simmons, one of the strikers.

African American women strikers, seeking a pay raise to 30 cents an hour, sang as they picketed. “We’ll Overcome” first appeared as a protest song during a 1945–1946 labor strike against American Tobacco in Charleston, South Carolina. Around 1945, gospel arrangers Atron Twigg and Kenneth Morris apparently put together the essential pieces of the now-famous words and melody. Charles Tindley, were added to the musical mix-though the music was very different. mixed and matched similar tunes in the songs “I’ll Be All Right” and “No More Auction Block For Me.”Īfter 1900, it seems the lyrics of another gospel song “I’ll Overcome Someday,” by the Methodist minister and composer Reverend Dr. Part of the melody seems to be related to two European songs from the 1700s, “Prayer of the Sicilian Mariners” and “O Sanctissima.” Black slaves in the U.S. “We Shall Overcome” has a long history, with input from many people and places.


It offered courage, comfort, and hope as protesters confronted prejudice and hate in the battle for equal rights for African Americans. That song was “We Shall Overcome.” It soon became the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. “There’s something about that song that haunts you,” he said to his companions.

King found himself humming the tune in the car. He plucked out a song he had learned at Highlander, and led the audience in singing it. As part of the meeting, folk singer Pete Seeger got up with his banjo. King delivered the main speech that day, honoring the school’s 25th anniversary. At a time when southern laws kept blacks and whites segregated or separate, some white racists terrorized African Americans with deadly violence.ĭr. The school also made a point of bringing blacks and whites together to share experiences and to learn from each other. Part of the school’s mission was to help prepare civil rights workers to challenge unjust laws and racist policies that discriminated against African Americans. Martin Luther King, Jr., visited Highlander Folk School in Tennessee.
