We Shall Overcome

"We Shall Overcome" is a protest song that became a key anthem of the African-American Civil Rights Movement. It is widely speculated that the title and structure of the song are derived from an early gospel song, "I'll Overcome Someday", by African-American composer Charles Albert Tindley (1851–1933). However, although there are lyrical similarities between the two songs, the melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and lyrical structures of Tindley's hymn are radically different from that of "We Shall Overcome". In addition, there is no mention whatsoever of Rev. Tindley or his composition in either the 1960 and 1963 copyrights of "We Shall Overcome".

The song "We Will Overcome" was published in the September 1948 issue of People's Songs Bulletin (a publication of People's Songs, an organization of which Pete Seeger was the director and guiding spirit). It appeared in the bulletin 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. In it, she wrote that she had learned the song from members of the CIO Food and Tobacco Workers Union: "It was first sung in Charleston, S.C. ... Its strong emotional appeal and simple dignity never fails to hit people. It sort of stops them cold silent." It was her favorite song and she taught it to countless 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.

We Shall Overcome (disambiguation)

"We Shall Overcome" is a protest song of the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

We Shall Overcome may also refer to:

We Shall Overcome (Pete Seeger album)

We Shall Overcome is a 1963 album by Pete Seeger. It was recorded live at his concert at Carnegie Hall, New York, on June 8, 1963, and was released by Columbia Records.

The concert was described by Ed Vulliamy of The Observer as "a launch event for the entwining of the music and politics of the 1960s". Reviewer Stewart Mason at Allmusic criticised some of the songs as "trite", but wrote that "the second half of the concert, climaxing in the definitive version of "Guantanamera," is protest folk at its finest." It was added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress in 2006, calling it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

The album was reissued in an expanded 2-CD version in 1989, as We Shall Overcome - The Complete Carnegie Hall Concert.

Track listing

Original LP

Side 1: