"We Shall Overcome": The History Behind the Ultimate Protest Song

No song in American history has had as much impact as the gospel/folk song "We Shall Overcome." Sung by activists during the 1960s civil rights movement, the song has since traveled far and wide and has come to represent the hope of those struggling to free themselves from oppression, injustice, and inequality.

The song's history is a long and storied one. But, as with many stories that are passed down orally from one generation to the next, there are numerous versions of its derivations. One such story pinpoints its origins in a 1903 gospel song sung by Rev. Charles Tindley of Philadelphia. His version, though, had the line: "I'll overcome some day." Another version suggests that the song's origin came from another gospel song that had the lines: "Deep in my heart, I do believe/I'll overcome some day." But the song's origins, according to folksinger Pete Singer, can also be traced back to the 1800s, when it was sung in black churches, and the early 1900s when integrated black and white coal miners sung it in meetings.

Whatever its true origins, the song began its trek into the American consciousness as late as 1946, when, in Charleston, North Carolina, Black women who went on strike against the American Tobacco Company, sung it on picket lines. One of the strikers, Lucille Simmons, sang a version of "We'll Overcome" in the slow, measured meter the is so familiarly sung in later versions of the song. Zilphia Horton, a white woman who was the wife of the co-founder of the Highlander Folk School, asked Simmons to teach her this version of the song. She introduced it to Pete Seeger, who would later record his own version of it.

The song was introduced into the modern civil rights movement in 1960 when Seeger sang it at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Raleigh, North Carolina, adding the lines "We'll walk hand in hand" and "The whole world around." This version became the most recognized. Students and activists who were involved in the sit-ins and marches in the south often sang "We Shall Overcome" either during meetings, in actual marches, or in jail cells to strengthen their resolve in the face of the almost insurmountable violence and bigotry they faced. In historian Taylor Branch's work on the civil rights era Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-65, a typical protest march in St. Augustine, Florida, is detailed in this passage:

Willie Bolden, the former Savannah bellhop who had bonded himself to Williams in a new movement life, walked up and down the aisles coaxing students to surrender even pens and pencils before they marched off in double file down the sidewalks to the Old Slave Market. There they sang hymns, including an up-tempo 'We Shall Overcome,' then marched before bystanders through the downtown streets to the majestic Ponce de Leon Hotel, through its doors and on into the enormous dining room where Vice President Johnson had spoken the previous year (280).

News footage of protesters singing "We Shall Overcome" brought the song out into the spotlight, inspiring millions who heard it around the world. The song became an anthem for the civil rights movement, expressing the hopes and desires of all people in search of justice and equality.

Over the years, many artists recorded "We Shall Overcome." Seeger was the first, but Joan Baez's version also became well-known. She performed a version of the song at Woodstock in 1969. Recently Bruce Springsteen recorded a version on his 2006 album We Shall Overcome: The Pete Seeger Sessions.

But recording artists and folksingers weren't the only ones who used the simplicity of its heartfelt statements to effect. President Lyndon Johnson used the phrase "We Shall Overcome" in his March 15, 1965 speech before Congress, addressing the need for the passage of the then pending civil rights bill, a significant piece of legislature in the history of civil rights in America.

Over the years, "We Shall Overcome" spread beyond the civil rights movement and has become a universal anthem for human rights. Migrant farmworkers, led by Cesar Chavez, sang a Spanish version of the song when they went on strike and boycotted grapes during the late 1960s. During the 1980s, anti-apartheid activists in South Africa also sang it, while in India it has been adopted as a patriotic and spiritual hymn in schools.

The song's popularity speaks to its simple but universal theme of hope, strength, and unity in the face of injustice and oppression. What began as a gospel hymn of spiritual redemption has become a protest anthem carrying far more weight and power than most national anthems. "We Shall Overcome" is a song of and for the people.