We Shall Overcome

"We Shall Overcome" was a song that became popular in the 1960s, during the Civil Rights movement in America, after Pete Seeger picked it up, adapted it, and taught it to his audiences to sing. However, the melody dates back to before the Civil War, from a song called "No More Auction Block For Me" and the lyrics originally were "I'll overcome someday," which dates back to a 1901 song by the Reverend Charles Tindley of Philadelphia.

The song didn't appear on a large scale until 1946, during a labor strike at the American Tobacco Company. One of the women striking that day, Lucille Simmons, began singing slowly, "Deep in my heart I do believe we'll overcome some day."

Zilphia Horton, whose husband was the co-founder of the Highlander Folk School (aka Highlander Research and Education Center), learned the song from Simmons and, a year later, taught it to Pete Seeger.

Since then, "We Shall Overcome" has spread from singer to singer, through protests and peace rallies. It was recorded by Joan Baez in 1963 and became a major anthem of the Civil Rights movement.