We Shall Overcome rating: ASIN or ISBN-10: B000Z7SAL4 binding: MP3 Download amazon price: $0.99 USD

In India, "We Shall Overcome" is a popular inspirational song. Virtually all South Asian Indians have sung or heard this song some time in their live. The song is, however, an American original, and like many other things of beauty, the world owes this song to the United States. "We Shall Overcome" is originally a Christian Gospel Song by the Reverend Charles Tindley. This Gospel was modified to a protest song that became a key anthem of the US civil rights movement. The song was published in 1947 as "We Will Overcome" in the 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, a school that trained union organizers. It was her favorite song and she taught it to 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. The song became associated with the Civil Rights movement from 1959, when Guy Carawan stepped in as song leader at Highlander, and the school was the focus of student non-violent activism. It quickly became the movement's unofficial anthem. Seeger and other famous folksingers in the early 1960s, such as Joan Baez, sang the song at rallies, folk festivals, and concerts in the North and helped make it widely known. Since its rise to prominence, the song, and songs based on it, have been used in a variety of protests worldwide.

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