481 Joe Glazer (1918-2006) “We Will Overcome” 1950

The song is based on a 1900 hymn by Charles Tindley, “I’ll Overcome Some Day.” Glazer learned the song from a friend, Agnes Douty, who learned it at Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, “a pioneer in efforts to improve racial relations in the South.” Glazer said, “I was teaching what later became the anthem of the civil rights movement to white textile workers all over the South. Remember, these workers were from small mill towns and probably strict segregationists, following the likes of George Wallace and Jesse Helms.” Glazer’s 1950 version of “We Shall Overcome” “was the first time a modern version of the song had been recorded” (Joe Glazer, Labor’s Troubadour, 2001).

Joe Glazer “We Will Overcome”