662 Pete Seeger (1919-2014) “We Shall Overcome” and “Little Boxes” 1963

Seeger learned “We Shall Overcome” from the music director at Highlander Folk School, Ziphia Horton. After she died, “folksinger and sociologist Guy Carawan…took her place as musical director.” Carawan was “the right man in the right place” and “undoubtedly  the catalyst in making ‘We Shall Overcome’ and other civil rights songs known and sung throughout the South.” Glazer writes, “Starting out as a black church song, ‘We Shall Overcome’ became a union song developed by black workers and sung for many years by white workers as their union song. It then became a civil rights song shaped and spread by three white musicians (Zilphia Horton, Pete Seeger, and Guy Carawan). Finally, it came home to the black community as the expression of its hopes and dreams” (Joe Glazer, Labor’s Troubadour, 2001). The album We Shall Overcome  is listed on the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. 

Pete Seeger “We Shall Overcome”

Pete Seeger “Little Boxes”