Support justice-driven, accurate and transparent news — make a quick donation to Truthout today!
It was 100 years ago today that the late folk singer and activist Pete Seeger was born. In 2004, Seeger came into our Firehouse studio for an in-depth interview. We play an excerpt to mark his centennial celebration, in which he recalls how he learned about the classic civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome,” that he helped to popularize. Watch the full interview and our full archive of interviews with Seeger.
Get our free emails
Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: We end today’s show with the words of the late folk singer and activist Pete Seeger. He was born a hundred years ago today. In 2004, Pete Seeger came into our Firehouse studio.
AMY GOODMAN: Pete Seeger, can you tell us about “We Shall Overcome”?
PETE SEEGER: I thought, in 1946, when I learned it from a white woman who taught in a union labor school, the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, that the song had been made up in 1946 by tobacco workers, because they sang it there to strike through the winter of 1946 in Charleston, South Carolina, and they taught the song to Zilphia Horton, the teacher at the labor school. And she said, “Oh, it was my favorite song.” And I printed it in our little magazine in New York, People’s Songs, as “We Will Overcome” in 1947.
It was a friend of mine, Guy Carawan, who made it famous. He picked up my way of singing it, “We Shall Overcome,” although Septima — there was another teacher there, Septima Clark, a black woman. She felt that “shall” — like me, she felt it opened up the mouth better than “will,” so that’s the way she sang it. Anyway, Guy Carawan in 1960 taught it to the young people at the founding convention of SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC for short. And a month later, it wasn’t a song, it was the song, throughout the South.
AMY GOODMAN: You sang it for Martin Luther King?
PETE SEEGER: In 1957, I went down to Highlander. Zilphia was dead, and Myles Horton, her husband, said, “We can’t have a celebration of 25 years with this school without music. Won’t you come down and help lead some songs?” So I went down, and Dr. King and Reverend Abernathy came up from Alabama to say a few words, and I sang a few songs, and that was one of them. Anne Braden drove King to a speaking engagement in Kentucky the next day, and she remembers him sitting in the back seat, saying, “’We Shall Overcome.’ That song really sticks with you, doesn’t it?” But he wasn’t the song leader. It wasn’t until another three years that Guy Carawan made it famous.
AMY GOODMAN: The late folk singer and activist Pete Seeger speaking in 2004. He was born 100 years ago today. You can watch that full interview and all of our interviews with Pete Seeger on our website at democracynow.org.
You can also sign up for our daily email, our headlines and news alerts. Just text the word “democracynow” — one word — to 66866. That’s “democracynow,” 66866.
Democracy Now! has an immediate opening for our paid, full-time digital fellowship here in New York City. We also are accepting applications for paid, 6-month internships. Learn more at democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.
A terrifying moment. We appeal for your support.
In the last weeks, we have witnessed an authoritarian assault on communities in Minnesota and across the nation.
The need for truthful, grassroots reporting is urgent at this cataclysmic historical moment. Yet, Trump-aligned billionaires and other allies have taken over many legacy media outlets — the culmination of a decades-long campaign to place control of the narrative into the hands of the political right.
We refuse to let Trump’s blatant propaganda machine go unchecked. Untethered to corporate ownership or advertisers, Truthout remains fearless in our reporting and our determination to use journalism as a tool for justice.
But we need your help just to fund our basic expenses. Over 80 percent of Truthout’s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors.
Truthout has launched a fundraiser to add 340 new monthly donors in the next 5 days. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger one-time gift, Truthout only works with your support.