We shall overcome

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Thursday, 26 August 2010, 19:36

Billy Bragg backs the Together campaign

‘We shall overcome’ is to become the adopted tune of our Peace Vigil tomorrow. We will be looking for the crowd to join us in a rendition (though the singing will be lead by local signer Joe Sheeran rather than myself!) and just to help them along we will be providing everyone who attends with a sing sheet.

I’ve looked into the history of the song and it’s really fascinating.

"We Shall Overcome" is a protest song that became the unofficial anthem of the US civil rights movement in the 1960s. It was originally written by Rev. Charles Tindley, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1901 and was soon sung at integrated meetings of black and white coal miners in the early 1900s.The song was published in 1947 as "We Will Overcome" in the People's Songs Bulletin (a publication of People's Songs, an organization led by Pete Seeger. The song became associated with the Civil Rights movement from 1959, when Guy Carawan stepped in as song leader at Highlander Folk School, Tennessee, and the school a school that trained union organizers and which was the focus of student non-violent activism. With Seeger and Joan Baez singing it regularly at protests and folk festivals it quickly became the movement's unofficial anthem. "We Shall Overcome" was also sung by Robert F Kennedy, who led anti-apartheid crowds in choruses from the rooftop of his car while touring South Africa in 1966.

It has since been adopted internationally as a song of peace. After the racist serial killer "Lasermannen" had shot several immigrants around Stockholm in 1992, Prime Minister Carl Bildt and Immigration Minister Birgit Friggebo attended a meeting in Rinkeby. As the audience became upset, Friggebo tried to calm them down by proposing everyone to sing We Shall Overcome. A Hindi version of the song is very popular in India and often taught in the schools as a global peace song.

As party of our preparations for tomorrow’s vigil Ellie and a local council Sinead Engel were dropping off leaflets at various places around the city. At the Girlington Community Centre they got into a conversation with a local community worker. While totally supporting our campaign she did describe the ban as only a ‘partial ban’ as the EDL was still holding a static protest in the city. A young bloke, who was in the centre at the time, disagreed. “They’ve got the march banned,” he pipped up, in support of our campaign. “If it hadn’t been for them [us] the EDL would have been marching through West Bowling and it would have been nuts.”

He pointed out of the window and talked about the new Toys r Us store that had recently opening. “We need more of that,” he said. “We need the big shops coming back. We are only now getting over the 2001 riots.”

He reflects the mood of the city. Everyone is petrified of another disturbance and that is why virtually no-one in Bradford supported a counter-protest. And this is why the song ‘We Shall Overcome’ is so appropriate for this city.

It is fitting that as we talk about protest songs that I'm uploading a picture that Billy Bragg sent in. So, if you would like to add your photo and send us a message then you can do so here:

http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/WeAreOne