Guy Carawan was a musicologist and singer best known for his interpretation of the folk song "We Shall Overcome." It went on to become a revolutionary anthem — not only for the US civil rights movement, but for oppressed people all over the world.
Carawan left behind a great musical and activist legacy when he died last Saturday, surrounded by family at home in Tennessee.
Carawan, 87, did not actually write the song nor did he claim to. "We Shall Overcome" has a rich history that can be tracked to a church hymn in the late 19th century, and it found new life as a demonstration call among labor protesters in the 1940s.
Carawan initially sang and taught "We Shall Overcome" to an assembly of black scholars, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Raleigh, North Carolina in April of 1960. It quickly spread among activists to become a theme song of the African-American civil rights movement. The song is copyrighted in the names of Carawan, Pete Seeger, Frank Hamilton and Zilphia Horton.
It was performed at rallies and demonstrations during the 1960s, including the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, headed by civil rights activist and icon Martin Luther King Jr. A couple of decades later, the song went international, and was performed by protesters at Tiananmen Square and by demonstrators at the dismantled Berlin Wall.
In a 1999 interview with NPR, Carawan mentioned that he'd learned the melody and lyrics from a colleague in California.
An obvious measure of the song's influence came just five years after Mr. Carawan first performed it in Raleigh. On March 15, 1965, in a televised address seen by 70 million Americans, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his intention to submit a voting rights bill to Congress.
Stating that the civil rights cause was not only a minority struggle, the president said, "it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice," adding, "and we shall overcome."
Carawan was born in 1927 to southern parents in Santa Monica, California.
After moving to New York City, he participated in the American folk music movement at Greenwich Village in the 1950s.
Carawan and his second wife, singer Candie Carawan, were married in March 1961 and taught music together for years at the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee. He also served as a music director for the Highlander social justice leadership training school.
Mr. Carawan, who was diagnosed with dementia, peacefully passed away on May 2. He is survived by his wife, their two children, Evan and Heather, and a granddaughter.
Photo: Cindy Funk | Flickr
