Guy Carawan taught "We Shall Overcome" to Shreveport activists

It’s often said that sound and music are powerful forces that can impact the mind, mood, and body. The Civil Rights Movement has been described as “the greatest singing movement this country has experienced,” coined by Guy Carawan, a major contributor to the movement, especially in the south.

Guy Carawan was born in Los Angeles, California, on July 28, 1927. He received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Occidental College in 1949 and later his master’s degree in sociology from UCLA, but his true passion was traditional folk music. His favorite instruments to play were the guitar and hammer dulcimer.

Carawan became friends with American folk singer and social activist Pete Seeger and the folk group The Weavers and eventually moved to New York City, where he became an essential part of the American folk music revival movement. In 1953, Carawan ventured to the Highlander Folk School, currently known as Highlander Research and Education Center, in Monteagle, Tennessee, where he met his wife Candie. Highlander played a vital role in the Civil Rights Movement, one of the gathering places for civil rights activists to share information, sing, collaborate, teach, and strategize.

In 1955, Rosa Parks attended a Highlander workshop invited by staff member and civil rights activist Septima Clark. Rosa Parks’s visit was shortly before her historic bus ride in Montgomery, Alabama.

In 1959, the founder of the Highlander School, Myles Horton, asked Guy Carawan to become Highlander’s music director. Carawan would be charged to continue sharing songs and to encourage people to sing. Singing labor and freedom songs at Highlander had been an important aspect of the school.

One particular song, We Shall Overcome, had been a theme song at the school since striking tobacco workers brought it to a Highlander workshop in 1947 and taught it to Zilphia Horton, Highlander’s cultural director and wife of founder Myles Horton.

January 1960, Pete Seeger, Zilphia Horton, Frank Hamilton, and Guy Carawan copyrighted Ludlow’s 1960 version with new words and music arrangement of the 1947 version of We Shall Overcome. This powerful song was taught to activists who led the sit-in movement of the 1960s.

Shreveport was among the first places in the country where this famous version was sung and taught at Little Union Baptist Church.

uy was invited to the founding meeting of April 15, 1960, of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was able to sing and pass the We Shall Overcome song on to the Civil Rights Movement.

6 months later, in October 1960, The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) held its annual conference in Shreveport, Louisiana, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the group. Dr. C.O. Simpkins, a practicing dentist from Shreveport, was one of Dr. King’s close friends and fellow Board member.

Dr. Simpkins, a military veteran and a significant activist in northwest Louisiana, also led the United Christian Movement (UCM) and hosted the SCLC. On October 12, 1960, Dr. Simpkins purchased a brand-new Ford station wagon and was pulled over by Shreveport Police.

The station wagon was leaving Little Baptist Church and heading a short distance to Sprague Street Hotel; the driver and all passengers were arrested, detained for about an hour and a half, and later released.

Inside the vehicle was Dr. Simpkins; Reverend Ralph Abernathy (then president of the Montgomery Improvement Association); Guy Carawan, white Highlander music director; and John Brooks, NAACP Director of Voter Registration.

Among the arresting officers was a Louisiana State trooper, the Shreveport Police Chief Harvey D. Teasley, who denied police taking the four men into custody.

March 17, 1961, Guy and Candie got married and continued to travel the south. They even marched with Dr. King in Selma, Alabama, and worked with Rosa Parks and other influential activists.

Guy Carawan passed away on March 2, 2015, at their home in New Market, Tennesee, at the age of 87. Candie Carawan is still alive today.

Guy and Candie, with their beautiful voices, recorded numerous albums throughout their career:

• 1958 Songs With Guy Carawan, Songs With Guy Carawan
• 1959 This Little Heart of Mine, Guy Carawan
• 1959 Guy Carawan, Vol. 2: Guy Carawan Sings Something Old, New Borrowed and Blue, Guy Carawan
• 1961 We Shall Overcome: Songs of Freedom Riders and Sit-Ins, Guy Carawan, The Montgomery Gospel Trio & The Nashville Quartet
• 1985 Evan & Guy Carawan: Appalachian & Irish Tunes on Hammer Dulcimer, Evan and Guy Carawan
• 1990 Tree of Life (featuring Candie Carawan), Guy and Candie Carawan
• 2009 Classic Protest Songs, Various Artists
• 2014 America at Play, Peggy Seeger & Guy Carawan
• 2019 Origins of Skittle, Peggy Seeger, Isla Cameron & Guy Carawan

The Carawans’ impact and contribution to the Movement was a powerful and inspiration tool that the segregationists could not match or defeat.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Civil Rights Movement in Shreveport, consider reading the following sources:

• Willie Burton, On the Black Side of Shreveport: A History (Shreveport, LA: Published by the Author, 1994)
• The [Shreveport] Times, October 14, 1960
• Pete Seeger and Bob Reiser, “Everybody Says Freedom: A History of the Civil Rights Movement in Songs and Pictures, including Many Songs Collected by Guy and Candie Carawan,” (Yearbook of Traditional Music, 1990)
• John M. Glen, Highlander: No Ordinary School, 2nd ed. (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1996)
• Candie Carawan and Guy Hughes Carawan oral history interview conducted by Joseph Mosnier in New Market, Tennessee, Sept. 19, 2011
• www.LOC.gov 9, “’We Shall Overcome’ folk singer Guy Carawan dies: Music director at social center was 87”
• Chillicothe [Ohio] Gazette, May 9, 2015
• Artstechnica.com, “The most famous civil rights song We Shall Overcome is no longer copyrighted”
• C.T. Vivian interview, 1983, quoted in Sing For Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through Its Songs, Smithsonian Folkways, SF#40032, CD, 1990
• A compilation of material from the six LPs. Selected by Guy & Candie Carawan, 1990, p. 4. 16 “Folk singer, activist Guy Carawan dies,” Tulsa [Oklahoma] World, May 9, 2015
• Carawan, Guy and Candie Carawan. We Shall Overcome! New York. Oak Publications. 1963.
• Ain’t You Got a Right to the Tree of Life?: The People of Johns Island South Carolina―Their Faces, Their Words, and Their Songs. Athens, GA. University of Georgia Press, 1966
• Freedom is a Constant Struggle, New York, Oak Publications, 1968
• The Guy and Candie Carawan Collection Southern Folklife Collection in the Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• The [Shreveport] Times, October 14, 1960
• Tulsa [Oklahoma] World, May 9, 2015
• Wikipedia’s We Shall Overcome page
• Guy and Candie Carawan official website Guy and Candie Carawan website
• Highlander Center Highlander Center official website
• National Public Radio Guy Carawan dies and We Shall Overcome