Remembering Singer and Folklorist Guy Carawan

Peggy Seeger and Guy Carawan, Enterprise Public House, Long Acre, London, late 1950s-early 1960s. Carawan, famous for introducing the protest song We Shall Overcome, and Seeger at a folk club session.

Guy Carawan, who died Saturday at the age of 87, is probably best known for introducing the song "We Shall Overcome" to the African-American Civil Rights Movement.  On April 15th, 1960, he performed a version of it, which had been worked out by himself, Pete Seeger, and others, to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Raleigh, NC. After that night, the anthem quickly caught on and became one the most popular freedom songs of the 1960s.

Carawan's involvement in American music wasn't just as a performer and activist.  He had a keen folklorist's interest in the origins and history of the southern American musical tradition, and he came within that context to the WNYC studios in 1966.  In this episode of Adventures in Folk Music, Carawan sings and tells stories from Sea Island, a part of the Golden Isles of Georgia, and the home to important gospel and folk singers like Bessie Jones and Mable Hillery.