On Democracy Now! - Pete Seeger's 90th: Listen to those who carry on his voice.

MIKE BURKE: Can you talk about Pete Seeger’s connection to the song “We Shall Overcome”?

DR. BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON: Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie went to Highlander Folk School during the 1940s. Zilphia Horton, the wife of Myles Horton, who was one of the founders of Highlander, was the music director. She taught Pete a song that had come to Highlander from people who went on strike from Charleston to the American Tobacco Company. And so, Pete took this song, and he said that he took it back home, and he was doing a lot of concerts for union organizing. And he said the song really didn’t do much.

But he made some changes. He changed “I” to “we.” And instead of “I’ll” or “I will,” which is the way we sing it as a church song, he said he changed it to “I shall,” because it sounded better. And he also added the verse, “We’ll walk hand-in-hand.”

And this song was taught at Highlander to the students who came there on Easter weekend 1960 after their sit-in work in Nashville, Tennessee. They took the song back home. And at an organizing meeting, the students who were sit-in leaders actually started to sing the freedom songs they had been doing. And Guy Carawan led this particular song, and they stood, and they joined hands. And from that point, this became the theme song of a movement.

And it is Pete Seeger who is the link. If you start with black people striking in Charleston, go into the one place in the South during the ’30s and ’40s where black and white people could organize together, Pete learning the song there, taking it north, including teaching it to Guy, who ended up back at Highlander. Myles Horton said that Highlander sort of incubated the song until it could be returned to black people organizing against racism. So Pete is a crucial and very important link, having things pass through him no matter where he was.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you have a favorite song of his?

ANI DiFRANCO: I don’t think so. You know, I think that, like any folksinger, it’s not about one song or one moment, you know, in a more of a pop model of music. It’s about a lifetime of—you know, it’s almost like every song that he’s offered is another verse, you know, in the great song of his life and of our society.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: As Pete and I traveled to Washington for President Obama’s inaugural celebration, he told me the—he told me the entire story of “We Shall Overcome,” how it moved from a labor movement song and, with Pete’s inspiration, had been adopted by the civil rights movement.

And that day, as we sang “This Land Is Your Land,” I looked at Pete. The first black president of the United States was seated to his right. And I thought of—I thought of the incredible journey that Pete had taken. You know, my own growing up in the ’60s, a town scarred by race rioting, made that moment nearly unbelievable. And Pete had thirty extra years of struggle and real activism on his belt. He was so happy that day. It was like, Pete, you outlasted the bastards, man. You just outlasted them. It was so nice. It was so nice.

At rehearsals the day before, it was freezing. It was like fifteen degrees. And Pete was there, he had his flannel shirt on. I said, “Man, you better wear something besides that flannel shirt!” He says, “Yeah, I’ve got my long johns on under this thing.” I said—and I asked him, I said, “How do you want to approach ‘This Land Is Your Land’?” as it’d be near the end of the show. And all he said was, “Well, I know I want to sing all the verses. You know, I want to sing all the ones that Woody wrote, especially the two that get left out, you know, about private property and the relief office.” And I thought, of course, you know, that’s what Pete’s done his whole life: he sings all the verses all the time, especially the ones that we’d like to leave out of our history as a people, you know?