guy carawan validated the civil rights movement by proclaiming we shall overcome.
guy carawan validated the civil rights movement by proclaiming we shall overcome.
who validated the civil rights movement by proclaiming we shall overcome?
guy carawan
bullet::::- "we shall overcome! songs of the southern freedom movement": julius lester, editorial assistant. ethel raim, music editor: additional musical transcriptions: joseph byrd [and] guy carawan. new york: oak publications, 1963.









































bullet::::- "freedom is a constant struggle", compiled and edited by guy and candie carawan. oak publications, 1968.









































bullet::::- alexander tsesis, "we shall overcome: a history of civil rights and the law". yale university press, 2008.









































bullet::::- "we shall overcome: a song that changed the world", by stuart stotts, illustrated by terrance cummings, foreword by pete seeger. new york: clarion books, 2010.
we shall overcome
still, despite making racial progress in terms of bringing african-american students and faculty to duke, several problems remained: namely, the university's relationship with its african-american nonacademic workers, and a prevalent sense of racist attitudes among duke's administration. for example, workers were required to address white undergraduates as 'mister' and 'miss', clean the bedrooms of the male students (because female students supposedly did not need domestic help), and eat their meals in the kitchen rather than the dining hall. however, the most grievous issues the university administration neglected to address were the lack of a formally recognized union for workers as well as the meager wage the school was paying its nonacademic staff. in the 1960s, colleges and universities were exempt from the federal minimum wage of $1.60. this gave duke leeway to pay its employees well under the recommended, $1.60 minimum salary; in fact, some duke workers reported to earning less than a $1.15 minimum salary. in 1965, oliver harvey, a black janitor at duke, organized the duke employees benevolent society (debs) to advocate for higher pay, improved conditions, and nicer benefits. debs became local 77 of the american federation of state, county, and municipal employees, affiliated with afl-cio. however, the university administration still chose not to recognize local 77 as a union or grant collective bargaining rights to its workers. while past duke students ignored these problems, they were not to be overlooked by the students in the 1960s, many of whom grew up alongside the civil rights movement. martin luther king inspired many students when he spoke of the national shift towards racial equality, proclaiming, "and so i can still sing as we sing in our movement, all over the south and all over the nation, 'we shall overcome!'" later, during the silent vigil, participants would join hands to sing "we shall overcome" as a tribute to the reverend and his legacy in the civil rights movement.
silent vigil at duke university