She is perhaps best known for teaching Pete Seeger an early version of "We Shall Overcome," which would become an important civil rights anthem of the twentieth century. Originally an old Baptist hymn, "I Will Be All Right," the song came to Highlander from the picket lines of the 1945 American Tobacco Company strike by the South Carolina CIO Food and Tobacco Workers Union in Charleston. Other musicians credited with transforming the song are Frank Hamilton, Guy Carawan, Candie Carawan, and Pete Seeger.