We Shall Overcome: Essays on a Great American Song

(Hardback)

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We Shall Overcome is an American folk song that has influenced American and world history like few others. At different points in time it has served as a labor movement song, a civil rights song, a hymn, and a protest song and has long held strong individual and collective meaning for the African-American community, in particular, and the American and world communities more generally. We Shall Overcome: Essays on a Great American Song, edited and compiled by Victor V. Bobetsky, comprises essays that explore the origins, history, and impact of this great American folk song. Inspired by a symposium of guest speakers and student choirs from the New York City Public Schools, chapters cover such critical matters as the songs ancestry, Pete Seegers contribution to its popularization, the role played by the SNCC Freedom Singers in its adoption, the gospel origins and influences of the song, its adaptation by choral arrangers, its use as a teaching tool in the classroom, and its legacy among other freedom songs. We Shall Overcome: Essays on a Great American Song constitutes an invaluable resource for the music and music education community as well as for members of the general public interested in music, education, history and the civil rights movement. The book provides readers with a wide and unique spectrum of information about the song relevant to researchers and teachers.

Reviews

The origins and legacy of the folk song 'We Shall Overcome' are complex and varied, which makes the study and teaching of this 'great American song' a difficult task. Bobetsky has collected eight essays (by librarians, teachers, and professors) that consider the creation of the famous tune and lyrics; touch on the larger context of music and civil rights; explain the fluid process of American folk practice; describe how the symposium on which this book is based came about; grapple with the choral and popular inheritances of the song; and provide clear lesson plans on how to deliver this information to a middle school classroom. Given the multiple aims of the book, it is impressive how well it succeeds. Directed mostly at music educators, the book is packed with history, analysis, and practical advice. In the end, this concise book illustrates the importance of culture, religion, labor, and interracial activism in civil rights America through case studies of a magnificent and ever-changing song. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates, teachers, and general readers. * CHOICE *
Victor V. Bobetsky has presented us with a valuable resource to be used not just in the music appreciation or general music classroom but in any class that seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the African-American civil rights movement and the song central to its conflict that has been used to inspire people around the world who struggle for peace and justice.. [The] book is a valuable resource for teachers in performance, music appreciation, or general music classrooms. The volumes many references and citations lead in a variety of directions that could provide a primary or secondary educator with substantial material to enrich their students education. * Music Educators Journal *

Author Bio

Victor V. Bobetsky is associate professor of music education and Director of the Teacher Education Program in Music at Hunter College of the City University of New York, as well as associate professor of urban education at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His research has appeared in the pages of Music Educators Journal, Teaching Music, Choral Journal and the European Music Educators Association Journal and his choral arrangements for school age voices are widely published and performed. Professor Bobetsky is also the author of The Magic of Middle School Musicals: Inspire Your Students to Learn, Grow and Succeed, published by Rowman and Littlefield Education (2008).