I wanted to pull out some of the highlights from a thread on Notes prompted by
, sharing that Smithsonian Folkways is releasing a new collection titled “My Song Is My Weapon”That’s exciting news; I very much love their prior collection Sing For Freedom, which has a number of field recordings containing a mix of music and speeches:
And music:
I also mentioned that "My Song Is My Weapon” is the title of a book about, “People's Songs, American Communism, and the Politics of Culture, 1930-50” My sense is that the use of song as a tool for organizing and mobilizing comes, in part, from the IWW
The IWW's Use of Music
In their struggle to promote these politics, the IWW was a singing union. In the period between 1910-1960 the IWW's songbook 'The Little Red Songbook', which is still in print, was regarded by many workers as one of their most beloved possessions besides, of course, their red IWW membership cards. The songbook was one of the IWW's most important documents and its songs were sung in numerous situations: around hobo campfires, in boxcars, in Wobbly halls, in the streets, on picket lines, at strike rallies, in court, on the way to jail and in jail. The songs were a crucial aid in recruiting new members, and they were important in building a sense of fellowship and in keeping spirits up in hard situations.[9] Paul Garon writes in his book 'What's the Use of Walking if Theres a Freight Train Going Your Way? Black Hobos and Their Songs' (2005) that a mixed group of hobos sitting around a campfire would be more likely to sing Wobbly songs than Blues, Country or Vaudeville songs.[10] This tells us something about the popularity these songs enjoyed.
One of the most famous example of songs crossing from the labor movement to the Civil Rights Movement is "We Shall Overcome"
“We’ll Overcome” first appeared as a protest song during a 1945–1946 labor strike against American Tobacco in Charleston, South Carolina. African American women strikers seeking a pay raise to 30 cents an hour sang as they picketed. “I Will Overcome” was a favorite song of Lucille Simmons, one of the strikers. But she gave the song a powerful sense of solidarity by changing the “I” into “We” as they sang together. Other lyrics were improvised for pro-union purposes, including “We will organize,” “We will win our rights,” and “We will win this fight.”
In 1947, Simmons brought the song to Highlander Folk School and shared it with other labor activists there. Zilphia Horton, head of the school’s cultural program, learned it and later taught it to Pete Seeger. At some point, the nationally known folk singer revised the lyrics “We will” to “We shall.”
…
How “We Are Not Afraid” Got Its Own Verse
When white thugs staged a nighttime raid on Highlander in the late 1950s, it inspired a new verse for “We Shall Overcome.” According to one of the founders of Highlander Folk School, Myles Horton:
“A group of young people, a youth choir…was at Highlander. …They were looking at a movie called Face of the South. It was dark. Suddenly, raiders came in with flashlights. They must have been vigilantes and some police officers, but they weren’t in uniform. They demanded the lights be turned on, but they couldn’t get anybody at Highlander to do it. They were furious…running around with flashlights. In the meantime, the kids started to sing ‘We Shall Overcome.’ It made them feel good. The raiders yelled, ‘Shut up and turn on the lights!’ Then some kid said, ‘We’re not afraid.’ Then they started singing, ‘We are not afraid. We are not afraid.’ That’s when that verse was born.”
One other anecdote worth adding. Harry McClintock, one of the songwriters who worked for the IWW, had an early life that makes him sound like quite the 19th Century adventurer: http://www.bluegrassmessengers.com/harry-%E2%80%9Chaywire-mac%E2%80%9D-mcclintock--1928-.aspx
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Traveling Man
“When I hit the road again in the Spring I faced the world with confidence (for) even a ragged kid singing without accompaniment could pick up the price of a bed and breakfast in almost any saloon, anywhere,” said McClintock. “Came the war with Spain. I latched onto a troop train bound for Chicamauga Park, near Chattanooga, Tenn. Hired by a hustling circulation manager, I built up a newspaper route and, as I ate at army chow lines and slept in the hay at the supply base I had no expenses and I prospered.”
When he returned to Tennessee briefly, Mac was already singing an early version of his classic, "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum" for recruits for the Spanish-American War in early 1898—but he soon found himself in the Philippines, working as a mule driver hauling supplies to the American troops. The following year he was in China, helping American reporters escape harm during the Boxer Rebellion. After a brief sojourn in Australia, he was off to Africa, where he worked on a British railroad supplying troops during the Boer War. In 1901, he was in London to witness the coronation of Edward VII. Then he was in South America. By the time he was 20, Harry McClintock had lived and worked on every continent except Antarctica.
“Army teamsters and packers were civilian employees in the Army of that day,” said McClintock [Sam Eskin interview]. “I was fascinated by the packers, a bunch of tough, competent westerners, and I hung out with them until I was a pretty good hand myself. It was claimed that Army chow killed hundreds of soldiers that summer but I thrived on it. And in the autumn of 1898 I was hired as a full fledged buck packer for the quartermaster corps and shipped to the Philippines. For two years I helped freight ammunition and rations to the troops beyond reach of the wagon trains. The going was rugged at times; we were frequently under fire and we carried Colt 45's for defense. But we figured that we were far better off than the soldiers; we always ate and we drew fifty bucks a month instead of the $15.60 of the buck private."