It is a spring evening in West Florida. Humid. The sun is low. I am watching three old men strum guitars and sing “We Shall Overcome” on their front porch. They are singing through a small amplification system for the neighborhood.
“We shall overcome, some day…”
It is a tense world we live in right now, filled with protests, riots, flames, and surgical masks. So while these men play and sing, I close my eyes.
The old men are completely tone deaf. But they make up for it with sincerity.
They are ex-hippies with longish hair and sandals. And they have drawn a small crowd. We are all social-distancing, listening to their impromptu jam session.
An older couple sits in a driveway across the street. A young family sits on a blanket in their front yard. Kids linger on bikes, eating popsicles.
“We shall overcome,
“We shall overcome, some day...”
Two older ladies on a porch swing sip from wine glasses. They wear medical masks. One woman spills wine all over her shirt.
She laughs, hiccups, and keeps on sipping.
Baby Boomers.
The guitarist speaks over the microphone: “I remember going to civil rights marches with my dad. My dad was a Methodist minister. We stood arm-in-arm with people of all colors in Birmingham, we would sing this song.”
They sing again:
“We shall overcome,
“We shall overcome, some day...”
The song itself has been used by billions all over the world. It was once invoked upon the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, by a crowd of 300,000. Martin Luther King Jr. recited it in his final sermon, only hours before he was shot.
But this song is a lot older than that. And I wonder whether anyone listening tonight knows how old this song truly is. I happen to know.
To be fair, the only reason I know the history of this song is because I had…