ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: No song is more deeply identified with the Civil Rights Movement than "We Shall Overcome." Its lyrics are part of our national memory.</s>MELISSA BLOCK, HOST: In 1960 the leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee learned the tune from a young, white singer from California named Guy Carawan.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: Carawan died last week at the age of 87. In 1999, he told NPR that he learned "We Shall Overcome" from a friend in California.</s>GUY CARAWAN: He taught me this song, and he also had put some chords to its. He sang the guitar with it. So he had a guitar with harmony like, (singing) we shall overcome someday. Oh, deep in my heart I do believe, yes, that we shall overcome someday.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: In turn, Carawan taught the song to students traveling to Tennessee for sit-ins.</s>GUY CARAWAN: And then at a certain point, those young singers who knew a lot of a cappella styles - they said, lay that guitar down, boy. We can do the song better (laugher). And they put that sort of triplet to it and sang it a cappella with all those harmonies. It had a way of rendering it - a style that some very powerful young singers got behind spread.</s>THE FREEDOM SINGERS: (Singing) We shall overcome. My Lord, we shall overcome.</s>MELISSA BLOCK, HOST: The Freedom Singers performing "We Shall Overcome." Guy Carawan, credited with introducing the song to the Civil Rights Movement, died on Saturday. And you can hear Noah Adams' 20-minute documentary about "We Shall Overcome" at npr.org.</s>THE FREEDOM SINGERS: (Singing) Deep in my heart, I know that I do believe.
The musician, known for introducing the protest song to the civil rights movement, died last week at 87. He and wife, Candie, taught music at the Highlander Center in New Market, Tenn., for decades. Listen to the original 20-minute audio documentary as it aired in 1999, on what would have been Martin Luther King Jr.'s 70th birthday.