M Ted, I appreciate your comments.

I did not mean to imply that civil rights songs from the 1960s aren't known at all nowadays. I believe that some of them are better known than others, oerhaps because they were included in records or CDs, or videos or television shows, etc etc etc.

The religious versions of some civil rights songs are probably still sung at churches {such as "I'll Be Alright" which is the bases for "We Will Overcome". Or at least I hope that song is still sung in church. Tell you the truth, I haven't heard it sung that much in church for a long while...but then again I'm not a regular church goer so....

Also, a civil rights songs-such as "This Little Light Of Mine" have been adopted as children's songs, so it is still known, but I wonder if most people associate that song with the civil rights movement.
Btw, M Ted, t's interesting that you mention the call & response pattern of this song. Perhaps "This Little Light Of Mine" was originally composed as a call & response song, but I've never heard it sung with a call and response pattern. It's interesting how many call & response songs are sung in unison, now...But that's a whole 'nuther subject.

And Btw2, M Ted, you wrote "I know that a lot of these songs are still known by African-Americans, because I have heard them sung". I'm curious where {on which occassions} and when {years} did you hear them sung. The only time that I've heard "We Will Overcome" sung in the public was during a Martin Luther King Jr holiday program. And yes, it was an interracial gathering. And yes, people held hands and swayed back in forth with the music like it was done in the 1960s. But, my point is that this rendition of the song is more an exception and not the rule. But, yeah, people either knew the song or they caught on to the words easily [since the leader oft that song "lined" the verse by saying something like "We are not afraid", so the other singers would know that was the next verse of the song they were supposed to sing].

I wonder if there anyone's done a survey to find out how familiar people are with civil rights songs. I still have a sense that people aren't that familiar with a great many of these songs {Black people, White people, Green people-I don't mean the Green political party, I mean the Martians who live among us :o}

However, I have no way of proving this.
{that Martians live among us and a lot of folks regardless of race don't know these civil rights songs.