Years ago I "zeroxed" pages from a book on freedom songs compiled by Guy & Candie Ritchie and published in 1963 by Oak Publications, New York {Library of Congress Catalogue Number 63-23278. While I have pages from this book, I don't have the cover sheet and therefore don't know its title. If anyone can knows this book, and can provide its title, that would be great.

Here are two excerpts from commentary about the song "We Shall Overcome" which is found on page of the edition of this book whose pages I have:

"WE SHALL OVERCOME
Words and music arranged by Zilphia Horton,Frank Hamilton, Guy Carawan, and Pete Seeger @1960, 1963 Ludlow Music {Author's royalties
from this composition are being conributed to teh freedom movement under the trusteeship of the writers}

This modern adaptation of the Old Negro church song "I'Ll Overcome Someday", has become the unofficial theme song for the freedom struggles in the South. The old words were "I'll be all right...I'll be like Him...I'll wear a crown...I will overcome."

"Negro Food and Tobacco Union workers in Charleston, South Carolina adapted the song for picket line use during their strike in 1945, and later brought it to Highlander Folk School."

It soon became the school's theme song and [was]associated with Zilphia Horton's singing of it.She introduced it to union gatherings all across the South. On one of her trips to New York, Pete Seeger learned it from her and in the next few years he spread it across the Morth. pete, Zilphia and others added verses appropriate to labor, peace, and integation sentiments: We will end Jim Crow...We shall live in Peace...We shall organize...The whole wide world around...etc..."
-G.C.

-snip-

" One cannot describe the vitality and emotion this one song evokes across the Southland. I have heard it sung in great mas meetings with a thousand voices singing as one; I've heard a half-dozen sing it softly behind the bars of the Hinds County prison in Mississippi; I've herd old women singing it on the way to work in Albany, Georgia;I've heard the students singing it as they were being dragged away to jail. It generates power that is indescribable."

-snip-

A photo in that same book reminded me that when folks stood and held hands while singing "We Shall Overcome", their arms were criss-crossed at their waists, with the person on each side holding another individual's. My sense is that this symbolized unity & determination. I believe the proper way of doing this is for the right arm to be above the left arm, but I'm not certain about that.

Since I wasn't in the freedom movement,I'm not sure if this style of holding hands and singing was done for other songs.

Thanks to all who were [and are] in that and/or in other freedom movements!