<P> My dream was fulfilled, and I had traced out, not the poem alone, but the poet . I implored him to proceed . "Once we boys," he said, "went for to tote some rice, and de nigger - driver, he keep a-callin' on us; and I say,' O, de ole nigger - driver!' Den another said,' First thing my mammy told me was, notin' so bad as a nigger - driver .' Den I made a sing, just puttin' a word, and den another word ." Then he began singing, and the men, after listening a moment, joined in the chorus as if it were an old acquaintance, though they evidently had never heard it before . I saw how easily a new "sing" took root among them . </P> <P> Coincidentally, Bob Dylan claims that he used the very same melodic motif from "No More Auction Block" for his composition, "Blowin' in the Wind". Thus similarities of melodic and rhythmic patterns imparted cultural and emotional resonance ("the same feeling") towards three different, and historically very significant songs . </P> <P> Music scholars have also pointed out that the first half of "We Shall Overcome" bears a notable resemblance to the famous lay Catholic hymn "O Sanctissima", also known as "The Sicilian Mariners Hymn", first published by a London magazine in 1792 and then by an American magazine in 1794 and widely circulated in American hymnals . The second half of "We Shall Overcome" is essentially the same music as the 19th - century hymn "I'll Be All Right" and it bears a close resemblance to the aria Caro Mio Ben, attributed to Neapolitan composer Tommaso Giordani or Giuseppe Giordani; this is another late 18th - century Italian song that became a staple of 19th - century singers . As Victor Bobetsky summarized in his 2015 book on the subject: "' We Shall Overcome' owes its existence to many ancestors and to the constant change and adaptation that is typical of the folk music process ." </P> <P> In October 1945 in Charleston, South Carolina, members of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers union (FTA - CIO), who were mostly female and African American, began a five - month strike against the American Tobacco Company . To keep up their spirits during the cold, wet winter of 1945--1946, one of the strikers, a woman named Lucille Simmons, led a slow "long meter style" version of the gospel hymn, "We'll Overcome (I'll Be All Right)" to end each day's picketing . Union organizer Zilphia Horton, who was the wife of the co-founder of the Highlander Folk School (later Highlander Research and Education Center), said she learned it from Simmons . Horton was Highlander's music director during 1935--1956, and it became her custom to end group meetings each evening by leading this, her favorite song . During the presidential campaign of Henry A. Wallace, "We Will Overcome" was printed in Bulletin No. 3 (September 1948), 8, of People's Songs, with an introduction by Horton saying that she had learned it from the interracial FTA - CIO workers and had found it to be extremely powerful . Pete Seeger, a founding member of People's Songs and its director for three years, learned it from Horton's version in 1947 . Seeger writes: "I changed it to' We shall'...I think I liked a more open sound;' We will' has alliteration to it, but' We shall' opens the mouth wider; the' i' in' will' is not an easy vowel to sing well (...)." Seeger also added some verses ("We'll walk hand in hand" and "The whole wide world around"). </P>

What is the history of the song we shall overcome