$

lI

B AP
_. Sri

LWV.g

1I

I1 L


WE SHLL NT BEMOV I



DAVID SPENER

WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED/
NO NOS MOVERAN
Biography of a Song of Struggle
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Philadelphia . Rome . Tokyo


TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122
www.temple.edu/tempress
Copyright © 2016 by Temple University-Of The Commonwealth System
of Higher Education
All rights reserved
Published 2016
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Spener, David, 1961-
Title: We shall not be moved/No nos moverin: biography of a song of
struggle / David Spener.
Other titles: No nos moverin
Description: Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2016. 1 Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016005353 1 ISBN 9781439912973 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 9781439912980 (paper : alk. paper) I ISBN 9781439912997 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Protest songs-United States-History and criticism.
Protest songs-Spain-History and criticism.I We shall not be moved.
Classification: LCC ML3780 .S68 2016 1 DDC 782.42/1592-dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016005353
® The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American
National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992
Printed in the United States of America

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1


In memory of Victor Jara and Pete Seeger,
who did not sing in vain



Contents
Acknowledgments                                     ix
Introduction                                         1
1 HISTORY OF A SONG OF STRUGGLE
1 A Song, Socialism, and the 1973 Military Coup in Chile  17
2 "I Shall Not Be Moved" in the U.S. South: Blacks and
Whites, Slavery and Spirituals                      27
3 From Worship to Work: A Spiritual Is Adopted
by the U.S. Labor Movement and the Left             39
4 From Union Song to Freedom Song: Civil Rights
Activists Sing an Old Tune for a New Cause          62
5 From English in the U.S. South to Spanish in the
U.S. Southwest: "We Shall Not Be Moved" Becomes
"No nos moverin"                                    77
6 Across the Atlantic to Spain                         90


viii \ Contents

II MOVEMENTS AND MEANINGS
7 Social Movement: A Song's Journey across Time
and Space                                           113
8 Translation and Transcendence in the Travels
of a Song                                           125
Conclusion: An Internationalist Culture of the Singing
Left in the Twentieth Century                       135
Coda                                                147
Appendix: Note on Methods and Sources               155
Notes                                               159
References                                          173
Index                                               191


Acknowledgments

any people and institutions have contributed to the publication
of this book. The travel, research, and writing involved would
not have been possible without the generous financial assistance
I received from Trinity University. In 2011, this assistance took the
form of a paid leave and the funding of a trip to study the role of song
in social justice and human rights movements in Chile in the 1960s,
1970s, and 1980s. In 2014, the Carlos and Mal Alvarez Fund and
the Martha, David, and Bagby Lennox Foundation provided grants
to Trinity University's Mexico, the Americas, and Spain (MAS) pro-
gram that enabled the organization of a multievent symposium and
performance series titled Social Justice, Human Rights, and Song on
the World Historical Stage: Chile Canta al Mundo, which brought
together scholars, activists, and musicians to discuss the legacy of the
nueva cancion movement throughout the Americas (see www.trinity
.edu/chile-sings). The presentations, performances, and discussions
that took place during this series, which was hosted by Trinity Uni-
versity and the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center in San Antonio,
Texas, contributed significantly to my understanding of how "I Shall
Not Be Moved" became a social movement anthem in Spanish as well
as English.


x \ Acknowledgments

As I conducted my research for the book, the staff of a number of
other institutions provided invaluable assistance, including Graciela
Sanchez y la buena gente of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center;
archivists at the Fundaci6n Salvador Allende in Santiago, Chile, and
the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives in New York; and librar-
ians in the Special Collections of the University of Texas-Arlington
Library and the Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville.
In addition, I owe a debt of gratitude to the individuals whose
names I list here in alphabetical order: Edison Argandona, Susana
Asensio, Antonia Castaneda, Leroy Chatfield, Marcelo Coulon, Irma
De Le6n, Juan Pablo Gonzalez, Joaquina Labajo, Ricardo Loyola,
Arturo Madrid, Maria McWilliams, Aaron Navarro, Lluis Panyella,
Xavier Pimentel, Anthony Seeger, and Zaragosa Vargas. Some of the
people in this list are friends of long standing, while others are those
with whom I made acquaintance in the course of conducting my
research. I also thank Sara Cohen and Micah Kleit of Temple Uni-
versity Press, whose interest in and support of this project have never
flagged. In addition, the comments I received on earlier drafts of the
manuscript from anonymous reviewers recruited by Temple Univer-
sity Press were invaluable to me in revising and polishing the text.
Last, but far from least, I give thanks to my wife, Marsha Krass-
ner, who has always given me the freedom to pursue my interests
and passions, wherever they might lead. Without her support, under-
standing, and critical eye as a reader, this book would not be in your
hands today.


WE SHALL N61 BE COVED /
NO NHS MOVERAN



Introduction
his is the improbable story of a simple song and its long and
complicated journey across oceans and continents. And I am an
improbable person to be telling it, so let me explain how I came
to write this book. I grew up in a white, middle-class home in a white,
middle-class neighborhood in the middle of the United States a bit
after the middle of the twentieth century. My parents loved music but
weren't musicians, and, like most middle-class families in the middle
of the country at that time, we didn't own a lot of records or listen to
a lot of recorded music in the house when I was young. There was,
however, one record we owned that captured my imagination and
that I listened to on the turntable again and again. It was by the folk
music trio Peter, Paul, and Mary. My favorite song on the record was
"If I Had a Hammer," whose driving rhythm in their arrangement
made me want to learn to play the guitar. When I was eight years old,
my father retrieved for me an old "Stella" guitar that he had given
away to a friend after giving up on learning to play it himself. My
parents signed me up for group guitar lessons at the local YMCA, and
Note: The contents of this book are accompanied by a website containing
numerous photographs, videos, and other supplementary materials that can be
accessed at http://gotu.us/nonosmoveran.


2 \ Introduction

"If I Had a Hammer" was one of the first songs I learned how to play.
Another was "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" from that same
Peter, Paul, and Mary album. Both were written by Pete Seeger, a man
whose name appears repeatedly in the pages of this book.
By the time I was a teenager, I'd become a pretty good guitar
player and also had discovered my singing voice. I'd begun listening
to Seeger's records, memorizing the chords and lyrics to his songs
and imitating his distinctive vocal style. In the mid-1970s, I finally
had the opportunity to see Seeger perform in person, in a concert
with Arlo Guthrie, Woody's son, at the Mississippi River Festival
in Edwardsville, Illinois. Although I don't remember all the details
of that concert, I do remember Seeger strumming his twelve-string
guitar while reciting a bilingual version of a poem written by a South
American songwriter that I had never heard of. The songwriter's
name was Victor Jara, he was from Chile, and he had been murdered
by soldiers of his own country's government. Seeger's somber recita-
tion of the poem did not make much of an impression on me at the
time; there were other songs that I was already familiar with and had
appreciated much more.
A few years later, I was living in Madison, Wisconsin. I had start-
ed college there but had dropped out. Dreaming of rising to fame as
the next Bob Dylan, I played my guitar and sang around town at any
bar or coffeehouse that would have me. I had gotten interested in the
left-wing revolutions that were going on in Central America. These
armed struggles were inspiring a great deal of activism in solidarity
with the revolutionaries, centered around the University of Wiscon-
sin campus where I had been a student. I found myself living in a
communal house with other amateur musicians, students, and some-
time political activists. One night, several of my housemates attended
a concert by Inti-Illimani (IN-tee-yee-MAHN-ee),1 a Chilean band
that had come through Madison on tour. I didn't go to the concert,
since I didn't speak Spanish, had never heard of the band, and was
short on cash. A housemate who did go to the concert bought a copy
of one of the band's LPs, titled Hacia la libertad (Toward Liberty), on
the Monitor Records label. She lent me the record and insisted that I
listen to it. I'd never heard music quite like this before, full of pow-
erful masculine voices accompanied by bamboo flutes, pan pipes,
calf-skin drums, and a variety of stringed guitar and mandolin-like


Introduction / 3

instruments whose names I did not know. The vinyl disc inside the
album cover came sheathed in an envelope on which were printed
the titles of the songs, the names of their authors, and the lyrics in
both English and Spanish. One song in particular caught my eye:
"Vientos del pueblo" ("Winds of the People"), by Victor Jara. Beau-
tifully arranged and recorded by Inti-Illimani, the song was writ-
ten by Jara in the last year of his life. Its lyrics cried out in anguish
about the wealthy Chilean elite's preparations to violently roll back
the hard-won gains that were being made by the country's poor and
working-class majority. Winds of the People was also the title of a
mimeographed collection of songs of liberation and social justice
in multiple languages that circulated among "movement" people in
Madison and other progressive cities around the United States. We
used it for the songfests we occasionally organized in our communal
household. So, now I knew where the songbook's title came from.2 I
was inspired: I needed to learn Spanish. I needed to hear more of this
music. Just like Mr. Jones in Dylan's song "Ballad of a Thin Man," I
knew something was going on here, but I did not know what it was.
I needed to find out.
Fast forward a little more than thirty years. In 2011, I found
myself in the Chilean port city of Valparaiso. I had long since given
up the dream of becoming the next Dylan. Instead, I found myself
working as something a bit less glamorous-a sociology professor at
a small college in Texas who had spent most of his career studying
the Mexico-U.S. border. In a mid-career detour, I had gone to Chile
to study the history of the genre of music that Victor Jara helped
create-la nueva cancion, the new song-and its relationship with
movements for social justice there. I was in Valparaiso to interview
Jorge Coulon, one of the founding members of Inti-Illimani, who
lived in an old house on one of the city's many cerros (hilltops) over-
looking the port and the Pacific Ocean. We were near the end of
a wide-ranging conversation about the history of Inti-Illimani, its
members' many years of exile in Europe, their return to Chile in 1988
toward the end of their country's military dictatorship, and, more
broadly, the power of music in struggles for social justice. As I was
getting ready to leave, Coulon told me that he had recently published
a short book about his old comrade, Jara, that I should read.3 He
didn't have a copy at home, but he told me that I could certainly find


4 \ Introduction

one at the Andres Bello bookstore located on one of the city's main
avenues downtown near the port. I thanked him and walked over to
one of the city's famed ascensores (cable car elevators) to descend to
the city below.
Much to my chagrin, when I got to the bookstore, I discovered
that it was sold out of copies of Coulon's book. I wandered around
the bookstore, nonetheless, to see whether it had anything else of
interest, especially something I might read on the bus ride back to
Santiago, where I was renting an apartment. My eyes fell on a book
titled Cuando hicimos historia (When We Made History [Pinto Valle-
jos 2005]), which I began to leaf through. It was a collection of essays
about the experiences the authors had had as participants in Chile's
experiment with democratic socialism in the early 1970s, the experi-
ment that Jara had sung about in "Vientos del pueblo" and later gave
his life defending. One of the last essays included a moving reference
to a song I knew well. It was not one of Jara's songs; in fact, it was
not even a Chilean song. Rather, it was a traditional song from the
U.S. South. This was a moment much like the one more than thirty
years ago when I first listened to the Inti-Illimani album that my
friend had lent me. Something was going on here that I didn't under-
stand-something important, something that I urgently needed to
understand. And it was all contained in this brief mention of a song
from my own country that thousands of Chileans had sung to defend
justice and freedom in their land. The book you hold in your hands
is the unforeseen fruit of that serendipitous moment.
"No nos moverin" is the name of the song that Chileans were
singing in the early 1970s. In English, it is known as "We Shall Not
Be Moved." The exact origins of the song are unknown, but it appears
to have begun as a religious revival song sung by rural whites and
African slaves in the early nineteenth century in the U.S. South. A
century later, it was taken up by U.S. labor activists in their successful
drives to unionize major industries. Subsequently, African Ameri-
cans reclaimed it for the civil rights movement, where it became one
of the best-known songs in that freedom struggle. Shortly after that,
in Spanish, it became an emblematic song of the struggle for farm-
worker rights in the United States, before it crossed the Atlantic to
be used in the fight against the fascist dictatorship in Spain. From


Introduction / 5

Spain, the song traveled back across the ocean to arrive in Chile at
the end of the 1960s. In all these times and places, people sang this
song to express their resolve in the face of adversity and to help them
persevere in their struggles to build a better world.
A Note about Intended Readership
and Scholarly Approach
I have written this book with a diverse readership in mind. First and
foremost, I have written it for the benefit of activists in the various
countries where "We Shall Not Be Moved" has been an important
part of the repertoire of social justice movements. At the beginning
of my research for this book, I was especially thinking of the Chi-
lean activists and musicians who had sung this song but had little or
no idea about where it came from, what its importance had been in
other lands, or how it had arrived in their country. As I learned more
of the twists and turns of the song's history, I also wanted Spanish-
speaking activists and musicians in the United States and Spain to
hear how the song made its way into their movements. And, similarly,
I believe the history will be of special interest to English-speaking
singers and activists who are familiar with the song from movements
in the United States but who have been unaware of the significance
the song has acquired overseas.
I have also written this book for scholars and students in a number
of academic disciplines, including anthropology, history, musicology,
and sociology. Accordingly, the book is eclectic in its disciplinary
approach. I intend for it to be read principally as a work of social
history. In keeping with my own disciplinary training, I draw exten-
sively from the conceptual repertoires of both anthropology and soci-
ology in analyzing and interpreting the history of "We Shall Not Be
Moved," borrowing additional concepts and approaches developed
by musicologists. With nonspecialist readers in mind, I have strived
to keep the text free of disciplinary jargon without sacrificing the
conceptual rigor expected in a scholarly work. Scholarly readers who
are interested in the methods used in conducting the research that
went into writing this history should consult the Appendix at the
back of the book.


6 \ Introduction

Song in the Service of Social Movements
In today's world of instantaneous electronic communication via
social media, there would be nothing especially remarkable about
the spread of any song to any part of the world, where it could be
put to practically any use. The travels and transformations of this
song, however, were quite astonishing, given that they took place
long before the advent of such media and without being promoted
by major commercial record companies or broadcast media. Rather,
the song spread through its singing by members of social move-
ments, often in the face of brutal state and corporate repression, who
took it to other movements across multiple national and linguistic
boundaries. The story of how "I Shall Not Be Moved" became "We
Shall Not Be Moved" and then "No nos moverin" is worth telling not
only because of the song's importance to struggles for social justice
around the world but also because of the way it illustrates how songs
can serve as an invaluable resource to participants in movements for
social change.* While it is beyond the scope of this book to engage
in the wider debate about the importance of music for social rela-
tions in general, it is worth considering, at least briefly, how music
and singing can fulfill important functions for social movements and
their struggles to achieve moral and political objectives in the face of
adversity. Rather than use "We Shall Not Be Moved" as the occasion
for a disquisition on broader theoretical issues concerning music and
movements, in this Introduction I prefer to draw on concepts devel-
oped by other scholars to see how they can deepen our understanding
of the ways this song in particular has served so many movements
in so many different historical, cultural, and political contexts. In
fact, I would like to narrow the focus even more and limit myself to
a consideration not of how this song might have persuaded outsiders
of the rightness of the various causes it has served or even how it may
have helped movements to gain new adherents but rather of how it
has helped meet the needs of people in the movements in which it
has been sung.
*"We Shall Not Be Moved" is the default title of the song used in this book. I use
"I Shall Not Be Moved," "No serem moguts," and "No nos moverin" to refer to
variants of the song according to context.


Introduction / 7

The message of "We Shall Not Be Moved" in all of its versions is
one of conviction, resolve, and defiance, not one of exhortation, cri-
tique, or invitation to join hands in the struggle. It is an example of
what Mark Mattern (1998: 25) has called the "confrontational form"
of politically charged music in which "members of one community
use musical practices to resist or oppose another community." For
this reason alone, it makes little sense to talk about the role the song
may have played in persuading others outside movement participants.
Moreover, this limitation is in keeping with Pete Seeger's admonition
in his song "Letter to Eve" not to have unrealistically high expecta-
tions about what performing any piece of music can accomplish on
its own. In the song, Seeger announces that if music by itself could
bring peace and freedom, he would need only be a musician instead
of having to engage in other forms of political struggle as well.4 As we
shall see, Seeger's words are all the more poignant given that "We Shall
Not Be Moved," along with many other songs like it, has been sung as
often in failed struggles-such as the one in which Victor Jara died in
Chile-as it has been in victorious ones.
The history of any song as ubiquitous as "We Shall Not Be Moved"
has been in the English- and Spanish-speaking world is worth
recounting for its own sake. Just as importantly, in the remainder of
this Introduction, I suggest that the singing of this song in so many
different cultural and political contexts stands as an example of how
musical expressions can serve as a vital symbolic resource for social
movement participants. Specifically, I argue that the singing of "We
Shall Not Be Moved"-and many other songs like it-has served as a
powerful form of ritual action that enables social movement partici-
pants to accomplish a number of things that are crucial to a move-
ment's success and survival. The first of these is that it has helped
them forge their identities as protagonists of their own history in a
variety of national contexts. A second is that, wherever it has been
sung, it has helped movement participants forge solidarity and cohe-
sion among themselves. In addition, "We Shall Not Be Moved" has,
in numerous contexts, helped members of movements keep up their
spirits and keep fear at bay in the face of adversity. It has also contrib-
uted to preserving the collective memory of movements many years
after they have dissipated from the public view. And finally, its singing
has facilitated the raising of otherwise mundane moments in the his-


8 \ Introduction

tory of movements to sacred or quasi-sacred levels. I illustrate these
points more specifically in subsequent chapters of the book when dis-
cussing various moments of the history of this transnational social
movement anthem.
Music as SocialAction
Our starting point for understanding the importance of "We Shall
Not Be Moved" in the various social movements in which it has
played a part is that making music is at its root a form of social
action. To emphasize that making music is something that people do
together in social settings, the musicologist Christopher Small (1998:
9) has introduced the neologism musicking into the scholarly litera-
ture, based on the verb to music, which he defines as "to take part, in
any capacity, in a musical performance, whether by performing, by
listening, by rehearsing or practicing, [or] by providing material for
performance (what is called composing), or by dancing." For Small,
musicking is a fundamental "human encounter" whose meaning is
determined by the social context in which it occurs. Moreover, he
argues, musicking is a primal act of social definition, one of the ways
that individuals collectively express and come to terms with who they
are as a people (Small 1998: 133-134; see also Frith 1996a).
Following Small, sociologists Robert Rosenthal and Richard Flacks
(2011: 94-95) write in their book Playing for Change that musicking
has the power to create "the feeling that various ideas, ideals, and life-
styles go together" and that "listening to, talking about, and actively
creating music serve as forms of ritual that help to define one's iden-
tity in group terms." For their part, social movement theorists Ron
Eyerman and Andrew Jamison (1998: 162) observe that singing com-
bined with "exemplary action" can play an especially powerful role
in forging new identities for movement participants, noting that by
singing "We Shall Not Be Moved" together at a sit-in to integrate a
lunch counter in Mississippi, civil rights activists transformed them-
selves into courageous "moral witnesses" who dared to practice non-
violent civil disobedience in the face of violent racist oppression. Here,
these authors illustrate a more general point concerning social move-
ments-namely, that participation in collective action contributes


Introduction / 9

powerfully to people's sense of themselves (i.e., to the production of
their identities vis-a-vis other groups in society [Della Porta and Diani
1999]). In this sense, the singing of a song in a confrontational setting
of civil disobedience becomes a badge of group identity for the mem-
bers of the movement that clearly-and morally-distinguishes them
from their adversaries. This is particularly so for "We Shall Not Be
Moved," insofar as its refrain asserts the unswerving commitment of
its singers to the principles they are celebrating and that their collec-
tive actions have come to embody. The song thus represents, regard-
less of the particular historical or political context in which it is sung,
a defiant statement by its singers that "we are not like you, and you are
not going to make us change or give up."
At the same time, both Small (1998) and music critic Simon Frith
(1996b) recognize that the identities expressed by a group's musick-
ing are often more aspirational than real. People use music, Frith
(1996b: 274) argues, as a way of "participating in imagined forms of
democracy and desire" in such a way that "musical identity is both
fantastic-idealizing not just oneself but also the social world one
inhabits-and real: it is enacted in activity." Small (1998: 183-184),
meanwhile, talks about musicking as a crucial way for people to com-
municate, celebrate, and explore their ideals for who they want to
be and the types of relationships they wish to have with others. Like
Frith, he makes it clear that the identities and relationships symboli-
cally expressed through music are aspirational, insofar as people's
lived experiences typically fall short of who they would like to be and
how they would ideally behave:
Musicking is about relationships, not so much about those
which actually exist in our lives as about those that we desire
to exist and long to experience: relationships among people,
as well as those between people and the rest of the cosmos,
and also perhaps with ourselves and with our bodies and even
with the supernatural, if our conceptual world has room for
the supernatural. During a musical performance, any musical
performance anywhere and at any time, desired relationships
are brought into virtual existence so that those taking part
are enabled to experience them as if they really did exist.5


10 \ Introduction

As we shall see later in the book, the point Small and Frith each
make concerning music's role in expressing people's aspirational
identities and ideal relationships is especially noteworthy in the
case of those movements in which "We Shall Not Be Moved/No nos
moverin" has been sung in the face of major setbacks or defeats, such
as when student demonstrators in Spain sang it as they were chased
down and beaten by police, years before their demands for an end
to the fascist regime of General Francisco Franco would be heeded
(see Chapter 6). The invoking of a song such as "No nos moverin" in
the face of certain short-term defeat steadfastly affirms something
fundamental about the type of people that those who sing it aspire to
be and the type of society they aspire to live in. In such contexts, the
content of the song is neither a lie nor wishful thinking. Rather, it is a
statement on the part of movement participants that they will persist
in their self-identification as the kind of people who believe in the
ideals in which they believe, even if they are unable to achieve their
aims for the time being. In a subsequent publication written shortly
before his death, Small (2011: xi) speaks precisely to this point with
regard to musicking: "In an act of musicking, those taking part are
exploring, affirming, and celebrating their sense of who they are-or
who they think they are, or who they would like to be, or even what
they would like to be thought of as being." This calls to mind the
insistence on the part of certain "movement" poets and singers in the
Spanish-speaking world about the razon de vivir (reason for being) of
the kinds of utopias so many activists have striven to create. "Ventana
sobre la utopia" ("Window Overlooking Utopia"), a prose poem by
the late Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, is a case in point. In it,
he cites a conversation he had with the Argentinian filmmaker Fer-
nando Birri,who said that utopia was always on the horizon and that
although he was always walking toward it, it kept receding from him.
"I walk ten steps," Birri said, "and the horizon runs ten steps further
away. No matter how far I walk, I'm never going to reach it." This led
Birri to wonder what utopia was good for if he was never going to get
there. His conclusion: "It is good for walking" (Galeano 1993: 230;
translation mine).
In hindsight, we now know that the utopias sought by the twenti-
eth-century singers of "We Shall Not Be Moved" were never achieved.
If history teaches us anything, perhaps it is that there never is a "once


Introduction / 11

and for all" triumph in any social justice struggle. At the same time,
even in the face of temporary setbacks, devastating defeats, violent
repression, and rollbacks of hard-won gains, the message of this
song-that its singers will not give up in their struggle for a better
world-survives as a source of inspiration and strength for twenty-
first-century activists.
Song as Sustenance for Activists
In Playing for Change, their comprehensive treatise on the role
played by music and musicians in social movements in the United
States, Rosenthal and Flacks (2011: 123) dedicate an entire chapter
to how "musicking" serves movement participants by "helping activ-
ists honor a commitment they've already made." This, they argue,
involves more than just "preaching to the converted" but instead can
be vital to the maintenance of group identity and solidarity within
a movement, insofar as "musicking often represents those shared
beliefs that allow 'disparate strangers' to feel they are indeed a band
of brothers and sisters and reinforces those beliefs when much of the
world is working to break them down" (Rosenthal and Flacks 2011:
124). Moreover, as these authors note, solidarity among movement
members is never achieved once and for all but must constantly be
reaffirmed.
As sociologists since Emile Durkheim's time have noted, ritual
plays an indispensable role in the maintenance of group identity and
cohesion, including and especially for participants in social move-
ments (Della Porta and Diani 1999: 98). Music and song have tradi-
tionally played an important role in the religious, national, and other
institutional rituals of peoples around the world, including the rituals
of social movements (Eyerman and Jamison 1998: 35-36; Rosenthal
and Flacks 2011: 94-95). In addition to songs serving as an essential
element of movement rituals, Rosenthal and Flacks (2011: 127) point
out that songs in a movement's repertoire are also carried with mem-
bers in their everyday, nonmovement routines, providing "a bridge
linking yesterday's demonstration with today's workday, a bridge
between 'making history' and 'making life."' The musical and lyrical
simplicity of the song "We Shall Not Be Moved"-as is discussed at
various junctures later in this book-has offered the opportunity to


12 \ Introduction

even the nonmusical to sing it with others and to hum or sing it to
themselves in their everyday activities.
Rosenthal and Flacks (2011: 127-128) also discuss the vital role
that song can play to maintain the spirits of movement participants,
especially in the face of hostility, repression, and violence. "Musick-
ing," they point out, can help "dissipate fear" and "raise collective
courage." The history of "We Shall Not Be Moved" offers many exam-
ples of the song's contribution to movements in this regard. In these
pages, I review numerous instances in the United States in which
trade unionists, civil rights workers, and left-wing political activists
intoned the words of this song as they confronted direct violence.
Relatedly, Rosenthal and Flacks (2011: 178-179) argue that, to work
on a sustained basis toward creating a better world, movement activ-
ists must participate in and be nourished by a shared culture that
continues to bond and sustain them. As I repeatedly demonstrate
throughout my review of the history of "We Shall Not Be Moved,"
singing the same song or set of songs can contribute a significant ele-
ment of such a shared culture.
As experienced by those participating in it, a shared culture has
an important affective dimension that the social theorist Raymond
Williams (1977: 132-133) has called "structures of feeling." Eyerman
and Jamison (1998: 161-162) draw on Williams's work to argue that
songs can play a vital role in this affective dimension of a social move-
ment's culture by embodying the thoughts and feelings of participants
and serving as "channels of communication for activists" within and
between movements and between movement generations. Moreover,
musicking can contribute to the maintenance of a collective memory
of social movements insofar as certain songs come to serve as a mental
and emotional soundtrack for movement participants and a wider
public that has witnessed their actions, which, even years later, brings
back to life moments of shared commitment and purpose. In this
sense, it is clear that "We Shall Not Be Moved" plays a significant role
in triggering participants' memories of practically every movement
in which it has been sung. It is no accident, therefore, that the words
"we shall not be moved" appear in so many titles of books and articles
about the labor and civil rights movements in the United States and
that the words "no nos moverin" call to mind the bravery of Mexican
farmworkers fighting for their rights in the fields of California. Nor


Introduction / 13

is it surprising that older Spanish activists feel nostalgic upon hearing
hundreds chanting, "no nos moverin" in the central plaza of Madrid
today, reminding them of the continuities between current popular
struggles and their own efforts to bring an end to the Franco dictator-
ship in the 1960s and 1970s. Part of the power of these collective mem-
ories derives from another effect that can be achieved by movement
singing: the transformation of a collective experience into a sacred
moment. Echoing Durkheim's classic observations about the social
power unleashed by collective effervescence in religious rituals, the
civil rights leader, music scholar, and singer Bernice Johnson Reagon
(1998: 111), one of the main popularizers of "We Shall Not Be Moved"
in the 1960s, recalls that in African Americans' historical struggles for
freedom, participants spiritually sanctified most gatherings by joining
in song together. As we shall see, "We Shall Not Be Moved" sanctified
many moments in the history of social movements, not only among
black civil rights activists in the United States but among activists in
various other popular movements around the world as well.
Organization of the Book
The book is divided into two parts, the first empirical and the second
analytical. Part I details the history of "We Shall Not Be Moved" and
the roles it has played in the various movements in which it has been
sung in a straightforward and factual way. In keeping with how I
came to research the song's history, I begin with its singing in Chile
in the early 1970s before tracing the song's origins and the complex
route it followed on its way to that South American country. Sub-
sequent chapters address the song's likely origins in the religious
revival known as the Second Great Awakening in the U.S. South
in the early nineteenth century; the significance of the song to the
U.S. labor movement in the 1930s and 1940s; the song's adoption by
the African American civil rights movement in the early 1960s; the
transformation of "We Shall Not Be Moved" into "No nos moverin"
by Mexican American activists in the United States, first during the
great pecan shellers' strike of 1938 in San Antonio, Texas, and then
(nearly three decades later) during farmworker unionization drives
in California's Central Valley under the leadership of Cesar Chavez;
and finally the song's role as an anthem of resistance to the Franco


14 \ Introduction

dictatorship in Spain before it crossed back over the Atlantic to Chile
at the end of the 1960s.
The two chapters of Part II are dedicated to an analysis and inter-
pretation of the song's history. Drawing from the theoretical con-
ceptualizations of infrastructure developed by the U.S. sociologist
William Roy and the Mexican anthropologist Efren Sandoval, Chap-
ter 7 shows that the widespread dissemination of "We Shall Not Be
Moved" relied on a networked infrastructure of social justice move-
ments in several countries. Chapter 8 turns to the question of cultural
and linguistic difference and how activists from different regions,
nations, and language groups effectively adapted the song to advance
their own particular movements in their own unique sociohistorical
circumstances.
The Conclusion argues that the transmission and dissemination
of "We Shall Not Be Moved" in the twentieth century was facilitated
by not only a movement infrastructure of the left but also a shared
cosmopolitan culture of the left that transcended languages and
nations and valued contributions from all languages and cultures to
an internationalist struggle for justice and equality.
The Conclusion is followed by a Coda, which includes a series of
vignettes involving both Spanish and English versions of the song
that illustrate connections among participants in this cosmopolitan
culture of the left in various parts of the world.
n Chapter 1, I begin my review of the story of "We Shall Not Be
Moved" with its dramatic radio broadcast in Santiago, Chile, on
September 11, 1973, the day that country's experiment with demo-
cratic socialism came to a violent end in a military coup. Forty years
later, I would travel to Chile to sing the song with people who remem-
bered the song well but knew little of its history before it arrived in
their country. One of them had survived torture in a basketball sta-
dium at the hands of the military in the days following the coup. In
the months leading up to the coup, he had been studying to be an
engineer at the technical university in Santiago. He had also been
a singer in a band of fellow students whose repertoire included "No
nos moverin." One of the many other comrades he saw detained with
him in the stadium was Victor Jara.


HISTOY OF SA/



1/
A Song, Socialism, and
the 1973 Military Coup in Chile
oday in the United States, the mention of the words "September
11" or "9/11" conjure memories of terror, destruction, and lost
innocence, a day in history when "the world changed" for the
worse. In the memories of many Latin Americans, this date is asso-
ciated with similar images and sentiments, but inspired by a quite
different historical event: the day in 1973 in Chile that the democrati-
cally elected government of Salvador Allende was overthrown in a
bloody coup d'etat ushering in a brutal military dictatorship led by
General Augusto Pinochet that would last nearly two decades. The
coup in Chile was of world-historical importance not only because
it marked the end of a unique experiment with the "electoral road"
to socialism; the movement for a return to democracy in Chile also
became emblematic of a global struggle for human rights, with the
Pinochet dictatorship symbolizing the horrific abuses inflicted by
authoritarian regimes against their own citizens.
The Day of the Coup
On the morning of September 11, Salvador Allende found himself
trapped in the presidential palace known as La Moneda as the military
launched its putsch. One of the first acts of the golpistas (coup plot-


18 \ Chapter 1

ters) was to silence all pro-Allende broadcast media and replace their
programming with martial music and military communiques. By
midmorning, Radio Magallanes, the station operated by the Partido
Comunista de Chile (Chilean Communist Party), was the only loyal-
ist station still transmitting its own programming. At around 9:00
A.M., Allende, el companero presidente (the comrade president), deliv-
ered his now-famous final address to the nation on Radio Magallanes
before giving his life defending the presidential palace from the mili-
tary's onslaught. The skeleton crew staffing the studios of Magallanes
had the presence of mind to record Allende's extemporaneous remarks
and spirit the recording out of the country to be heard in the rest of
the world.1 His words are still remembered by those Chileans who
supported him until the end and who survived the years of repression
that followed his ousting:
Radio Magallanes will surely be silenced and the calm metal
of my voice will not reach you. It doesn't matter. You will
continue to hear it. I will always be at your side. At least
my memory will be that of a dignified man that was loyal
to his country. The people should defend themselves, but
they should not get themselves needlessly killed. The people
should not allow themselves to be crushed or shot, but neither
can they humiliate themselves.
Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and her desti-
ny. Other men will overcome this gray and bitter moment when
treachery attempts to impose itself. Rest assured that, sooner
rather than later, the great boulevards will once again open up
and free men will walk down them to build a better society.
Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!
These are my final words and I'm certain that my sacrifice will
not be in vain. I am certain that it will be, at the least, a moral
lesson that will punish criminality, cowardice, and treason.2
Not long after the broadcast of Allende's final address, the Chil-
ean Air Force began bombing the presidential palace, and military
personnel raided the studios of Radio Magallanes. Just before it was
forced off the air, however, the station broadcast an emblematic song
from the repertoire of the Chilean nueva cancin (New Song), a musi-


A Song, Socialism, and the 1973 Military Coup in Chile / 19

cal genre that had emerged in the latter half of the 1960s and that
featured socially conscious lyrics accompanied by folkloric instru-
mentation and vocal arrangements (see Chaparro, Seves, and Spener
2013; Gonzalez, Ohlsen, and Rolle 2009; McSherry 2015; Morris 2014;
and Rodriguez Musso 1988). The song "No nos moverin" was per-
formed by the group Tiemponuevo (NewTime) of the Pacific port city
of Valparaiso,3 who recorded it on the Discoteca del Cantar Popu-
lar ([DICAP]; Singing of the People Collection) label operated by the
Juventudes Comunistas (Communist Youth). The musical promoter
Rene Largo Farias (1977: 27), who had founded the famous penafolc-
lorica (folk music club) Chile Rife y Canta (Chile Laughs and Sings)
and who at that time worked for the Allende government in the Ofi-
cina de Informaciones y Radiodifusi6n (Office of Information and
Radio Broadcasting), located in La Moneda, remembers hearing "No
nos moverin" as Magallanes went off the air:
The transmission plants of all the government radio sta-
tions had already been bombarded, silencing their voices
in a criminal operation without precedent in the history of
the American continent. Only Radio Magallanes remains
on the air. I hear Guillermo Ravest [director of the station]
calling on the people to defend themselves. The song "No
nos moverin" is heard. It is suddenly interrupted.... The
Hawker-Hunters [British jet bombers] begin to whistle across
the skies of Santiago. (Farias 1977: 27)4
Guillermo Ravest, the director of Radio Magallanes, has this
memory of the song and how it came to be played on that fateful
September day:
I didn't play any significant role in the popularizing of "No
nos moverin." I was the director of Radio Magallanes from
1972 until the eleventh of September of 1973. Of about thirty
radio stations broadcasting in Santiago at the time, barely six
supported the government of Salvador Allende.... Of course
our programming featured almost all the songs of struggle,
protest, politics, and bearing witness, including "No nos
moverin." It was played more and more often with the grow-


20 \ Chapter 1

ing intensity of the undercover actions of the United States
and the counterrevolution fomented by the Chilean right: fas-
cism and fascists (Patria y Libertad) [Fatherland and Liberty]
and by domestic and foreign business groups.
Logically, once the military coup was underway, the song
"No nos moverin" was broadcast on that September 11, 1973,
multiple times. In this way, directly and indirectly, we defi-
antly responded with the song to the coup and the military
communique that ordered all the pro-Allende radio stations
to cease broadcasting. If we didn't, we would be attacked by
both ground and air forces. We were the station that most re-
sisted the leaders of the coup by broadcasting the last speech
of the constitutional president, Salvador Allende. (Guillermo
Ravest, pers. comm., September 28, 2012)
The lyrics of "No nos moverin" were especially poignant as a
final, defiant statement of faith in Chile's experiment with socialism
on the day it came to a tragic close. Although they had been writ-
ten several years earlier, they foretold the coming of this day, though
without the expectation of such a quick and total defeat:

No, no, no nos moverdn
No, no, no nos moverdn
Y el que no crea
que haga la prueba:
iNo nos moverdn!
Unidos en sindicato,
ino nos moverdn!
Unidos en sindicato,
ino nos moverdn!
Yel que no crea
que haga la prueba:
iNo nos moverdn!
Construyendo el socialismo.. .
Ni con un golpe de estado ...

No, no, they will not move us
No, no, they will not move us
Let he who doesn't believe it
put it to the test:
They will not move us!
United in a labor union,
They will not move us!
United in a labor union,
They will not move us!
Let he who doesn't believe it
put it to the test:
They will not move us!
Building socialism ...
Not even with a coup d'etat ...

In his history of the cultural policies and practices of Allende's
Unidad Popular (UP) government, Cesar Albornoz (2005: 175) high-


A Song, Socialism, and the 1973 Military Coup in Chile / 21

lights that the final broadcast of this song by Radio Magallanes marked
not only the defeat of a political project but also the end of a cultural
era that rose in tandem with it. "No nos moverin" was, he notes, the
last song linked with the Chilean New Song that would be heard on
the radio for many years to come. Allende's overthrow also ushered
in the era of neoliberalism as a model for social organization and devel-
opment for the majority of the world's population, as the economic
advisers to the new military government used the regime's extraordi-
nary powers of repression to impose policies inspired by the monetar-
ist, "free-market" teachings of University of Chicago economist Milton
Friedman (N. Klein 2008; Letelier 1976). In fact, it was Pinochet, not
Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan, who was the first head of state
to adopt the set of policies that eventually came to be known as "the
Washington Consensus," so called because of their enforcement by the
World Bank and International Monetary Fund, both headquartered in
the U.S. capital (Babb 2012).
The Significance of "No Nos Moveran"
in Allende's Chile
Although it was not as universally popular as a few other songs from
the repertoire of la nueva cancion that explicitly supported Allen-
de's socialist and anti-imperialist project, such as "El pueblo unido
jamas seri vencido" ("The People United Will Never Be Defeated"),
"Venceremos" ("We Will Win"), or "El himno de la Unidad Popular"
("The Hymn of Popular Unity"), Tiemponuevo's recording of "No
nos moverin" on DICAP and its use in the Allende campaign and at
UP political events made it well known. Moreover, the song's simple
structure, catchy tune, strident attitude, and easily adapted lyrics
made it a favorite sing-along at demonstrations, rallies, and picket
lines during the Allende years. Roberto Rivera Noriega, the leader of
Tiemponuevo, shares this recollection about the role the song played
in support of the Unidad Popular's program:
We began to record the album Tiemponuevo de Valpara[so:
Conjunto de Mdsica Popular for the DICAP label in mid-
1970, when the presidential campaign was at its most critical
point.... The record came out in the two months between the


22 \ Chapter 1

victory of the Unidad Popular and Salvador Allende's taking
office. We would sing all the songs from the album in EVERY
IMAGINABLE PLACE, with the most popular song being "Hemos
dicho basta" ["We've Said, 'Enough"'], which was the song that
officially launched the Unidad Popular government in the inau-
guration ceremony, which was broadcast on national television
and radio.... We would sing "No nos moverin" especially in
mass action events, an environment appropriate for getting
people to participate, revving them up and giving them ideas
to work with. As always with regard to these energizing songs
[canciones agitativas], we would change the words, updating
and renewing them depending upon the dynamic of events.
(Roberto Rivera Noriega, pers. comm., September 3, 2012)5
In addition to Tiempnuevo, many other singers and musicians
that supported the socialist government performed "No nos moverin"
during this period. The Chilean guitarist Eulogio Divalos recalls
performing the song many times in 1971 while participating in the
UP's effort to bring the performing arts to the rural and small-town
residents of the country aboard the Tren Popular de la Cultura [The
People's Culture Train]:
I had the enormous satisfaction of being on board the Tren
Popular de la Cultura, whose first national tour was launched
by President Salvador Allende from the Estaci6n Central on
September 15, 1971-where a large number of artists of differ-
ent specialties took culture on wheels to the humblest towns
and villages. This daily demonstration led us to plazas, gym-
nasiums, and Mapuche villages.6 We would spontaneously
come up with lyrics to insert in the song. Some of the lines
were already well-known, but I think that I was the first to
insert "if the copper belongs to Chile, they won't move us"
and "with the banks nationalized, they will not move us."
Other companions put "with the half liter of milk,7 they will
not move us," etcetera. . . . One of my most meaningful life
experiences was to have had the honor of taking part in that
unforgettable People's Train of Culture. (Eulogio Divalos,
pers. comm., August 24, 2011)8


A Song, Socialism, and the 1973 Military Coup in Chile / 23

Another indicator of the significance attached to "No nos
moverin" by the partisans of the Unidad Popular was its use to open
and close a political commentary program on Radio Magallanes
called Los comunistas hablan claro (Communists speak plainly).' In
the final year of the Allende government, "No nos moverin" took on
a renewed significance, as the threat of a fascist military insurrection
loomed on the horizon. Rivera Noriega remembers the role played
by his group's song in the year prior to the coup with the following
words:
Naturally tensions grew and people's positions grew more
radical as the Unidad Popular process deepened. And the
song "No nos moverin" took on a life of its own. This can be
seen in the example that you mention on that radio program.
But the most transcendent example was on September 11,
1973, when the only radio station that continued to broad-
cast Salvador Allende's last speech during the bombardment
of La Moneda [the Chilean presidential palace] finishes its
broadcast with "NO NOS MOVERAN." In this sense I can say
that our band Tiemponuevo musically greeted the Unidad
Popular government with our singing of "Hemos dicho basta"
at Allende's inauguration and bid farewell to it when our song
was played on Magallanes. (Roberto Rivera Noriega, pers.
comm., September 3, 2012)
In fact, members of the Chilean armed forces that staged the
coup were well aware of the importance and significance of "No nos
moverin" to the supporters of the Unidad Popular coalition, as is
evident in this chilling account by a young musician, labor activist,
and student at the Universidad Tecnica del Estado, who was arrested
immediately following the coup:
On September 11, we . . . decided to defend our university's
installations, staying on campus in spite of the military com-
muniques ordering us to return to our homes. We and hun-
dreds of companions decided to stay, and at a certain point
we holed up in the Escuela de Artes y Oficios [the School of
Arts and Trades] without any definite plan, waiting to see


24 \ Chapter 1

what would happen. That night we were attacked by the mili-
tary with continuous gunfire, during which a number of our
companions were killed. On the morning of the 12th, a mili-
tary contingent took the school by force and we were quickly
subdued. We were forced to lie face down in the courtyard of
the school with our hands over our heads for five or six hours.
At a certain point I was able to look back over my shoulder
and realized that Victor Jara was there, outwardly calm.10
After a while they loaded us onto some buses and transferred
us to the Estadio Chile [a basketball arena]." They marched
us in with our hands behind our necks as they beat us with
the butts of their rifles, screaming at us, "Shout 'poder popu-
lar' [people's power] now!" and "Let's hear you sing 'No nos
moverin' now!" And in that climate, that's how we were all
marched in, including our beloved comrade Victor Jara.
(Manuel Anasco Arratia, pers. comm., June 5, 2013)
Although the final broadcast of "No nos moverin" in Chile's
darkest hour is sufficiently poignant as it stands, we must contend
with another aspect of the song's use in Chile. As is well documented,
the administration of U.S. President Richard Nixon actively aided and
abetted the Chilean military's ouster of their own country's demo-
cratically elected president (Verdugo 2008). Support from the United
States was consistent with its general policy toward developing coun-
tries around the world, which was inspired by the rabid anticommu-
nism of foreign policy officials, such as Henry Kissinger, who feared
the example that the success of a democratically elected Marxist gov-
ernment could set for other developing countries at the height of the
Cold War (Kornbluh 2013). The irony here is that the song "No nos
moverin," performed at mass gatherings and broadcast routinely on
the Partido Comunista de Chile's radio station as a symbol of resolve
against right-wing aggression and U.S. imperialism, has its origins
as a pious religious song in the southern United States, titled "I Shall
Not Be Moved." Indeed, the song was popular as a hymn among con-
servative southern white evangelicals whose anticommunist feelings
could not have been stronger. One indication of the song's status as
a religious "standard" among southern whites was its extemporane-
ous, improvisational recording in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1956 in the


A Song, Socialism, and the 1973 Military Coup in Chile / 25

famed studio of Sun Records, by the so-called Million Dollar Quartet
of Sun recording artists composed of Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis,
Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley.12 Another is that it formed part of the
repertoire of the famed old-time country music group known as the
Carter Family, who recorded it for radio broadcast in 1939 (Kahn
1996: 214). The question then becomes how the song made its way to
Chile and got put to uses that southern white churchgoers could not
have imagined, even in their wildest dreams.
When I asked Roberto Rivera Noriega, founder of Tiemponuevo,
where the group had first heard the song, he explained that near the
end of Allende's presidential campaign in 1970, Sergio Sanchez, one
of the members of the group, received a rustic, "almost homemade"
recording of the song by some Spanish labor activists who used it in
their demonstrations against the Franco dictatorship. Sanchez sug-
gested it as a possible addition to Tiemponuevo's repertoire. Rivera
Noriega was not interested in it at first; he thought that the verses and
the song's refrain "como un pino junto a la ribera, ino nos moverin!"
("like a pine next to the riverbank, they will not move us!") sounded
like "they were taken from political pamphlets" (eran panfletarias).
Still, he liked the idea of using it, especially since he was aware that
another version of the song was also being sung by black civil rights
demonstrators in the United States, whom he very much admired.
"So," he said, "that's how our version of the song came about, which
treats the text more actively and gave people the possibility of creat-
ing their own verses with firmness and joy" (Roberto Rivera Noriega,
pers. comm., April 28, 2011). Unfortunately, Sanchez, the member of
the group who had obtained the recording from Spanish activists,
died in the German Democratic Republic in 1989. The copy of the
recording had long since been lost when he and Tiemponuevo's other
members fled Chile following the coup in 1973, as had the memory
of who the Spaniards were who had clandestinely recorded "No nos
moveran."
Rivera Noriega's account of how Tiemponuevo learned "No nos
moverin" and adapted it to fit the Chilean political situation of
the early 1970s raises more questions than it answers. Who were the
Spaniards who recorded the song? How had they learned it? Why


26 \ Chapter 1

had they picked this song, and how had they used it in the struggle
against the Franco dictatorship? Moreover, these same questions
could be asked with regard to the other groups of activists in the
United States who had previously had taken the original song "I Shall
Not Be Moved" and adapted it for use in the labor, civil rights, and
farmworker movements. Going further, what were the origins of the
song in the United States, and what was it about the song that made it
so attractive to so many activists in different movements in differing
historical and cultural contexts? What did the song do for partici-
pants in these movements? And what can we learn from the history of
this song about the role that singing can play in social justice move-
ments around the world? It is to these questions that I turn my atten-
tion in the remaining chapters of Part I. I answer them to the best of
my ability with the hope of keeping alive the memory of the song and
the struggles it has served for new generations of activists who might
have reasons to sing it in movements that have yet to be imagined.


2/

"I Shall Not Be Moved"
in the U.S. South
Blacks and Whites, Slavery and Spirituals
n spite of Karl Marx's famous dictum that religion is the opiate
of the people, the singing of religious songs in the history of the
United States has often been associated with struggles for human
rights, social justice, and peace. This can be seen most clearly in
the case of African American spirituals, dating back to the times of
slavery and continuing to the present day. The song "I Shall Not Be
Moved" is one of many African American spirituals that have been
put to work not only to express religious devotion and ease the pain
of many an individual soul but also to change worldly conditions of
exploitation and injustice that have brought so much hurt and injury
to U.S. Africans1 as a people. It continues to occupy a prominent place
in the collective imagination of African Americans as an expression
of resistance and endurance in the face of oppression, as indicated by
its use as the title for a collection of poetry by one of the most promi-
nent black poets in U.S. history, Maya Angelou (1990). As I discuss
below, the song has also been a standard in the religious repertoire of
southern white Protestants since the nineteenth century, for whom it
seems to have expressed a more strictly religious sentiment.
Although as with nearly all "traditional" songs the precise ori-
gins of "I Shall Not Be Moved" remain unclear, its lyrical elements are
biblical, echoing Psalms 1, 16, and 62, including the following lines:


28 \ Chapter 2

"And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth
forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatso-
ever he doeth shall prosper" (Psalm 1:3); "I have set the LORD always
before me: because [he is] at my right hand, I shall not be moved"
(Psalm 16:8); and/or "He only [is] my rock and my salvation: [he is]
my defence; I shall not be moved" (Psalm 62:6).2 By the beginning
of the eighteenth century, the "lining out" of psalms for singing in
Protestant churches was commonplace in both Great Britain and
its North American colonies. In New England, in the northeastern
United States, blacks as well as whites participated in the practice of
singing psalms, as did people in the U.S. South, though to a lesser
extent (Darden 2004; J. Scott 1983; Southern 1997). Nonetheless, in his
1903 essay "The Negro Church," the great African American scholar
W.E.B. DuBois includes a letter written in 1755 by a white Presby-
terian minister in Virginia whose congregants included slaves, who
remarks, "The Negroes, above all the human species that I ever knew,
have an ear for music and a kind of ecstatic delight in psalmody"
(quoted in Zuckerman 2000: 121). By the mid-eighteenth century, the
so-called Great Awakening, a religious revival among Protestants,
swept the North American colonies, leading to the supplanting of the
practice of rote psalm singing in churches by the singing of somewhat
livelier and more artfully composed hymns, many of them penned by
the British theologians Isaac Watts and John Wesley (Burnim 2006;
Darden 2004; J. Scott 1983; Southern 1997). Indeed, the origin of the
term "spiritual" to refer to certain types of religious songs may come
from Watts's first collection of hymns, published in 1707 and titled
Hymns and Spiritual Songs.3 Nevertheless, my own review of several
of the eighteenth-century hymnals published by Watts and Wesley did
not locate any songs containing the same lyrical structure of "I Shall
Not Be Moved," as follows:
I shall not, I shall not be moved,
I shall not, I shall not be moved,
Just like a tree that's planted by the water,
I shall not be moved.
On my way to heaven, I shall not be moved ...
Fightin' sinnin' Satan ...
Jesus is my captain.4


"I Shall Not Be Moved" in the U.S. South / 29

This suggests that the song did not arrive in the North American
colonies from Britain but rather came into being on the American
continent. Here it should be noted that the historical record indi-
cates that Africans in North America who were exposed to the new
British-origin hymns during the Great Awakening took to them
readily, as suggested by their adoption by the few free-standing black
churches that existed in the North around the time of U.S. indepen-
dence. Nonetheless, the majority of Africans in North America lived
as slaves in what would become the southern United States and would
not begin to be converted to Christianity until near the end of the
eighteenth century (Burnim 2006; Darden 2004; J. Scott 1983; South-
ern 1997; Wilmore 2000; Wood 2000).
Songs of African Slaves in the United States
"I Shall Not Be Moved" belongs to a body of artistic work that is a
New World invention, created by Africans trafficked into slavery
in North America, where they encountered not only the horrors
of racist exploitation but also the powerful messages of liberation
paradoxically embedded in their white masters' Protestant Christi-
anity. Peter Wood (2000: 92), for example, quotes a black preacher
in Georgia on the eve of the revolution against British colonialism
as saying that "God would send Deliverance to the Negroes, from
the power of their Masters, as He freed the Children of Israel from
Egyptian bondage."
Africans sang of their experiences as slaves and infused them with
messages of Christian redemption in the thousands of songs they
created for themselves, known collectively as spirituals. According
to the African American scholar, singer, composer, and civil rights
activist Bernice Johnson Reagon (2001: 68), this "body of musical
literature" documents "the voice of African American people strug-
gling to battle the yoke of human bondage we call American slavery."
They were called spirituals "by the people who created them because
they come from the spirit-deep within." In an oft-cited interpre-
tive essay exploring the social, cultural, and theological meanings
of spirituals, James Cone ([1972] 1991: 30) argues that spirituals are
best understood as "historical" songs rather than songs expressing
religious devotion or personal sorrows:


30 \ Chapter 2

The spirituals are historical songs which speak about the
rupture of black lives; they tell us about a people in the land
of bondage and what they did to hold themselves together
and fight back. We are told that the people of Israel could not
sing the Lord's song in a strange land. But, for blacks, their
being [original emphasis] depended upon a song. Through
song, they built new structures for existence in an alien land.
The spirituals enabled blacks to retain a measure of African
identity while living in the midst of American slavery, provid-
ing both the substance and the rhythm to cope with human
servitude.
Arthur Jones (1993: 7), like Cone and other scholars, highlights
the retention of African elements in slave spirituals, noting that the
enslaved Africans "who created the spirituals were not Christian, in
the sense of instant conversion to a new religion." Rather, he notes,
their large-scale adoption of Christianity came near the end of slav-
ery, making the conversion process gradual, which resulted in "a
creative blend of African traditions and Christianity, creating a new
transformed religion different in form and substance from the reli-
gion of the slave holder." As John Lovell (1972) and Wyatt Tee Walker
(1979) have also noted, Jones (1993: 10) goes on to remark in his essay
that spirituals served the vital social function of strengthening bonds
of tribe, kinship, and spiritual identity, a function that they would
serve many times again in other times, in other places, and among
other peoples. More prosaically, Walker (1979: 52-59), one of Martin
Luther King Jr.'s lieutenants in the twentieth-century civil rights
movement, lists the distinctive features of African American spiri-
tuals, several of which are African legacies, as including deep bibli-
cism with an eternal message, prominent rhythm, antiphonal (call
and response) structure, double or coded meaning, and repetition.
Several of these features are prominent in "I Shall Not Be Moved" and
have contributed to the song's ready adaptation to many social justice
struggles around the world.
The role played by spirituals in the struggle for Africans' libera-
tion from slavery usually was indirect and largely affective but could
at times be quite direct and instrumental. In both cases, spirituals
made use of "code" or "double meaning," a feature that Robert Darden


"I Shall Not Be Moved" in the U.S. South / 31

(2004: 79) notes was common in African folklore. Thus, the former
slave turned abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass noted that spiritu-
als' repeated references to "Canaan" doubled as a reference to escape
to freedom in Canada or just "the North" more generally (Darden
2004: 87). Cone ([1972] 1991: 86) and others (e.g., Lovell 1972) argue
that references to "heaven" in spirituals should not be taken literally
as a reference to another life but rather as a reference to slaves' desire
for emancipation. Similarly, the folklorist Russell Ames (1960: 139)
argues that listeners should not take lyrics that seem to emphasize an
individual's personal relationship with her savior too literally, noting
that "when ... the slaves sang 'I,' it appears that they often meant 'We,'
the whole Negro people, or perhaps all human beings who suffer."
Going further, Ames argues that "taken as a whole, the Negro spiritu-
als make up an epic. . . unified by the themes of compassion for all
oppressed people and a determination to struggle against and over-
come the oppressors." In his comprehensive history of the Afro-Amer-
ican spiritual, Lovell (1972: 342) identifies "I Shall Not Be Moved" as a
specific instance of Ames's broader point that when a slave sang of her
faith that she personally would be saved, in reality she was professing
her unswerving commitment to seeking liberation from bondage for
both herself and her people: "The singer, the member [of the congre-
gation], the seeker is fixed in his plan. He will not allow himself to
be frightened out of it. . . . Like a tree that's planted by the waters, I
shall not be moved." Similarly, Waldo Martin (2000: 257) argues that
individual religious commitment and collective struggles for "secular
freedom" were dialectically interconnected, informing one another
and buttressing "a sense of peoplehood, community, or nationality
among African Americans."
Sometimes the double meaning of spirituals was not metaphori-
cal but was instead quite concrete. With regard to antebellum slave
revolts and the operation of the Underground Railroad, the use of
spirituals as code for communication among emancipationist con-
spirators is legendary. In leading his famous slave insurrection in
Virginia in 1831, the black preacher Nat Turner "called his fellow
conspirators to secret meetings by singing the beautiful spiritual
'Steal Away': My Lord, He calls me / He calls me by the thunder /
The trumpet sounds it in my soul / I ain't got long to stay here / Steal
away, steal away, steal away to Jesus / Steal away, steal away, steal


32 \ Chapter 2

away home / I ain't got long to stay here" (quoted in Ames 1960: 150).
Similarly, Harriet Tubman, the freed slave who served as leader of the
network of black and white abolitionists who helped Africans escape
slavery by transporting them to the "free" North, was well known as
a singer of spirituals. Such songs as "Follow the Drinking Gourd,"
for example, would be used by conductors of her Underground Rail-
road to alert slaves to prepare for their flight from the plantation. She
herself was known by the biblical name "Moses" and would sing the
spiritual "Wade in the Water" to "remind her 'passengers' that it was
important to throw bloodhounds off the scent" and "to help them
keep up their courage" (Ames 1960: 160).5 It is no accident, then, that
W.E.B. DuBois, the leading intellectual voice for black liberation in
the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, begins
each chapter of his famous treatise The Souls of Black Folk ([1903]
2007) with a transcribed melody from a spiritual and dedicates its
final chapter to what he refers to as "the sorrow songs." It is similarly
unsurprising that Paul Robeson, the left-wing activist, singer, and
actor of the stage and screen, made slave spirituals a central compo-
nent of his repertoire as a performer:
The power of spirit that our people have is intangible, but it is
a great force that must be unleashed in the struggles of today.
A spirit of steadfast determination, exaltation in the face of
trials-it is the very soul of our people that has been formed
through the long and weary years of our march toward free-
dom. It is the deathless spirit of the great ones who have led
our people in the past-Douglass, Tubman, and all the oth-
ers-and of the millions who kept "a-inching along." That
spirit lives in our people's songs-in the sublime grandeur of
"Deep River," in the driving power of "Jacob's Ladder," in the
militancy of "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho," and in the poi-
gnant beauty of all our spirituals. (quoted in Jones 1993: 11)
It is also no surprise, therefore, that "I Shall Not Be Moved" would
come to play such a significant role in many different liberation
struggles around the world, given its rootedness in the fertile soil of
the African American spiritual tradition.


"I Shall Not Be Moved" in the U.S. South / 33

The Likely Camp-Meeting Origins
of "I Shall Not Be Moved"
According to Samuel Floyd (1995: 41-42), African American spiritu-
als can be divided into two basic types-sorrow songs and jubilees.
Sorrow songs "speak of the past and present trials and tribulations
suffered by the slaves and their savior," while jubilees "express the
joyful expectation of a better life in the future."6 Given its major key,
upbeat tempo, and lyrical content, "I Shall Not Be Moved" logically
would seem to fall into the "jubilee" category. For this reason, it also
seems likely that the song initially emerged in the early nineteenth
century in the frontier regions of the southern United States during
the religious revival movement known to historians as the Second
Great Awakening, which featured gatherings for mass worship known
as camp meetings. Such meetings involved continuous religious ser-
vices held in the forest that took place over the course of several days.
Their participants included "the common people, black and white, of
all the Protestant denominations" (Southern 1997: 82; see also Bruce
1974: 73-75; Eslinger 1999: 232-233; White 1928: chap. 2; and Work
1915: 83). As a "primarily interracial institution," congregants at these
mass meetings received sermons from both black and white preach-
ers (Southern 1997: 83). Singing was a central component of the camp
meeting, with blacks in attendance playing an especially boisterous
role, much to the consternation of some conservative white clergy,
given the way in which the "noisy" and "folksy" atmosphere of such
revivals gave rise to new songs and styles of singing that challenged
the "antiquated" church hymns of the day.7 This is consistent with
Waldo Martin's (2000: 253-254) more general account of the dif-
ferences between African and white musical encounters in the U.S.
South in the early nineteenth century:
The song style of African Americans was evident in vocal
as well as instrumental music. The song style of African
Americans was highly expressive: more percussive than lyri-
cal. Ample reference is made to the resounding singing of
African Americans among themselves, as well as the over-
powering vocal might of African Americans drowning out


34 \ Chapter 2

European Americans when both groups sang together in
religious as well as secular settings. In addition to great vol-
ume and emotional intensity, African American song style
blended vocal gestures-including shouts, falsetto, trills, and
slurs-and physical movements like foot stomping, hand
clapping, body weaving, and head bobbing. While reinforcing
a fundamental rhythmic thrust, this song style also reflected
the intimate tie of the music to bodily motion and dance, of
music making to performance.8
Waldo Martin's description here recalls musicologist Simon
Frith's (1996b: 274) recognition of music as an embodied form of
social action, so much so that he wryly refers to music making and
listening as social movements. In this regard, we can also tie the birth
of "I Shall Not Be Moved" in the context of camp meetings to Robert
Rosenthal and Richard Flacks's (2011) recognition of the importance
of ritual to promoting a unified identity among social movement
participants. Indeed, one of the cultural forms that appears to have
contributed to the development of African American spirituals born
of the camp meetings is the ring shout practice of slaves. According
to Martin (2000: 256-257), the ring shouts, practiced informally and
without ecclesiastical supervision by whites, were "intensely charged
ritual moments of ecstatic dancing and singing" in which "elements
of various religious songs and messages were transformed into Afri-
can American sacred music, most notably the spiritual."
For her part, Eileen Southern (1997: 85) calls attention to how the
new forms of religious singing by black slaves alarmed white clergy,
who did not approve of slaves "holding songfests away from proper
supervision,... singing songs of their own composing,... [and using]
tunes that were dangerously near to being dance tunes in the style of
slave jubilee melodies." In spite of clerical concerns, from the slaves'
musical practices "emerged a new kind of religious song that became
the distinctive badge of the camp-meeting movement."9 Writing earlier,
Pullen Jackson ([1933] 1965) describes southern whites' participation
in camp meetings in similar terms, with similar reactions from church
officials.10 For his part, Darden (2004: 57) suggests that historical con-
ditions on the frontier also influenced the types of songs that were sung
at the camp meetings by both whites and blacks. Up-tempo songs with


"I Shall Not Be Moved" in the U.S. South / 35

simple and repetitive refrains and choruses facilitated group singing.
Moreover, the refrains and choruses were often taken from existing
hymns, making them "easily remembered from meeting to meeting.""
This was important, given that most of the participants in camp meet-
ings were illiterate and that meetings were held at night by torchlight,
making it all the more advisable to "avoid complicated hymnals and
sheet music." Charles Johnson (1955: 201) notes that in what he calls
the "revival spirituals" of the camp meetings, "text simplification" was
crucial. The creation of these songs was typically spontaneous, whether
the singers were black or white. In some cases, words from older hymns
were dropped as they were transformed into the new spirituals. The
rhythmic new songs made use of "a combination of scriptural phrases
and everyday language," while "repetition rendered them contagious
and easily remembered." The song "I Shall Not Be Moved" exhibits
these characteristics to a tee.
Although a number of hymnals and spiritual songbooks from
the early-nineteenth-century camp meetings have been published, I
have not been able to locate any that contain the song "I Shall Not Be
Moved." This does not rule out, however, the possibility that the song
has camp-meeting origins. Many of the songs sung in the camp meet-
ings were never written down, consisting as they did of lining out of
psalms and other biblical verses, one or two lines at a time, combin-
ing these lines with a simple, repeated refrain. As Newman White
notes in the chapter on religious songs in his 1928 treatise American
Negro Folk Songs, in the camp meetings, and later in church settings,
hymns existed alongside what he calls "wild chants." These chants, he
observes, were what came to be called camp-meeting songs. He notes
that for whites, these songs "were seldom even printed" and "faded
into the background with the decline of camp meetings." Among
blacks, however, he notes that such songs "flourished long after their
use among whites was relegated to the backwoods" (41). A few pages
later in the same chapter, White (1928: 44) gives a further explanation
of why such songs were not typically printed:
The most folksy of all the religious folk-songs of white people
in the early nineteenth century were seldom written at all.
They were a folk possession, perfectly well-known by all the
true professors; and besides, why print songs for congrega-


36 \ Chapter 2

tions the majority of whom cannot read? Moreover there is
more than a suspicion that most editors of religious song-
sters, like John C. Totten, the editor of A Selection of Hymns
and Spiritual Songs-As Usually Sung at Camp-Meetings (19th
edition in 1827, New York), bore down a little consciously on
the selection, not wishing to include ungrammatical and
undignified songs which everyone knew, anyhow.12
Thus, although it is impossible to know for certain exactly when
and where "I Shall Not Be Moved" was sung for the first time, the
song's characteristics and the fact that by the twentieth century it
came to form part of both the black and white Protestant traditions
strongly suggest camp-meeting origins.13
Spirituals as African Cultural Imprint on America
American slaves' African cultural and musical heritage would seem
to have prepared them well for especially active and creative camp-
meeting participation. As noted by Dena Epstein and Rosita Sands
(2006: 36), the African musical legacy carried by slaves to the New
World included the integration of music into daily life as a group
activity rather than as an individual performance. Their singing also
typically included "repetitive choruses with a lead singer" and "the
call-response style of alternating phrases juxtaposed or overlapping."
According to Mellonee Burnim (2006: 54-55), a typical feature of
African American spirituals is the "call-response or leader-chorus
structure in which the constant repetition of the response allows and
encourages everyone to participate," which, she argues, was a form
that was "ubiquitous among the musical cultures of West and Central
Africa that supplied slaves to the Americas" and served as "a strong
marker of the pervasiveness of African cultural memory in the lived
experiences of New World slaves," one that distinguished their sing-
ing from European-origin styles.14 For their part, Roger Abrahams
and George Foss (1968: 57-58) suggest that African influences may
account for the fact that "a progressively large number of traditional
songs" among whites in the United States "are either in a simple rep-
etition formula (especially religious songs) or use the blues technique
of repeating the first line of a stanza two or three times."


"I Shall Not Be Moved" in the U.S. South / 37

As should be clear to the reader by now, "I Shall Not Be Moved"
strongly exhibits the features attributed to both the African song
legacy and the songs of early-nineteenth-century camp meetings in
the United States. As noted previously, the song remains a religious
standard among both black and white Protestants in the United
States, regardless of whether anyone can definitively determine its
"true" racial origins. After the Civil War and emancipation of the
slaves, the song came to form part of the religious repertoire of both
whites and blacks in the southern United States (see, for example,
Owens 1983 and Pitts 1991; the song also appears in many published
hymnals used by both black and white churches starting in the
1920s). An arrangement by Edward Boatner, chorister of the National
Baptist Convention, was published by the Sunday School Publishing
Board" in 1927 as part of the collection Spirituals Triumphant: Old
and New and has become one of the standard versions of the song
used in African American congregations in the United States.16 In
his foreword to this collection, A. M. Townsend, the secretary of the
National Baptist Convention, calls the hymnal "a collection of slave
melodies that had their origin in the life of an oppressed yet hopeful
people," going on to say that "no one can sing or write these songs of
sorrow, joy, hope, and fear, so nearly as they can be reproduced, as
those from whom the songs were originated." In a similar vein, Ber-
nice Johnson Reagon (2001: 99) also recognizes the dual character of
slave spirituals, which at once document the horrors of bondage and
offer the hope of redemption for those who seek it:
Spirituals record the struggle of a people to survive, but like
no other history, they have the power to touch the souls and
stir the emotions of the people who sing and hear them. This
African American song, with its evolution within American
society-like a great river shooting off hundreds of tributaries
to be joined together somewhere further down the way-gives
us the richest opportunity to view the African American song
tradition in a way that unleashes the powerful human story
it holds.
Reagon's image of the slave spiritual as a great river "shooting off
tributaries" that will come back together somewhere downstream in


38 \ Chapter 2
history is as apt a metaphor as any for the history of "I Shall Not Be
Moved" and its passage from one movement to another and across
several continents. Where in this chapter we have seen how the song
"I Shall Not Be Moved" contributed to the spiritual sustenance of
an oppressed racial minority in the United States in the nineteenth
century, in the next chapter we see how in the twentieth century the
song was wielded as a weapon by an exploited majority-the nation's
industrial workers-in their struggle to organize unions to defend
their rights and advance their interests.


3/

From Worship to Work
A Spiritual Is Adopted by
the U.S. Labor Movement and the Left
orkers in the United States would not seem to have had much
to sing about during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Mil-
lions were unemployed, hundreds of thousands had lost their
homes to foreclosure, and the majority of working-class families had
fallen into poverty. Rather than passively accept their lot and hope
for an eventual turnaround in the economy, many workers fought to
defend their rights and regain their lost standard of living by joining
a militant trade union movement. Many new unions were organized
through the auspices of the Congress of Industrial Organizations
(CIO), under the leadership of John L. Lewis, who had risen to promi-
nence in the coal fields of Appalachia as the president of the United
Mine Workers of America (UMWA). As the left-wing journalist
Mary Heaton Vorse (1938: 235-236) notes in her book Labor's New
Millions, members of this resurgent union movement found a lot to
sing about as part of their organizing efforts: "The new labor move-
ment sings, on picket line and in union hall-in southern textile cen-
ters, and among the steel workers. Wherever the new unions spring
up, the workers sing." Indeed, the new industrial unions published
numerous songbooks and broadsides to help build a sense of pride,
unity, purpose, and resolve among their members as they engaged in
fierce battles with the country's leading corporations for better pay


40 \ Chapter 3

and working conditions. CIO union leaders gave their explicit bless-
ing to the promotion of song among their rank and file members, as
indicated in these remarks taken from the introduction to the song-
book of the Textile Workers of America published in 1939:
A singing army is a winning army, and a singing labor move-
ment cannot be defeated. Songs can express sorrow as well as
triumph, but the fact that a man sings shows that his spirit
is still free and searching, and such a spirit will not submit
to servitude. When hundreds of men and women in a labor
union sing together, their individual longing for dignity and
freedom are bound into an irrepressible force. Workers who
hesitate are swept into the movement, and before all these
determined marchers, united by their purpose and their sing-
ing, the citadels of oppression crumble and surrender. (John
L. Lewis, President, Congress of Industrial Organizations,
quoted in Z. Horton 1939: 4-5)
It is no great exaggeration to say that songs have played a vital
part in the upward climb of humanity. Especially is this true
about labor songs, which have expressed not only the dreams
of an aspiring labor movement, but have also been proper-
ly used as rallying cry to maintain discipline, morale, and
high spirits in great moments of struggle. (Sidney Hillman,
President, Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, quot-
ed in Z. Horton 1939: 5)
In fact, the power of song in the service of labor struggles in the
United States dates at least to the early decades of the twentieth cen-
tury, when Joe Hill, a Swedish immigrant troubadour, composed
dozens of songs for the Industrial Workers of the World. Hill said
the following concerning the value of a song to labor movements:
A pamphlet, no matter how good, is never read but once, but
a song is learned by heart and repeated over and over; and I
maintain that if a person can put a few cold common sense
facts in a song, and dress them up in a cloak of humor to take
the dryness off of them he will succeed in reaching a great


From Worship to Work / 41

number of workers who are too unintelligent or too indiffer-
ent to read a pamphlet or an editorial on economic science.
(Joe Hill, 1914, quoted in Foner 1965: 16)
The nineteenth-century slave spiritual "I Shall Not Be Moved,"
which had later been taken up by southern whites as a church hymn,
was one of a number of religious songs reworked by unionists in the
1930s to be sung in the struggle for labor rights. By the 1950s, in its
new guise as "We Shall Not Be Moved," the song had become one of
the best-known and most-sung union anthems, second only to "Soli-
darity Forever," which is also a transformed religious hymn (Fowke
and Glazer 1973).1 It is not surprising that many labor-union songs
were drawn from the repertoire of church songs, given the intense
religiosity of both black and white workers in many industries, espe-
cially those who labored in the coal mines, textile mills, and cotton
and tobacco plantations of the rural southern United States (Corbin
1981; Denisoff 1970b; Koppelman 2003; Roscigno and Danaher 2004;
Reuss and Reuss 2000). In the coal-mining communities of Ken-
tucky, Virginia, and West Virginia, for example, union organizers
"constantly salted their speeches and letters with biblical messages
and references to the Deity" and "found in the Scriptures justifica-
tion . . . for their roles as union activists" (Corbin 1981: 154). The
religious fervor that had been an important aspect of community life
prior to unionization of the mines later was transferred to UMWA
and its struggles, with miner-preachers playing important leadership
roles and miners finding "the Bible to be a gospel of unionism and a
handbook for social justice" (Corbin 1981: 160). Indeed, in his book
on the songs and stories of the coal miners, George Korson (1943: 51)
reports that a UMWA field representative in the 1930s averred that
"he had never attended a local union meeting in Kentucky, Tennes-
see, and Alabama which did not have hymn-singing and prayers as
part of the program." As noted by R. Serge Denisoff (1970b: 183-184),
echoing the pioneering sociologist Emile Durkheim, the same vital
functions fulfilled by religious rituals for society as a whole were
also important to social movements. These functions included "1)
instilling individual self-discipline; 2) creating and reinforcing cohe-
sion; 3) perpetuating tradition; and 4) establishing a sense of per-
sonal well-being." With regard to religious songs harnessed to a social


42 \ Chapter 3

movement, Denisoff (1970: 184) observes that such songs gave the
movement's messages "an aura of sacredness" that aided in legitimat-
ing the movement's cause and leadership. Moreover, he argues, the
use of religious songs allowed movements for social change to har-
ness the power of existing cultural traditions, even as they struggled
to remake important aspects of existing social relations.
"I Shall Not Be Moved" was a well-known religious song among
both black and white Protestants in the southeastern United States
by the early twentieth century. It is impossible to know for certain
exactly when and under what circumstances the song was first sung
by workers as part of their struggle to better their wages and work-
ing conditions. Such a moment may have arisen spontaneously with-
out being written into the historical record. It could have been in the
tobacco farms of Virginia, in the textile mills of the Carolinas, in the
coal fields of West Virginia, or among sharecroppers in Arkansas or
Mississippi. David Alan Corbin (1981: 149) notes that "I Shall Not Be
Moved" was sung in company-run churches in West Virginia coal
fields whose congregants included European immigrants, southern
blacks, and native whites. Although he makes no specific mention of
"I Shall Not Be Moved," Tom Tippett (1931: 124) reports that work-
ers and their families in the 1929 textile workers' strike in Marion,
North Carolina, chanted "re-written Negro spirituals" around camp-
fires on nighttime picket lines "to inspire faith and courage." He simi-
larly reports that a year later in Danville, Virginia, striking workers
rewrote religious hymns to sing of their struggle against exploita-
tion by mill owners (Tippett 1931: 232). In the early 1930s, Claude
Williams, a radical Presbyterian minister in northwestern Arkan-
sas "created an activist, working-class, youth-oriented ministry" in
which music played a central role. In conjunction with organizing
the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union-the country's first racially
integrated labor union-Williams "transformed familiar hymns into
labor songs" (Koppelman 2003: 5).
In the Coal Mines of West Virginia
The first specific appearance in the historical record of "We Shall Not
Be Moved" as a labor-rights song dates to a wildcat strike in 1931 by
twenty thousand coal miners in Kanawha County, West Virginia,


From Worship to Work / 43

led by Frank Keeney, who founded the West Virginia Mine Workers
Union as a more radical alternative to UMWA (Corbin 1976). One of
its verses pays homage to Keeney as the leader of the striking workers:
Frank Keeney is our leader, and
We shall not be moved,
Frank Kenney is our leader, and
We shall not be moved,
Just like a tree that stands beside
The water, we shall not be moved.
(quoted in Corbin 1976: 144)
The singing of the song by miners was witnessed by Helen Norton
Starr, an activist from the Brookwood Labor College in New York
State, who traveled to West Virginia to support striking miners in
Kanawha County:
I remember the first time I heard "We Shall Not Be Moved."
The only place that could be secured for the meeting in that
particular valley was the front of a dilapidated Negro school-
house that stood in a depression among the hills-hills so
green and tree-covered that only a sharp eye could see the
scars of the coal tipples.2 On the steps of the schoolhouse
stood a mixed group of white and Negro miners and their
wives, singing out their story and their hopes. The summer
sun blazed down on them and on the miners' families seated
on the slope in front. On the road above, a group of state "po-
lice" and mine guards watched, their guns conspicuously dis-
played. That strike was lost and the Kanawaha Valley was not
unionized until 1933, but "We Shall Not Be Moved" was sung
all over the country and adapted to local conditions. (quoted
in Fowkes and Glazer 1973: 39)
According to folklorist Norm Cohen (2005: 135-137), "I Shall Not
Be Moved" was pressed into service at a moment when "the mine
camps themselves often became the scenes of pitched battles between
the miners and the hired thugs of the owners, between strikers and
strikebreakers." The melody was already known to miners, as it was


44 \ Chapter 3

one of the "gospel hymns" they sang in their churches. In addition,
"the verse structure made it possible for everyone to join in after the
leader sang out the first few words of a stanza" and "other partici-
pants could easily add their own stanzas." And, as Denisoff notes,
using a religious tune as a song of labor struggle also "unconscious-
ly helped establish the righteousness of the union cause in singers'
minds." Here, Cohen highlights a crucial element of the structure of
"I Shall Not Be Moved" that helps us understand how it has traveled
around the world, getting sung in several languages in the service
of a variety of struggles for social justice. The singer and songwriter
Lee Hays, a founding member of path-breaking folk music groups the
Almanac Singers and the Weavers and the co-composer, with Pete
Seeger, of the world-famous song "If I Had a Hammer,"3 referred to
songs like "We Shall Not Be Moved" as "zipper songs." Their origins
and structure lent themselves readily to group singing and adaptation
to new circumstances:
A "zipper" song . . . is a simple folk tune built on repeated
lines and so constructed that you have to zip on only a word
or two to make an entirely new verse. . . . [T]hese are ob-
viously songs that don't call for much brainwork. They are
songs which you can sing three seconds after you've heard
the first line. And, because they are very rhythmic and full of
bounce, they're inviting-as a matter of fact, that's just what
they are, because they derive from the invitational hymns of
the old camp-meetings.
"Join the union" is "Come to Jesus."
"Roll the union on" is "Roll the chariot on."
So today the same music invites people to join churches
and unions....
Modern practitioners of American folk music are very
much indebted to the camp-meetings.... Almost every well-
known folk singer has one or another of the old camp-meet-
ing hymns and ballads or version thereof in his repertory, and
of course whenever a folk singer hits a picket line, political
rally, or union meeting, he relies on the good old spiritual


From Worship to Work / 45

songs in their modern "zipper" song dress to get the people
singing together. That's what they are for and that's the reason
they were made, to get people singing together. (quoted in
Koppelman 2003: 63-65)4
In the Textile Mills and Garment Factories of the South
After the coal miners of Kanawha County, West Virginia, first sang
"We Shall Not Be Moved" in their 1931 strike, the song quickly began
to appear in one form or another in other labor struggles in other
locales and industries all around the country. In 1934, 170,000 textile
workers across the American South walked out in a general strike
that was the largest labor protest in the region's history (Irons 2000).
As they had in the Marion and Danville strikes a few years before,
strikers drew on their repertoire of religious hymns to fashion new
songs of struggle. That September, strikers marched through mill
towns throughout the South, often in the face of intimidation and
outright repression by National Guard troops called out by state gov-
ernors to confront them. In a powerful scene in the documentary
The Uprising of '34 (Stoney, Helfan, and Rostock 1995), hundreds
of strikers and their family members march through the streets of
Gastonia, North Carolina, defiantly singing "I Shall Not Be Moved,"
accompanying themselves on guitar and banjo.5 John Salmond (2003)
reports that in its plural version "We Shall Not Be Moved," the song
was sung widely in other locales during the three-week-long strike,
which, despite failing, formed part of the impetus for subsequent
passage of the century's most important labor rights legislation, the
National Labor Relations Act. The following year, workers staged a
strike at the Richmond Hosiery Mill in Daisy, Tennessee (Associated
Press 1935), in which the song was also employed as an expression of
defiance in the face of repression. The following account comes from
Zilphia Horton, who would later play an important role in the dis-
semination of the song throughout the country as musical director
of the Highlander Folk School:
Washington's Birthday came along about that time [in the
month of February], so [the union] decided to have a parade
and combine it with the things they were fighting for, because


46 \ Chapter 3

to them they were fighting for freedom, economic freedom.
The children of the workers in the mill were in this parade;
the school band was in it, and the ministers in the town who
were sympathetic with the strikers were also in the parade.
They were completely unarmed. We were marching two-by-
two with the children in the band. They marched past the
mill and 400 machine gun bullets were fired into the midst
of the group. A woman on the right of me was shot in the
leg, and one on the left was shot in the ankle.... Well, in
about 5 minutes a few of us stood up at the mill gates and
sang "We shall not be moved, just like a tree planted by the
water... ." And in ten minutes the marchers began to come
out again from behind barns and garages and little stores that
were around through the small town. And they stood there
and WERE NOT MOVED and sang. And that's what won their
organization. (quoted in M. Horton 1990: 78)
In Hard Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit People, the songbook he com-
piled with Alan Lomax and Pete Seeger (1967: 348), the legendary
songwriter and folk poet Woody Guthrie describes how this "old
pre-Civil War spiritual" that "used to be sung by Negro slaves" had
new lyrics made up for it by strikers in a hosiery plant in Rockwood,
Tennessee, in 1938. The new lines "zipped" onto the song by the strik-
ers included the following:
Their orders are being cancelled.. .
They kidnap organizers ...
They black-jacked Daniels ...
We're not afraid of tear gas ...
We're not afraid of gun thugs ...
According to Guthrie, readers of the songbook could make up
their own verses "and ought to, as most folks do."
And by the end of the decade, "We Shall Not Be Moved" appeared
in the official songbook of the Textile Workers of America, which
also included the endorsement of union singing by Lewis and other
labor leaders quoted at the beginning of this chapter (Z. Horton 1939:


From Worship to Work / 47

32-33). The historical record indicates that the song was sung as well
by other industrial unions in the South. So it was, for example, that
in the early 1930s in Birmingham, Alabama, the CIO's International
Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers, 80 percent of whose mem-
bers were black, typically held its meetings in "a sympathetic black
church and preface[d] union business with a religious hymn, slightly
altered to fit the occasion," such as "Bill Mitchell Is Our Leader/We
Shall Not Be Moved" (Kelley 1990: 149). This, of course, serves as an
example of Bernice Johnson Reagon's observation (cited in Chapter
1) that social movement gatherings could be raised to a sacred level-
sanctified-through singing.
The Sharecroppers' Union
Southern agricultural workers, both black and white, also took up
versions of "I Shall Not Be Moved" as an expression of their struggles
for union recognition and better wages and conditions in the 1930s.
In Alabama, Communist Party activists helped organize rural blacks
into the Share Croppers' Union, whose leaders "sustained a tradition
of singing before and after gatherings, a practice adopted from the
rural church services after which they patterned their meetings." As
had happened already elsewhere, they "transformed popular spiritu-
als into political songs with new messages," including "We Shall Not
Be Moved" (Kelley 1990: 105). In Virginia, the song was taken up by
black tobacco workers who had been organized by the CIO into the
Tobacco Stemmers' and Laborers' Industrial Union. In April 1937,
they struck the Carrington and Michaux factory in Richmond, pick-
eting the plant round the clock, "pausing occasionally to sing their
new anthem: The Union is my leader, I shall not be moved." Work-
ers at the plant won the strike, gaining shorter hours, higher pay,
and better working conditions, marking the first victory for union-
ized black workers in Virginia (Virginia Writers Project [1940] 1969:
309). The historical record does not tell us whether these workers
were taught the song by CIO organizers or whether they adapted it
from their own religious repertoire: "Just Like a Tree Planted by the
Water" was a favorite spiritual sung in black churches in Virginia in
the first decades of the twentieth century (Virginia Writers Project
[1940] 1969: 259).


48 \ Chapter 3

By the mid-1930s, members of the Socialist Party of America, a
non-Marxist social democratic party whose presidential candidate,
Eugene Debs, had won hundreds of thousands of votes in the 1904,
1908, 1912, and 1920 elections, had begun to organize sharecroppers
in the cotton belt of the U.S. South.6 In July 1934, in the tiny town of
Tyronza in northeastern Arkansas, a small group of black and white
workers founded the first local chapter of the Southern Tenant Farm-
ers' Union (STFU) to defend the rights of sharecroppers in the face
of landlord abuses and the neglect of their plight by the New Deal.7
Within two years, the STFU had twenty-five thousand members in
two hundred local chapters in six southern states (Auerbach 1968:
126; see also Grubbs 1971). Workers in the union had religious roots
in both the white and black churches of the South. In addition, left-
wing preachers, such as Reverend Williams, lent a hand to its cause
(Willens 1988). Because of its socialist politics, advocacy of the rights
of disinherited sharecroppers, and its racially integrated member-
ship, the STFU faced fierce repression from both the police and land-
owners' hired thugs (Auerbach 1968). Like other fledgling unions in
the South with a religiously rooted membership, from its first days
the STFU boosted its morale and resolve through song:
Sharecroppers responded to their union ... with boundless
devotion and courage. Gathering in abandoned warehouses
or in the cotton fields, always late in the evening after a full
day of backbreaking toil, they sang "We Shall Not Be Moved"
and recited the Lord's Prayer before attending to union busi-
ness. (Auerbach 1968: 120)8
David Eugene Conrad (1965: 93) reports that the line "like a tree
planted by the water" in the song's refrain gave the song a "special
significance" to STFU members, given the widespread eviction of
sharecroppers from planter lands during the Depression. Before long,
"We Shall Not Be Moved" became the official anthem of the STFU.
As recalled by one of the union's founders, H. L. Mitchell, "the Negro
members" had been key to the practice of singing spirituals as "songs
of protest" that "fit with the union program (quoted in Denisoff 1970b:
182). And A. B. Brookins, a black STFU organizer, had the following
to say at the union's Third Annual Convention in 1937:


From Worship to Work / 49

They shot up my house with machine guns, and they made me
run away from where I lived at, but they couldn't make me run
away from my union, which is this union here. And until the
end of my life, as I climb up to the highest hill of elevations,
I will always be singing my union song, that we shall not be
moved. (quoted in Lomax, Guthrie, and Seeger 1967: 348)
The anthemic status of "We Shall Not Be Moved" in the STFU
turned out to be especially significant to the subsequent dissemina-
tion of the song among not only labor union members but also the
wider world of social justice activists. One of the reasons for this was
the participation of the young Lee Hays, then an acolyte of Reverend
Williams, in STFU support activities. It was through his work with
the STFU that Hays originally learned many of the traditional hymns
and spirituals that were adapted to the interrelated causes of racial jus-
tice and worker rights in the U.S. South. It was Hays who subsequently
taught many of these songs to fellow musicians in New York, including
Pete Seeger and the Almanac Singers (see below), whose recordings
made them famous in left-wing circles worldwide (Koppelman 2003
and Willens 1988). The importance of "We Shall Not Be Moved" to
Hays was clear by the prominence he gives the song in the 1937 docu-
mentary film he made for the STFU, titled America's Disinherited. As
noted by one of Hays's biographers, Robert Koppelman (2003: 5), the
film was significant even though it was not widely distributed, "inso-
far as it introduced some New York left-wing audiences to the struggle
of the southern sharecropper." Moreover, it "dramatized the power of
music as a pivotal instrument of striking STFU workers-the turning
point in the film is when an image of clenched black and white hands
is followed by one of biracial strikers marching and singing, 'Black and
white together / We shall not be moved!"' Although the STFU made its
mark as a radical critic of landlord-tenant relations in the U.S. South
and chalked up several concrete victories in terms of legislation and
executive action as part of the New Deal-the President's Committee
on Farm Tenancy, the Bankhead Jones Farm Tenancy Act of 1937, and
the establishment of the Farm Security Administration-its efforts
to abolish the southern plantation system failed, and the union had
ceased to function by the time the United States entered World War II
(Auerbach 1968: 129-131).


50 \ Chapter 3

The General Motors Sit-Down Strike
By the mid-1930s, "We Shall Not Be Moved" began to be sung in
labor struggles in the industrial North of the United States as well.
It played a prominent role in one of the most important U.S. strikes
of the twentieth century, in which workers occupied General Motors
plants in Michigan in 1936 and 1937 to force the company to negoti-
ate with their union, the United Auto Workers (UAW). This yearlong
effort ultimately succeeded, but only after strikers endured violent
repression by police, company guards, and hired goons. Strikers and
their supporters became famous for the spirit they exhibited both
inside the factories and on the picket lines on the streets. As noted
by historian Timothy Lynch (1996: 5-6), one of the most important
expressions of this spirit was the many songs UAW workers and their
supporters made up and sang during the lengthy strike against mul-
tiple plants in the town of Flint. These songs not only voiced the prin-
cipal demand of the strikers for union recognition in "a simple yet
powerful way" but also "brought the strikers and their allies together,
both physically and emotionally, and provided them an opportunity
to flex their psychic muscle." This coming together, according to
Lynch, played a crucial role in building community and instilling
class consciousness among the workers.
One especially noteworthy instance of the singing of "We Shall
Not Be Moved" during the Flint strike occurred when workers
captured Chevrolet Plant No. 4. Earlier the same day, violence had
broken out at Chevy Plant No. 9, where company guards had clubbed
and gassed workers inside the plant. Members of the UAW's Women's
Emergency Brigade outside the plant witnessed the violence through
the building's windows, which they shattered to let air in so the men
inside could breathe. The women then retreated, overpowered by the
tear gas fumes. After recovering for a while at the UAW hall, they
marched in a procession to Plant No. 4, where a crowd had gath-
ered in support of the striking men inside the plant. Journalist Mary
Heaton Vorse (1938: 77) describes the famous scene as follows:
Down the hill presently came a procession, preceded by an
American flag. The women's bright red caps showed dramati-
cally in the dark crowd. They were singing "Hold the Fort."


From Worship to Work / 51

To all the crowd there was something moving about seeing
the women return to the picket line after having been gassed
in front of plant No. 9. A cheer went up; the crowd took up
the song. The line of bright-capped women spread itself out
in front of the high gate. Clasping hands, they struck up the
song "We Shall Not Be Moved."
The song may also have played a role in the strike of Chinese
women garment workers in San Francisco in 1938, as indicated by
a letter of appreciation their Local No. 341 sent to the offices of the
International Ladies Garment Workers' Union, which was subse-
quently reprinted in English in the Union Bulletin:
We appreciate deeply the help and the assistance that all the
officers of the San Francisco locals, and Miss Jennie Matyas,
our organizer, are giving us in our strike. .. . We also thank
our headquarters, the ILGWU, in New York City, for all the
support extended to us: moral support, economic support,
legal support, and financial support.... With such supports
behind us, we know we cannot fail. We will fight our fight
to the end, and hope to raise the living conditions not only
for ourselves but for the other workers in Chinatown as well.
Words cannot express our gratitude. All we say and sing for-
ever is: The ILGWU is behind us. We shall not be moved.
(reprinted in Yung 1999: 403-404)9
The Labor Colleges: Commonwealth,
Brookwood, and Highlander
The transmission of "We Shall Not Be Moved" and other labor songs
during the 1930s was facilitated by not only unions themselves but
also educational institutions allied with the labor movement. Two of
these were especially important in the first half of the decade, while
a third gained prominence by the end of the decade. Commonwealth
College, in Mena, Arkansas, was founded in the 1920s to promote
education for labor activists in the southern United States. Its stu-
dents and faculty worked closely with the STFU in Arkansas as well
as in labor struggles in other states (W. Cobb 2000, 2012). Its role in


52 \ Chapter 3

incorporating music into labor actions grew when Reverend Claude
Williams took over as director in 1936. Under Williams's direction,
Commonwealth created a traveling theater group, organized by folk-
singer Lee Hays, intended to use "drama as a weapon for union orga-
nization" (Willens 1988: 52). As Hays notes, the singing and teaching
of songs was an essential element of the work of the Commonwealth
Players:
All Claude's meetings are singing meetings. He has dug up
folk singers and songwriters and set them to work fashioning
songs for particular meetings or causes.... It was in the plays
that we first sang "No More Mourning" and "Roll the Union
On" and "What Is That I See Yonder Coming."... Sometimes
at meetings way out in the backwoods or in the heart of the
dismal cotton country, Claude would sing an old song like
"We Shall Not Be Moved"-prepared to break into the old
hymn words if gun thugs should appear. (quoted in Willens
1988: 53)
Brookwood Labor College in Ketonah, New York, was Common-
wealth's counterpart in the northern United States. Like Common-
wealth, Brookwood sent its organizers to work in labor causes around
the country. Also like Commonwealth, Brookwood placed great
emphasis on its cultural programs, organizing traveling "chautau-
quas"10 consisting of actors and musicians taking pro-labor messages
on the road to audiences outside New York (Tisa 1985: 48-49; Knight
Raymond 2009). It was Brookwood organizers who first brought "We
Shall Not Be Moved" to the northern United States after its "debut"
among West Virginia coal miners in 1931 (Reuss and Reuss 2000:
92). After the Flint sit-down strikes, Brookwood used their chautau-
quas to reenact the strikes' key tactics and events for other workers
(Knight Raymond 2009). "We Shall Not Be Moved" is included in
Brookwood Chautauqua Songs, the college's official songbook, pub-
lished on an unspecified date in the 1930s and sold for five cents
a copy (Brookwood Labor Publications n.d.) The third educational
institution that was crucial to the dissemination of "We Shall Not Be
Moved," both among labor union members in the 1930s and 1940s
and then among civil rights activists in the 1950s and 1960s, was the


From Worship to Work / 53

Highlander Folk School, under its musical directors Zilphia Horton
and Guy Carawan.
The Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, was found-
ed in 1932 by Myles Horton, Don West, and James Dombrowski. Its
purposes were similar to those of Brookwood and Commonwealth,
and by the late 1930s, "Highlander was serving as the de facto CIO
education center for the region, training union organizers and leaders
in 11 southern states" (Highlander Research and Education Center
2012). By the mid-1940s, Highlander received support from both the
American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the CIO (Dunson 1965:
28). Zilphia Johnson, an Arkansas native and someone who col-
laborated with Lee Hays and Reverend Claude Williams, arrived at
Highlander in 1935 and married its founder, Myles Horton, taking
his last name and directing its music and drama program until her
death in 1956 (Carter 1994; M. Horton 1990; Willens 1988). Under
Zilphia's musical leadership, Highlander's staff and students took
"Chautauqua-type programs" to worker organizations around the
South, giving the school a reputation as the leading center for labor
songs in the region. By the end of the 1930s, "Highlander students,
with Zilphia Horton as song leader, were frequently invited to sing
and lead singing at local and state meetings of the new CIO unions
and at workers' education conferences" (A. Horton 1989: 120-121).
In addition, Highlander students frequently sang at rallies and on
picket lines throughout the South. As she had learned to do from her
mentor Williams, Zilphia turned many familiar traditional hymns
and popular songs into expressions of protest. During her years at
Highlander, Zilphia "collected hundreds of songs, published at least
ten songbooks, and mimeographed thousands of songsheets for resi-
dence sessions and picket lines" (Glen 1988: 54). Unions for whom
she compiled songbooks included the Amalgamated Clothing Work-
ers of America, the United Rubber Workers of America, the Interna-
tional Ladies Garment Workers Union, and the Textile Workers of
America, with the prefatory remarks from CIO leaders John L. Lewis
and Sidney Hillman that are quoted at the beginning of this chapter.
All these songbooks-and many of the mimeographed songsheets
she compiled-contain "We Shall Not Be Moved."" Zilphia was also
responsible for adapting the gospel hymn "I'll Overcome Someday"
for use by the labor movement, teaching the song in the 1940s to Pete


54 \ Chapter 3

Seeger, who changed the world-famous opening line to "We Shall
Overcome," which was later taught to young civil rights activists in
the 1950s by Carawan, Zilphia's successor as Highlander's musical
director (Roy 2010: 193; see Chapter 4 for more on Carawan's role in
teaching "We Shall Not Be Moved" to civil rights activists).
The Almanac Singers
By 1940, Commonwealth College had begun to fall apart, attacked
by reactionary forces from without and riven by factional disputes
within. A few months before it finally closed its doors, Lee Hays
left, headed to New York to "carry Commonwealth's labor songs to
the unions up there" (Willens 1988: 59). At the time he left Com-
monwealth, Hays had been compiling a workers' songbook, with
musical notations by Waldemar Hille (R. Cohen 2002: 28). Hille,
who had been the dean of music at Elmhurst College in Illinois, met
Hays during a visit to Commonwealth at the end of 1937. According
to Hille, although Williams took the lead in converting religious
hymns into labor and political songs, it fell to Hays to "polish" the
final versions. It was Lee, Hille averred, who "was able to take the
lead and make things hum" (quoted in Willens 1988: 53-54). In New
York, Hays met two kindred political and musical spirits in Millard
Lampell and a young banjo player and singer named Pete Seeger.
Together, the three founded the Almanac Singers, a musical collec-
tive with a rotating membership that dedicated itself to a mixture
of traditional folk tunes and political songs meant to be sung to a
labor union audience. Over the next several years, its other mem-
bers included, at one time or another, Woody Guthrie, pioneering
folklorist Alan Lomax and his sister Bess, Tom Glazer, Burl Ives,
Earl Robinson, Sis Cunningham, and Gordon Friesen. Although all
its principal members were white, a number of well-known African
American singers and musicians also participated, including Huddie
Ledbetter (Lead Belly), Sonny Terry, Brownie McGee, and Josh
White (Reagon 1975: 59). In addition to the Almanacs themselves,
the communal house they lived in in Greenwich Village attracted
other "Left and musical luminaries," including Jim Garland, Aunt
Molly Jackson, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and the detective writer
Dashiell Hammett (R. Cohen 2002: 29).


From Worship to Work / 55

Although never a commercial success, the Almanacs did achieve
a certain amount of notoriety as they performed at labor union and
political gatherings, garnering favorable reviews from the Commu-
nist Party's Daily Worker and described by Time Magazine as "four
young men who roam around the country in a $150 Buick and fight
the class war with ballads and guitars" (quoted in R. Cohen 2002: 29).
In addition to their numerous live performances in the early 1940s,
the Almanacs recorded several albums on the obscure Keynote label,
including 1941's Talking Union, dedicated exclusively to labor songs,
which features a CIO union-styled version of "We Shall Not Be
Moved." In the mid-1950s, the Folkways label reissued the album,
making it available to a younger generation of folk music artists and
activists (Dunaway 2011: 2). In addition, Hays and Seeger would go
on to found the Weavers, who became a commercial success at the
end of the 1940s with hit recordings of their covers of songs such as
Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene" and Guthrie's "So Long, It's Been
Good to Know You," before falling victim to the blacklist during the
Red Scare of the 1950s. The Weavers, too, included "We Shall Not Be
Moved" in their repertoire (Dunaway 2011: 140) and inspired a new
generation of musicians and singers, such as Peter, Paul, and Mary,
who would lead the socially conscious folk song revival in the United
States in the 1960s. It is also necessary to recognize just how impor-
tant the Almanac Singers-and later the Weavers-were to left-wing
political activists in the 1940s and 1950s. Irwin Silber, a member of
the Communist Party and editor of Sing Out! and other left-wing
publications, had this to say about the importance of the Almanac's
music to the movement:
We were all influenced by the Almanacs. I had been to the
mass rallies before the war where the Almanacs sang. The Al-
manacs had a very liberating effect on the Left.... The domi-
nant music of the Left, until the time of the Almanacs, was
twofold: it was the European revolutionary tradition, and it
was American popular music....
[The Almanacs' music] was very liberating because-at
least for people of my generation who were rejecting the val-
ues inherent in commercial music and didn't have that sense
of identification with the European tradition, and didn't want


56 \ Chapter 3

to-we wanted something that was American.... It wasn't
just the Almanacs, it was Woody and Lead Belly and Pete and
so on, pulling it together that made a connection between the
musical and the political values that made a lot of sense to us.
(quoted in Dunaway and Beer 2010: 59-60)
Thus, the Almanacs' musical repertoire, including songs like "We
Shall Not Be Moved," was viewed by left activists as music that not
only spoke to specific causes that concerned them, such as labor and
civil rights, but also belonged specifically to them.
In an article comparing the artistic and musical "gestalt" of the
Marxist "old left" in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s with
that of the ideologically more eclectic "new left" of the 1960s, Deni-
soff (1969) argues that activists like Silber of the "old left" developed
what he called a "Folk Consciousness." This consciousness, he insists,
referred to an admiration of folk music by urban intellectuals and
activists that led to its use in "the framework of social, economic, or
political action" in which "social and organizational themes" were
added to "traditional tunes," performers emulated "rural attire," and
folk singers were regarded as "people's artists" (Denisoff 1969: 428).
The Almanac Singers, Denisoff maintains, exemplified the "folk
consciousness" of the old left, sometimes quite self-consciously and
explicitly, as when they told a reporter from People's World that they
were "trying to give back to the people the songs of the workers" that
had been "stolen from them by the bourgeoisie" (Denisoff 1969: 429).
Beyond the union movement, "We Shall Not Be Moved" became a
standard in the repertoire of the Marxist left all over the United States
in the 1930s and 1940s. By the mid-1930s, radical artists in New York
City were singing it at their organizational meetings (Monroe 1974:
8), as were black and white Communist Party members in Alabama
(Kelley 1990: 99, 136). In the late 1930s, Earl Robinson, the composer
of "Joe Hill" and "Ballad for Americans," put together a songbook
titled America Sings for the Communist Party's bookshops, which,
along with "The Internationale," "Solidarity Forever," and other topi-
cal protest songs, includes a version of "We Shall Not Be Moved" with
the line "Lenin is our leader" (Robinson 1937). And in 1948, Walde-
mar Hille finally published the collection of union and other songs
that Lee Hays had in mind to publish a decade earlier. Titled The


From Worship to Work / 57

People's Song Book, it of course includes a version of "We Shall Not
Be Moved." In the book's introduction, the folklorist Alan Lomax
insists that the songs it includes reflect "an emerging tradition that
represented a new kind of human being, a new folk community com-
posed of progressives and anti-fascists, and union members." The
book is, he claims, "a folio of freedom folklore, a weapon against war
and reaction, and a singing testament to the future" (quoted in Hille
1948: 3).12 This emerging tradition would be subject to fierce repres-
sion from the forces of reaction in the United States beginning soon
after the publication of Hille's long-awaited songbook.
The Peekskill Riots
The Cold War repression of left-wing activists in the United States
began in earnest following the reelection of Harry Truman to the
presidency in 1948. Hysteria about the Soviet threat was whipped
up by the press and encouraged by right-wing politicians. Although
Joseph McCarthy had not yet become a household name, the House
Un-American Activities Committee had already begun its witch
hunt of "Reds" in public life. In the summer of 1949, a concert by
the internationally acclaimed singer and activist Paul Robeson was
organized by left-labor activists to take place at a rural retreat near
Peekskill, New York, in Westchester County, only about fifty miles
up the Hudson River from New York City. Proceeds from the con-
cert were to benefit the Civil Rights Congress, a radical antiracist
organization that would later present to the U.N. General Assembly
a hard-hitting report titled We Charge Genocide, linking U.S. foreign
policy to racism (Salter 2011).
Angered over Robeson's statements earlier that year at the World
Peace Congress in Paris, in which he argued against war with the
Soviet Union (Duberman 1988: 341-342; Walwik 1999), local mobs
incited by the American Legion and the Ku Klux Klan attacked orga-
nizers of the concert in the hours before it was scheduled to take
place. In addition, they blocked the road leading to the site of the
concert, preventing featured artists and aficionados from arriving,
including Pete Seeger, who was also scheduled to perform. Members
of the mob beat the racially mixed concert crew savagely; hurled
racist, anti-Semitic, and anticommunist epithets at them; and burned


58 \ Chapter 3

a cross on the hillside above the picnic grounds where the show was
to have taken place.
The writer Howard Fast, one of the U.S. left's leading political and
literary figures at the time, was one of the concert's principal organiz-
ers. He recounts details of the mob's attack in a chapter of the report
Peekskill U.S.A., which was subsequently published as a short book
by the Civil Rights Congress (Fast 1951). As it had already done on
many picket lines around the country over the previous two decades,
the song "We Shall Not Be Moved" played a key role in maintaining
the spirit of labor and left-wing political activists confronting their
opponents. A vivid passage from Fast's report recounts the singing of
the song at a crucial moment in the fight, when the right-wing mob
attacked him and his compatriots on the concert site, illuminated by
the cross burning on the hillside above. Few writers have conveyed
the power of song in struggles for social justice as compellingly as
Fast (1951: 34-36) does here:
We didn't kneel [as the lynch mob approached]. We locked
arms, the better to support each other, and as that whole great
mob rolled down upon us, well over a thousand of them now,
we began to sing,
"We shall not-we shall not be moved!
We shall not-we shall not be moved!
Just like a tree that's standing by the water,
We shall not be moved!"
Consider the scene: there are only thirty-two of us now,
with our backs against the truck, and we and the road across
the embankment in front of us are bathed in the glare of
headlights and spotlights that have been rigged from the
road. All the rest is in darkness, and now into the light come
the "new Americans," brandishing the fence rails they have
stripped from along the road, swinging their knives and bil-
lies, a solid mass of them back to the public highway, rolling
down to turn in for the kill and the great lynching, which is
their peculiar privilege in a land which provides freedom for
all except those who do not wholly agree with the gentlemen


From Worship to Work / 59

in Washington. It is a full hour and a half now since the fight-
ing began, and there has been time enough for the news of
what is happening at Peekskill to be wired to every corner of
the nation. The press is here to see the great lynching, every
New York newspaper, their crack writers and photographers,
but not one policeman and not one state trooper-not one.
So they came in for the kill, and the singing stopped
them. You would have had to be there to understand that;
those of us who were there understood it when it happened; it
was no miracle to us, but logical and reasonable-for I think
that at that point all of us stopped being afraid and stopped
praying for a way to get out of that hellish valley. We simply
stood there in our three lines, arms locked, singing that fine
old song which, more than any other, has become the anthem
of the democratic forces of America.
Many, many times, for as long back as I can remember, I
have heard people singing that old hymn, but I never heard
it sung as it was sung that night, swelling out over the lu-
natic mob, over the road and over the hills, full of the deep
rich voices of men who had fought so well. It was a moral
enigma to the Legion heroes. They saw a line of Negroes and
whites, arms locked, ragged and bloody, standing calmly and
singing-and the singing stopped them. They halted a dozen
feet from us, and their screaming stopped. They stood there
in silence, watching us and listening to our song and trying
to understand what sort of people we were-that has always
been a difficult thing for them to understand. And then one
of them threw the first rock.
Fast and the others present survived the mob's attack and were
eventually escorted to safety by local police. Word of the Peekskill
"riot" spread across the United States quickly. Horrified by what
transpired on the night of August 27 but still undaunted, organiz-
ers regrouped and resolutely prepared again to hold the concert on
September 4. This time the concert was allowed to proceed and was
attended by several thousand supporters. As the artists and their fans
left the site in cars and buses driving down a narrow country road,
they were ambushed by hundreds of rock-throwing assailants, who


60 \ Chapter 3

smashed windshields, overturned cars, and cracked skulls. Local
police also participated in the attack (Duberman 1988: 368-370;
Dunaway 1981: 19-22; Fast 1951). Fortunately, Robeson was hidden
behind blanketed windows and under two union bodyguards in the
back of a car and thus avoided lynching (Duberman 1988: 368-370).
Seeger recounts the gauntlet as follows:
There were 900 police, deputies, and state troopers there at
Peekskill. They allowed the mob to form along a four-mile line
of road and directed all traffic down this only exit and then
stood by watching while the hoodlums threw rocks through
the windows of cars and buses. Heads were bashed in. Eyes
were cut by flying glass. Cars were overturned and the people
in them dragged out and beaten. And the police stood by and
laughed. Hoodlum gangs went on a night-long reign of ter-
ror all through Westchester County and clear down to 210th
Street and Broadway. Then the police moved. They moved
into the picnic grounds to beat up the trade union guards!
(transcribed from sound recording by Robeson et al. 1949)13
Seeger's friends Lee Hays and Woody Guthrie rode away from
the concert in one of the buses that had brought fans to Peekskill
from New York. In the face of the onslaught, Guthrie commented
to Hays that he had seen a lot, "but this is the worst" (Koppelman
2003: 97). Much as he had famously done a few years earlier aboard
a merchant marine vessel in hostile waters during World War II (J.
Klein 1980: 277-278), Guthrie stayed cool under fire, leading songs
and cracking jokes to ease the horror and pain his fellow passen-
gers experienced. He pinned a red shirt over one of the bus windows
to keep glass from shattering onto passengers (Kaufman 2011: 160).
Hays remembered especially Guthrie leading everyone on board in
defiant, joyous songs, including Hays's own "If I Had a Hammer"
and everyone's "We Shall Not Be Moved."14 This was not the first
time that Guthrie had sung "We Shall Not Be Moved" in the face of
danger. In the days following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, he
and his traveling musical companion Cisco Houston had led a group
of sailors, soldiers, truck drivers, ranch hands, cowboys, bartend-
ers, and bar patrons in a rousing version of the song in defense of a


From Worship to Work / 61

Japanese-owned bar on Skid Row in Los Angeles that was about to be
ransacked by an angry mob of drunken white men intent on seeking
vengeance (Guthrie [1943] 1970: 264-269).15
Recalling the moment that the bus carrying Guthrie, the other
passengers, and him made it safely away from the Peekskill mob,
Hays writes, "Then we knew that we had won a victory. We had again
reconquered liberty. But we knew also that we would have to fight
for it again as long as this state of war against culture and the people
should continue" (quoted in Koppelman 2003: 98-99). Although car-
rying out the Peekskill concert may have been a moral victory of the
left in the United States, it presaged the dark days of repression and
blacklisting that activists in trade unions, the civil rights and peace
movements, and the arts would face for years to come. Peekskill
nonetheless remained a touchstone for left activists of the era, a way
of reassuring themselves during the dark years of McCarthyism that
they would not be moved from their commitment to working toward
their vision of a more democratic and egalitarian world.
he old slave spiritual "I Shall Not Be Moved," born of the reli-
gious revival meetings attended by whites and blacks on the
rural frontier of the United States at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, was given a new secular life in the 1930s and 1940s by a
militant movement of trade unionists and their left-wing support-
ers, most of whom were white. In its new version with the plural
subject "we," the song accompanied many victories in union-orga-
nizing drives, strikes, and the passage of legislation protecting the
rights of U.S. workers. It also accompanied left-wing political activ-
ists as they attempted to pursue broader social change through the
trade union movement, only to face ruthless repression by the state,
corporations, and civil society institutions at the outset of the Cold
War in the late 1940s. Just as the song helped Howard Fast and his
comrades confront their attackers in Peekskill, New York, it would
do the same for participants in the African American civil rights
movement in the U.S. South. Moreover, one of the principal institu-
tions that taught the song to members of CIO unions would play a
crucial role in teaching it to youthful civil rights activists at the end
of the 1950s.


4/

From Union Song to Freedom Song
Civil Rights Activists Sing
an Old Tune for a New Cause
Freedom songs are the soul of the movement.
-MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
he freedom songs of the mid-twentieth-century African Ameri-
can civil rights movement are mainly drawn from the slave spiri-
tuals of the nineteenth century. Although black activists were
surely familiar with most of the spirituals that were put to use by the
civil rights movements, they did not carry out the transformation
of these songs alone. The transformation was catalyzed, at least at
the outset, by left activists attached to the labor union movement.
Having long been the principal center for labor education and advo-
cacy in the U.S. South, in the 1950s the Highlander Center redirected
its efforts and attention to the cause of civil rights. African American
civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks,
John Lewis, and members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC), all received training at Highlander in the 1950s
and early 1960s (Dreier 2006; Glen 1988; J. Lewis 1998). Already
in the 1930s, Highlander had begun to promote the racial integra-
tion of labor unions, leading by example. Its director, Myles Horton,
favored "the method of natural exposure"-that is, helping south-
ern whites overcome their racial prejudices by having them attend
racially mixed labor education courses and workshops in residence at
Highlander. The hope was that by "studying the connection between
race relations and labor organization," students would conclude that


From Union Song to Freedom Song / 63

"there must be equal opportunities for blacks and whites if both races
were to improve their living conditions" (Glen 1988: 68). Just as sing-
ing featured prominently in the Highlander curriculum as a center
for labor education, so would it be a central element of its biracial
program of civil rights education in the 1950s and early 1960s. And
just as the staff of Highlander played an indispensable role in the
spread of "We Shall Not Be Moved" throughout the labor movement,
they would do the same for its popularization in the black civil rights
movement, although another song that owed its subsequent fame
to Highlander-"We Shall Overcome"-would receive far greater
acclaim in the movement and around the world.
SNCC, the Highlander Center, and Guy Carawan
Zilphia Horton, the musical director at Highlander who had done so
much to extend singing throughout the U.S. labor movement, died
suddenly in 1956 of an accidental poisoning and kidney failure (Glen
1988: 138). A few years later, a young folksinger, guitarist, and banjo
player named Guy Carawan was hired to take her place.1 Like Horton,
Carawan never became famous as a performer, but instead made his
mark as a teacher and song leader. Moreover, like Horton, he believed
in the power of song harnessed to social movements and drew on the
same folk traditions of ballads and spirituals that could be adapted
to the cause at hand (R. Cohen 2002; Glen 1988; Roy 2010; Sanger
1995; Schneider 2007; Seeger and Reiser 1989). By the time Carawan
became Highlander's musical director in 1959, the Montgomery, Ala-
bama, bus boycott had already been won; the Little Rock, Arkansas,
schools had already been integrated; and the African American civil
rights movement was on the verge of becoming a mass movement
throughout the U.S. South. Civil rights had become the cause for
social justice activists in the United States, and Highlander became
a crucial site for training them as organizers, cultural workers, and
participants in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience. As Carawan
began to work with African American activists who visited High-
lander and as part of their participation in civil rights movement
activities throughout the South, he realized the important role that
he could play in facilitating the development of a culturally authentic
repertoire of songs that the movement could deploy confrontationally


64 \ Chapter 4

in the face of repression by state authorities, use to build a sense of
solidarity and unity of purpose within the movement, and rely on to
maintain the morale of activists in times of discouragement:
It didn't take me long to survey the situation. People were
beginning to meet and gather in the spirit of freedom. They
were people who could really sing as a result of their church
backgrounds, but they were not taking advantage of what their
heritage had to offer. So many great old spirituals that express
hatred of oppression and a longing for freedom were being left
out of this growing freedom movement.... It was an excep-
tional case when a Negro took a spiritual or gospel song ...
and substituted a word or two to make it applicable.... I began
to see that there was something that I could do. (Carawan,
quoted in Schneider 2007: 182)
It was not that no singing was occurring in the civil rights movement
in the 1950s. Rather, Carawan found that most of the singing that
went on consisted of more formal church hymns instead of the more
rhythmic and emotive spirituals that were also part of the African
American religious tradition.
In 1960, Carawan organized a series of Highlander workshops
that "first and foremost served song leaders and choir directors
and, secondarily, singers, appealing to those who identified with
the movement for freedom in the south." Participants learned song-
leading techniques to use in their mass meetings, prayer vigils, and
picket lines (Roy 2010: 169). Rather than performing songs for work-
shop participants to admire and then imitate, Carawan saw his role
as a facilitator who would "respond to a suggestion from the group,
set the tempo, orchestrate an accompaniment, help blend the voices,
and express the group's sensibility." This was consistent with "a mode
of interaction he identified with the black church, in which anyone
can raise a song, sparking the congregation to join in, elaborate, and
make music together" (Roy 2010: 168).
The first of these civil rights song sessions was held on April 1-3
at Highlander, as part of the Seventh Annual Highlander Folk School
College Workshop, in which eighty sit-in leaders from all over the
South participated (Dunson 1965: 39-40). Carawan recalled that


From Union Song to Freedom Song / 65

workshop as having been "incredibly important," with activist lead-
ers "sitting around in a big circle and talking about tactics and strat-
egy and goals-nonviolence and civil disobedience, whether to stay
in jail or go out on bail, whether or not there should be northerners in
the movement and white students, all the big questions" (Seeger and
Reiser 1989: 3-4). These intense discussions were interspersed with
song, whether as a break from talking or simply because the spirit
moved someone to sing. It turned out that some of these young black
activists, including Bernard Lafayette, James Bevel,2 and others, were
great fans of "hillbilly" music and would go off into another room
with Carawan to jam while others continued discussions. Other
times, Carawan remembered that he himself would "jump in with a
song I had learned, like 'Eyes on the Prize,' 'We Shall Not Be Moved,'
[emphasis added] or 'I'm Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table"' (quoted
in Seeger and Reiser 1989: 3-4). SNCC activist John Lewis (1998: 90)
recalls having sung his heart out in a workshop led by Carawan, even
though, he said, "I cannot sing." Moreover, he left Highlander "on
fire," in keeping with the school's mission, as he understood it, "to
light fires and refuel those whose fires were already lit."
A few weeks later, Carawan traveled to Raleigh, North Carolina,
to attend a meeting of more than two hundred student sit-in activists
from all over the South organized by the Southern Christian Leader-
ship Conference (SCLC), where he also taught songs and song-lead-
ing techniques. This meeting was especially important because it
gave birth to SNCC, which would provide the recruits for the danger-
ous grassroots organizing that would need to take place throughout
the South to overturn the U.S. apartheid system. This meeting also
proved to be extremely important to building a repertoire of "free-
dom songs" for the movement based on slave spirituals and Afri-
can Americans' tradition of congregational singing. It was there that
many activists heard and sang the songs in their new versions for
the first time, including "We Shall Overcome," the song that would
become the movement's anthem. A few months later, in August,
Highlander organized its first "Sing for Freedom" workshop, which
was attended by not only southern black and white activists but also
northern activist singers and musicians, including Pete Seeger and
Waldemar Hille, the editor of the People's Song Book discussed in
Chapter 3 (Dunson 1965: 40). Carawan's efforts to integrate into the


66 \ Chapter 4

youthful civil rights movement the African American congregational
singing tradition, with its roots in the nineteenth-century spirituals,
got a warm reception from activist leaders who witnessed them. For
example, the Reverend C. T. Vivian, a member of the SCLC and a
close collaborator with Dr. King, remembered that after witnessing
Carawan lead the old spirituals with new words, the songs began to
make sense to him and others as songs for their movement. "Once we
had seen it done," he remarked, "we could begin to do it" (quoted in
Carawan and Carawan 1990: 4).
Freedom Songs
The sociologist William Roy (2010: 169-170) argues that Carawan's
efforts served as a catalyst for the creation of a "canon of freedom
songs" that were "sung widely throughout the movement," were
"associated with the movement," and have "endured as the sound
track of our collective memory of the civil rights movement." One
of the young activists who participated in Carawan's workshops was
Bernice Johnson Reagon, who would quickly become a leading singer
of freedom songs for the movement. Subsequently, she would become
a prominent scholar of African American song traditions in addi-
tion to composing and arranging songs she wrote for the women's
a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock, which she founded in
the 1970s. Reagon characterized the repertoire of "freedom songs" as
having been based in the unrehearsed tradition of the "Afro-Amer-
ican folk church," from which activist leaders drew to make "a new
music for a new time." In this new music, "lyrics were transformed,
traditional melodies were adapted, and procedures associated with
old forms were blended with new forms to create freedom songs
capable of expressing the force and intent of the movement" (quoted
in Carawan and Carawan 1990: 5).3
The process described by Reagon exemplifies what sociologists
Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison (1998) have called "the mobi-
lization of tradition," in which social movements remake musical
and other kinds of cultural traditions for their own purposes. The
song "We Shall Not Be Moved" occupied a prominent place in the
canon of "freedom songs" that were employed repeatedly in the civil
rights movement's on-the-ground battles to end racial segregation


From Union Song to Freedom Song / 67

in the U.S. South. "We Shall Not Be Moved" shared certain charac-
teristics with other "freedom songs" that had already made some of
them-such as "We Shall Overcome"-part of the canon of union
songs in the United States. As Roy (2010: 192) notes, both the old
union songs and the new "freedom" songs were strongly rhythmic
and featured the short, repeatable verses of Hays's "zipper songs," into
which song leaders could insert new verses "made up on the spot,"
using the call and response format was so familiar to congregants in
African American churches.4 As already noted, these characteristics
dated back to the rise of "jubilee" spirituals in the camp meetings
attended by African slaves in the U.S. South during the Second Great
Awakening in the early nineteenth century, whose characteristics, in
turn, shared much with the singing traditions of West Africa.5 Here,
then, we see songs like "We Shall Not Be Moved" coming full circle,
from African American origins, into the white evangelical tradition,
on to the white-majority union movement, and back into the African
American community as civil rights songs.
SNCC and the Freedom Singers
The young SNCC activists, most of whom had experience with the tra-
ditions of African American congregational singing, made extensive
use of song in their community organizing and confrontations with
white authorities throughout the South in the early 1960s (Carson
1981: 63-64, 81; Spencer 1990: 86-90). According to Hollis Watkins,
a SNCC fieldworker, singing was a central part of black culture in
the South, and SNCC deployed it strategically as a "natural entree
into the hearts, souls, and minds of black people in presenting and
offering something that was not foreign to them." He further notes
that SNCC's meetings in local communities throughout the South
"would generally start ... with people singing songs-spiritual songs,
singing freedom songs-and it was really kind of a warm-up thing
to get people involved, to get people to relax" (quoted in B. Martin
2004: 29). One of SNCC's principal goals was to cultivate the leader-
ship abilities of members of local communities throughout the South,
who could then carry on the civil rights struggle from the grass roots
up. As noted by Bradford Martin (2001: 165), "Singing was one of the
chief means of fostering grass-roots leadership," something SNCC


68 \ Chapter 4

activists accomplished by "identify[ing] local individuals with the
potential to be song leaders, usually designating those with previous
singing experience, often in church or school choirs." Leading songs,
they believed, could be a vital aspect of directing political action at
the local level. They thus sought to transfer "songleading responsi-
bilities from fieldworkers to local songleaders." In addition, in the
summer of 1962, Cordell Reagon, a SNCC activist who had previ-
ously helped carry out lunch-counter sit-ins in Nashville and broader
desegregation efforts in Albany, Georgia, organized the SNCC Free-
dom Singers as a vehicle for spreading the message of the civil rights
movement across the nation. The group's original members included
Reagon himself, along with fellow SNCC members Charles Neblett,
Rutha Mae Harris, and Bernice Johnson, who later married (and sub-
sequently divorced) Cordell and today is known as Bernice Johnson
Reagon (Dunaway and Beer 2010: 138-140; B. Martin 2001: 170). In
her doctoral dissertation on the use of song in the civil rights move-
ment, Reagon (1975: 127-128) reports that by the early 1960s, song
had become essential for civil rights organizing, to the point where
"no mass meeting could be successfully carried off without songs."
Krys Verrall (2011: 60) describes the relationship between the Free-
dom Singers and on-the-ground SNCC activism as follows:
Together, the Freedom Singers and the freedom songs (as
part of activists' performance repertoire) brought a two-
fold approach to the intersection of civil rights activism and
musical performance. On one hand, the Freedom Singers, as
a group of politically engaged musicians and singers, made
music and singing an integral feature of their practice. On
the other hand, all movement workers could sing freedom
songs publicly, collectively, and peacefully. Nothing could
more forcibly convey the peacefulness of civil rights work-
ers-in contrast with the often staggering violence of white
bigots-than singing.6
"We Shall Not Be Moved" was a constant in the Freedom Sing-
ers' repertoire (Dunaway and Beer 2010: 138-140). They performed
it widely, including at prestigious concert venues, such as Carnegie
Hall in New York City, and recorded it on a long-play record of their


From Union Song to Freedom Song / 69

songs (B. Martin 2001: 171). Their most notable performance of
the song was undoubtedly on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
before tens of thousands of participants in the August 1963 March
on Washington, from the same podium where Martin Luther King
Jr. made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech (Reagon 1975: 165).'
Here we should note that "We Shall Not Be Moved" was sung not
only from the podium, by the Freedom Singers, but also by many
of the marchers. A white woman who attended the march shared
the following remembrance with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on its
fiftieth anniversary:
At Mount Mercy College (now Carlow University) we were
urged to work for social justice. Five of my friends and I made
that trip for the Aug. 28 March on Washington, feeling we
were doing just that. My mother wasn't too keen on my going,
but I left home with enough fried chicken and chocolate chip
cookies to feed all six of us. The day was hot and humid,
the Washington, D.C., police were lining the way, the mall
was crowded, the crowds were noisy, and the PA system was
inadequate. It was hard to see the speakers, and harder yet
to hear them. Yet we were thrilled to be there! A high point
was the New York Ladies Garment Workers Union, arriving
late, marching through the vast crowds to the front, singing
"We Shall Not Be Moved." I joined the singing as best I could
through my tears. ("March on Washington" 2013)
In this regard, sociologists Robert Rosenthal and Richard Flacks
(2011: 154) note that the most important message of the Freedom
Singers in their performances was not to denounce segregation and
racial discrimination, since their audiences already agreed with
them, but rather to confirm for listeners that "there was a vibrant
movement of resistance to segregation sweeping across the South."
The singing of "We Shall Not Be Moved" and other freedom songs at
the March on Washington palpably affirmed for those present that
their core beliefs were shared by many thousands of others from all
over the United States, that these thousands were prepared to act on
their beliefs, and, if they all refused to be moved, that segregation
could indeed someday soon be overcome. It is no coincidence, then,


70 \ Chapter 4

that Martin Luther King Jr. (1964: 57-58) himself had noted that "the
freedom songs are the soul of the movement." The participation of
the SNCC Freedom Singers in folk festivals, in mass demonstrations
like the March on Washington, and in performances before largely
white audiences also had the effect of familiarizing young white folk-
singers, such as Joan Baez and Peter, Paul, and Mary, with the free-
dom song canon; they, in turn, added some of the songs to their own
repertoires (B. Martin 2004: 42-43).
Conquering Fear through Song
"We Shall Not Be Moved" was an important freedom song in the
civil rights movement of the early 1960s for a number of reasons. As
previously mentioned with regard to the song's adoption by the U.S.
labor movement, the religious roots of the song lent an aura of the
righteous and sacred to the civil rights struggle (see Denisoff 1970b).
In addition, like most of the main songs in the freedom song canon,
it was directed toward the community of believers who were singing
it, stressing the role being played by the group in achieving its shared
goals (Denisoff 1970a: 819-820). As sung by civil rights activists, "We
Shall Not Be Moved" also served as a public statement of resistance
to oppression. As Richard King (1988: 11-12) notes, "The freedom
songs were less concerned with conveying information or arguing
a position than with expressing resolve and solidarity in public." In
this way, "freedom songs were particularly striking ways of making
a collective presence known to hostile whites and to the nation-and
to the participants themselves."8
More generally, this type of group singing as an "embodied
spiritual practice" can produce "religious experience and a sense of
community," which can be very important to carrying out effective
collective action. According to Meredith McGuire (2008: 112), it is
therefore not surprising that the phenomenologist Alfred Schutz
"used 'making music together' as a metaphor for the ways people
relate deeply with each other, sharing subjective experiences." Just
as importantly, given the physical dangers that civil rights activists
repeatedly faced, songs like "We Shall Not Be Moved" helped con-
quer activists' justified fear of beatings and murder. In some situ-
ations, it even constituted a form of "audaciously talking back" to


From Union Song to Freedom Song / 71

white oppressors. One of SNCC's field secretaries, Phyllis Martin,
explained it this way to a Newsweek reporter:
The fear down here is tremendous. I didn't know whether
I'd be shot at, or stoned, or what. But when the singing start-
ed, I forgot all that. I felt good within myself. We sang "Oh
Freedom" and "We Shall Not Be Moved," and after that you
just don't want to sit around anymore. You want the world to
hear you, to know what you're fighting for! (quoted in Spencer
1990: 91-92)
In the same spirit, SNCC leader and Freedom Singer Neblett
noted that singing was a way for civil rights activists in the South not
only to deal with their fears but also to celebrate their survival when
they regrouped in safe places after the dangers they had faced in the
field. "The singing and the power of the singing echoes the intensity
with which you have been living your life," he said. "It[']s a way in
which you can announce to each other where you have been and cel-
ebrate what you've been doing and also to celebrate that you're in fact
alive to be together again" (quoted in Monson 2007: 58).
It is not surprising then, that "We Shall Not Be Moved" was sung
by activists throughout the South in the early 1960s on picket lines;
during sit-ins; at mass meetings in the 1963 campaign to desegregate
Birmingham, Alabama; on buses by Freedom Riders; by the march-
ers from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama; and in the jails of Albany,
Georgia, and Hinds County, Mississippi (J. Lewis 1998: 173; B.
Martin 2001: 169; Reagon 1975; Seeger 1965). Documentation of the
singing of "We Shall Not Be Moved" can be heard on a number of LP
recordings from the period, including We Shall Overcome: Songs of
the Freedom Riders and the Sit-ins; Freedom Songs: Selma, Alabama;
Sit-in Songs: Songs of the Freedom Riders; and The Nashville Sit-in
Story: Songs and Scenes of Nashville Lunch Counter Desegregation (by
the Sit-in Participants).
Singing in Defeat
It is worth noting here that "We Shall Not Be Moved" and other free-
dom songs were sung at moments of defeat as well as at moments of


72 \ Chapter4

triumph-in other words, at moments when demonstrators were, in
fact, moved by police or other adversaries of the civil rights move-
ment. M. J. O'Brien (2013: 165), for example, describes the circum-
stances under which "We Shall Not Be Moved" was sung in May 1963
by youthful demonstrators in Jackson, Mississippi, during a march
led by civil rights martyr Medgar Evers:
All of the four-hundred-plus marchers were arrested and all
for the same crime: parading without a permit. The New York
Times reported that children as young as "grade school age"
marched from the doors of the church straight into police
lines. Teenaged couples laughed and held hands as they were
seized by police. Nearly all of the demonstrators waved small
American flags as they joyously marched, two by two, shout-
ing "We want freedom!" or singing "We Shall Not Be Moved"
as they were led away.
In another more famous case, demonstrators sang "Ain't Gonna
Let Nobody Turn Me Around," a freedom song similar in its message
to "We Shall Not Be Moved," as Martin Luther King Jr. led them in
retreat from a phalanx of armed police blocking their march from
Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on
March 10, 1965 (D. Lewis 1970: 281, quoted in Carson 1981: 159-160).
As discussed more generally in Chapter 1, the fact that these demon-
strators were moved physically did not mean that they were moved
in terms of the identities to which they aspired or their commitment
to the struggle in which they were engaged.9
Singing Together: First-Person Singular
or First-Person Plural?
The origins of the song in the African American slave community
as the jubilee spiritual "I Shall Not Be Moved" raises the question of
why, when the song was adopted by the civil rights movement, the
original first-person singular lyric was not retained, especially given
the predominant notion of a collective "I" in the lyrics of the slave
spirituals (see Ames 1960: 139 and Cone [1972] 1991: 61-62). One
obvious answer is the one given by a black sharecropper in the South-


From Union Song to Freedom Song / 73

ern Tenant Farmers' Union (STFU) to the labor organizer Harry
Koger in Arkansas in the 1930s-namely, that there is strength in
the solidarity of a unified collective:
Speaking of strength in unity, I remember back in the old
sharecropper union days in East Texas and the Mississip-
pi River Delta region that one of the favorite union songs,
which was sort of a reconverted hymn, was "We Shall Not Be
Moved." The original hymn from which this song was made
over was "I Shall Not Be Moved." One night up near Earle,
Arkansas (that's where Rev. Claude Williams was severely
beaten some years before that by plantation bosses), one of
the union leaders started singing the song, but instead of the
newer union-inspired version, he started out "I Shall Not Be
Moved."
About the time he started leading the audience in the sec-
ond stanza, one of the rank and file members, a Negro, raised
his hand and shouted. "Wait a minute, Brother! You've got it
wrong! It's WE who cannot be moved. You can be moved and
I can be moved-and you and I have already moved many
times-moved with our families into shacks that aren't fit for
a mule to move into-moved away from enough of the right
kind of food, moved away from decent clothes for ourselves
and our families and moved away from our freedom. The only
way we can ever hope not to be moved into misery and away
from a more abundant life is to let the boss know that from
now on he's got a bigger job than just moving you and me
separately. From now on, he's dealing with a union. He's deal-
ing with US!" Then with a booming voice he led out with "WE
shall not be, we shall not be moved!"10
In fact, as noted by Jon Michael Spencer (1990: 85), the switch
from "I" to "We" in converting spirituals to "freedom songs" was "a
common textual alteration." Kerran Sanger (1995), for her part, notes
that the freedom songs are largely self-referential, with the majority
of the lyrics written in the first person. The songs that were meant to
emphasize group unity or resolve were typically voiced in the first-
person plural, even if the original spirituals were voiced in the first-


74 \ Chapter 4

person singular. In this regard, Sanger (1995: 74-75) observes that "the
communication strategies of any mass movement must serve to unify
group members and encourage new converts. When activists for a
cause use the pronouns 'we,' 'us,' and 'our,' they tacitly propose that
a cohesive group already exists, and, in so doing, subtly circumvent a
conscious decision on the part of the individual to join the group.""
Sanger's observation in this regard hearkens back to Eyerman and
Jamison's (1998) broader point, discussed in Chapter 1, that social
movement singing contributes powerfully to movement participants'
sense of themselves vis-a-vis other groups in society. Now that the
song "We Shall Not Be Moved" is sung by activists in a wide variety of
movements and contexts in the post-civil rights period, the question
of the I-We distinction has been raised in other contexts as well. Thus,
a feminist writer asks, "What political movement could create itself
without a 'we'? Change the songs of freedom to a disinterested 'I shall
not be moved,' and you begin to see that 'we' alone can stand for soli-
darity" (Lanser 1986: 19). Bernice Johnson Reagon, for her part, cred-
its the shift from "I" to "we" to the entry of white, left-wing activists
into the black civil rights movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s:
"We Shall Overcome" was originally "I Will Overcome," "We
Shall Not Be Moved" was "I Shall Not Be Moved." I'm so glad
they didn't change "This Little Light of Mine / I'm Gonna
Let It Shine." So you've got these collective expressions in the
African-American tradition that are "I" songs. Those songs
are a way to express the group. However, one of the wonderful
things about evolution of songs is that the change of some of
the songs to "we" documents black people coming together
with a predominantly white Left that was heavily intellec-
tual about collectivism. They told us very quickly, "'I' means
individualism and 'we' expresses the group. 'We' means we're
together." We said, "Okay, if you need it-'We."' Because the
important thing is that you're here and if in order to be here
you need this "we," we're going to give you this "we." We'll do
all the "we's" you need. You get a document of when another
presence joined in collaboration and commitment against
racism by following the changes in the words of the songs.
(quoted in Harding and Harding 2004)


From Union Song to Freedom Song / 75

From Reagon's point of view, the shift from "I" to "We" was nei-
ther particularly needed nor even desirable in the case of transform-
ing spirituals into freedom songs. This owed, on the one hand, to
the fact that, in traditional African American congregational singing,
individual voices retained their unique identity within the chorus. On
the other hand, she believes that the use of the word "I" in instances
of collective action actually proved to be a better organizing tactic:
If you've got a group of people and all of them are saying "I,"
you actually have a group. If you have a group of people and
they are saying "we," you don't know who is going to do what.
Just try to organize something. You say, "We gon bring food
tonight." If you are the nervous wreck organizer, you will
leave that meeting and you will end up bringing enough food
for everybody because you won't know who or if anybody's
going to bring anything. So you've got the vegetables, and the
chicken, and the cake just in case because nobody said, "I'm
bringing this," "I'm bringing that." You don't get a group until
you get some individuals who will say "I'm in." (quoted in
Harding and Harding 2004)
he slave spiritual "I Shall Not Be Moved" was converted into a civil
rights song following the example set by the labor union move-
ment in the United States. Indeed, during the 1930s and 1940s, the
progressive wing of the labor movement was one of the most power-
ful forces for racial justice in the United States. Like the labor move-
ment, the civil rights movement was a singing movement and, as we
have seen, "We Shall Be Moved" was one of the indispensable songs
in its considerable repertoire. Moreover, just as the song symbolized
the resilience of union members and gave them strength to confront
their violent adversaries, so did it give courage to civil rights activists
as they faced constant danger in the U.S. South. It continues to do
so quite dramatically today, as civil rights activists have been sing-
ing the song to demand that the police officers who in 2014 shot and
killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and who suffocated
Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York, be brought to justice (J.
Cobb 2014; Kuszmak 2014; Pearce, Srikrishnan, and Zucchino 2014;


76 \ Chapter 4

A. Scott 2014). As is detailed in the next chapter, the song's translation
into Spanish in the United States owed not only to its importance in
the labor movement but also to the example set by the freedom sing-
ers of the civil rights movement. The first documented singing of "No
nos moverin" dates to a strike in the 1930s in San Antonio, Texas,
during the same period that "We Shall Not Be Moved" was becoming
popular throughout the U.S. labor movement. Decades later, Mexican
American activists in the farmworker movement would put together
a new Spanish-language version of the song inspired by its singing
in the civil rights movement. It is no accident that in both instances
the song was pressed into service to advance the cause of not only
workers but also the Mexican people of the United States, for in many
parts of the country, the struggle of workers for labor rights and the
struggle of Mexicans for civil rights were one and the same.


5/

From English in the U.S. South to
Spanish in the U.S. Southwest
"We Shall Not Be Moved" Becomes
"No nos moverdn"
n its way to becoming "No nos moverin," the song "We Shall
Not Be Moved" followed several distinct routes that connected
a number of widely dispersed locales at different historical junc-
tures. The people who adapted "We Shall Not Be Moved" for use
with Spanish-speaking audiences at different moments in different
places appear to have done so without knowledge of one another. The
rise of "No nos moverin" as a "movement" song in several different
Spanish-speaking countries is, in this sense, a good illustration of
Bernice Johnson Reagon's metaphor of the "river" of U.S. African
spirituals branching into many different "tributaries" only to join
together again further downstream. In this chapter, I outline the
principal instances in which "We Shall Not Be Moved" was translated
into Spanish for use by activists in social justice movements in the
United States, first in the 1930s and then again in the mid-1960s. The
first time "We Shall Not Be Moved" was sung by Spanish-speaking
activists appears to have taken place more than seventy years ago in a
jail in San Antonio, Texas. The song continues to be sung in Spanish
today by social justice activists in San Antonio, though few of them
are aware of the special historical connection "No nos moverin" has
to their city.


78 \ Chapter 5

The 1938 Pecan Shellers' Strike in San Antonio, Texas
To people in the United States, San Antonio is most famous for having
been the site of an 1836 military battle at the Alamo that marked the
first skirmish in the wars leading to Texas's secession from Mexico and
subsequent conquest by the United States. Following the annexation of
Texas by the United States in 1848, Mexicans residing in the territory
either fled across the Rio Grande or remained to live as second-class
citizens in their longtime home. In the early twentieth century, these
Texas Mexicans were joined by many thousands of others who migrat-
ed north of the border in search of work in U.S. farms, mines, factories,
and railroads. By the 1920s, San Antonio had grown into one of the
principal urban destinations for Mexican migrants as well as a major
labor recruiting center for employers in other parts of the United States
who sought to contract manual labor at wages considerably lower than
they would have had to pay to white U.S. citizens. San Antonio came
to be known as the "Mexican American cultural capital" of the United
States due to its considerable Mexican population, a title it would hold
until the 1960s (Arreola 1987). In addition, by this time San Antonio
had also come to be known as the pecan-shelling capital of the world,
due to the pecan groves that dotted the central and south Texas land-
scape and the availability of a racially oppressed Mexican workforce
who could be tapped to shell the nuts by hand for extremely low pay
(Shapiro 1952; Tenayuca and Brooks 1939; Vargas 2005).
The wages and working conditions facing the twelve thousand
Mexican pecan shellers in San Antonio, the majority of them women
and girls, were abysmal. They labored on a contract basis from Novem-
ber to March, working in approximately four hundred wooden sheds
on the city's West Side, which were poorly lit, were inadequately venti-
lated, and lacked indoor plumbing. Workers earned five to six cents a
pound for shelled pecans and only one to four dollars a week for a six-
day workweek. The principal pecan company often paid its contracted
Mexican workers in kind, doling out rations of coffee, flour, rice, and
beans from its commissary. When the Great Depression hit, wages
plummeted, falling to as low as sixteen cents per week (figures taken
from Vargas 2005: 134; see also Pecan Workers Local No. 172, 1938;
Shapiro 1952; and Ybarra 1932). The archbishop of San Antonio at the
time spoke of the terrible conditions suffered by the Mexican pecan


From English in the U.S. South to Spanish in the U.S. Southwest / 79

shellers, melodramatically stating that "the Negro slaves before eman-
cipation were a thousand times better off than these poor, defenseless
people" (quoted in Lambert 1938: 2).
At the end of January 1938, six to eight thousand pecan shellers
walked off the job in a spontaneous strike. One of its principal lead-
ers was a young Texas Mexican woman named Emma Tenayuca,1
whose brilliant oratory and Communist Party membership earned
her the nickname of "La Pasionaria de Texas," a clear reference to
Dolores Ibirruri, the Spanish Communist leader made famous only
a year before for her cry of "No pasarin" ("They will not pass") in
rallying Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War to the defense of
Madrid during the fascist siege of the city. Soon thousands of family
members and other Mexican residents of San Antonio took to the
streets in support of the strikers. Seeing the opportunity to organize
these workers as part of its struggles nationwide, the United Cannery,
Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America, a union affili-
ated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), supported
the strike through a local chapter known as the Texas Pecan Shelling
Workers Union (Vargas 2005: 134-139).
Police repression of the strikers was quick and brutal. Tenayuca
and hundreds of other strikers, union organizers, and demonstra-
tors were arrested and thrown en masse into the city jail. Condi-
tions in the jail were inhumane, with as many as thirty-three women
crammed into a cell built for six, making it impossible for them to sit
or lie down and leading the pecan shellers' union to refer to the San
Antonio jail as "the black hole of Texas" (Pecan Workers Local No.
172, 1938: 9). In spite of the brutality of the police and the conditions
in the jail, the Mexican workers and their families who participated
in what had become a general uprising against white Anglo capital-
ist rule in the city remained jubilant in jail, even as guards turned
fire hoses on them. As noted by labor historian Zaragosa Vargas
(2005: 141), at night the jailed strikers kept their spirits up by sing-
ing labor songs from both the United States and Mexico. On one
night in particular, two CIO organizers, Santos Vasquez and George
Lambert, spent the night in jail together and helped lead their cell-
mates in Spanish versions of their favorite English-language union
songs. Lambert recalls the scene in a 1971 interview in Dallas with
historian George Green:


80 \ Chapter 5

I remember spending one night in a cell, which was made for
about six people, and there was about twenty some-odd people
in there. Twenty or more of us were in there, so we couldn't
lay down. Vasquez was in there with me, and I gave him the
words to a number of labor songs-the English words-and he
translated them into Spanish. The only one that I can remem-
ber now was "We Shall Not Be Moved." He had difficulty and
found it almost impossible to translate the words and make
some of them rhyme in Spanish. The words go "just like a tree
planted by the water" and he puzzled with that for quite some
time and decided that the closest translation he could get was
in the Spanish words for "just like a rock that stands against
the windstorm"-"como pen6n que resiste el viento" ["like
a boulder that resists the wind"] -instead of "just like a tree
planted by the water." We got the people in that jail singing
that night! They were all packed in there. The favorite verse,
and you could hear it all over the jail, was "iKilday esti loco!"
["Kilday is nuts!"], referring to the Chief of Police, and some-
thing about Seligman [the main pecan company owner]. He
wasn't crazy, but he was a tyrant or Simon Legree2 or some-
thing of that sort that was translated into Spanish.
I can no longer recall, but the jailers were trying to quiet
it down. There was some talk about using the [fire] hoses on
us. The inmates of the jail who had been in there for some
time were all joining in-even the Anglos that were in the
county jail. And, of course, nobody could sleep because it
was just packed so there was just no way to sleep. These labor
songs were just pouring out of there in Spanish all that night.
I often wish that we had written them down at that time. We
had "Solidarity [Forever]." Visquez translated that, and we
got that started, and somebody came up with some labor
song from Mexico that also got into the festivities that night.
(quoted in Green 1971: pt. 2:28-29)
Later in life, the workers' leader Emma Tenayuca also shared her
memory of this glorious night of singing in jail in an interview with
historian Zaragosa Vargas (Zaragosa Vargas, pers. comm., September
3, 2011; see also Vargas 1997).


From English in the U.S. South to Spanish in the U.S. Southwest / 81

After two months of mass meetings, confrontations with the
police, and appeals to the Roosevelt administration and the courts,
the strike was settled by a board of arbitration. The pecan shellers'
union was legally recognized, and the pecan companies were obliged
to negotiate with it in good faith. New contracts to shellers were
issued in the fall of 1938 that "provided for a closed shop,3 a check-off
system, grievance machinery, and piece rates of seven and eight cents
per pound," considerably higher than companies had been paying
on the eve of the strike (Shapiro 1952: 239). This enormous symbolic
victory, not only for pecan shellers but also for the labor movement in
Texas and for Mexican Americans as a people, turned out to be short-
lived in material terms. Within a few years, the pecan companies in
Texas mechanized shelling, displacing the Mexican women and girls
whose labor they had only recently been exploiting so ruthlessly and
profitably (Shapiro 1952; Vargas 2005).
Not only was the victory of the striking pecan shellers Pyrrhic;
this first rendition of "No nos moverin" as a Spanish-language song
disappeared following the end of the strike and the subsequent
replacement of the pecan industry's Mexican workforce by machines.
In fact, there is no evidence it was ever sung again after Lambert and
Vasquez taught it to their cellmates that night in the San Antonio
jail. It would take almost thirty more years for the song to reemerge
among Spanish-speaking activists in the United States. Interestingly,
in 1939, two Mexican members of San Antonio's Texas Pecan Shell-
ing Workers Union attended workshops for union organizers at the
Highlander Center, which had played such a prominent role in the
transmission of "We Shall Not Be Moved" in both the labor and civil
rights movements. The historical record shows that this was the first
time that U.S. Mexicans had participated in a Highlander program,
but it does not indicate whether participants sang any Spanish-lan-
guage versions of labor songs (A. Horton 1989: 123, 294n47; Munoz
1939; Oviedo 1939). Today, "No nos moverin" has nevertheless been
associated retrospectively with the figure of Emma Tenayuca and
the striking pecan shellers. For example, the 1979 documentary film
Talkin' Union, which details the history of activism by women work-
ers in Texas, features the song on its soundtrack in the segment cov-
ering the 1938 strike in San Antonio (Scott and Flores 1979). When
Tenayuca died in San Antonio in 1999, the scores of activists and


82 \ Chapter 5

community members who attended her rosary spontaneously broke
into a spirited rendition of the song.4 This moving moment was re-
created in the play An Altar for Emma by the writer Beva Sanchez
Padilla, which was performed on several occasions in San Antonio
in the years following Tenayuca's death, as recognition of her accom-
plishments as a pioneering Chicana feminist and labor leader grew.
An interesting footnote to the song's connections to San Antonio
and Mexico is that by the time of 1938 pecan shellers' strike, the leg-
endary country music band the Carter Family had begun wintering
in San Antonio. They did so in part due to the city's proximity to the
Mexican border, where an enterprising U.S. entrepreneur and quack-
physician named Brinkley had begun to broadcast country music
continent-wide from a radio studio in Ciudad Acuna, Coahuila (see
Fowler and Crawford 2002). The Carter Family did not have to travel
to Mexico to perform their songs for Brinkley's radio station. Instead,
they recorded songs on acetates known as "transcription disks" that
Brinkley would transport across the border to his Mexican studio.
In 1939, one of the numbers they recorded in San Antonio for broad-
cast from Ciudad Acuna was their rendition of the gospel tune "I
Shall Not Be Moved" (Kahn 1996: 214). In spite of this Tex-Mex con-
nection, no Spanish-language version of the spiritual comparable to
the translation of "We Shall Not Be Moved" seems to have emerged,
given the racial segregation of the times and the Carter Family's and
Brinkley's disengaged visitor status in the city and state. It is possible,
however, that the Carter Family witnessed some of the demonstra-
tions in support of the Mexican pecan shellers during their winter
1938 stay in the city. Much later, June Carter, a member of a younger
generation of Carters, would marry the country singer Johnny Cash,
who himself recorded "I Shall Not Be Moved" several times during
his long career.
The Struggle of Chicanos in the Fields and in the Cities
Although there were some important connections between the U.S.
labor movement and the African American civil rights movement
in both political and cultural terms, the struggle for the rights of
farmworkers that bloomed in the 1960s and early 1970s combined
demands for the rights of workers and for civil rights in a creative


From English in the U.S. South to Spanish in the U.S. Southwest / 83

new way. Moreover, the United Farm Workers (UFW) movement,
under the leadership of Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and others,
paid special attention to cultural work, both in terms of claiming
Mexican religious and cultural iconography (see Bardacke 2011 and
Watt 2010) and in making extensive use of theater and song in its
organizing efforts. Furthermore, as detailed by David Gutierrez
(1995), the Chicano civil rights movement as a whole considered the
farmworker movement to be emblematic of the struggles of Chicanos
as an oppressed people in the United States.
In the mid-1960s, El Teatro Campesino (The Farmworker's The-
ater) emerged as the UFW's principal vehicle for movement culture,
raising the consciousness of field workers through its bilingual plays
and skits (actos), lifting the spirits of UFW members at meetings and
on the picket lines, and serving as the UFW's cultural ambassadors
to the rest of the Chicano community and activists in other social
justice movements (Broyles-Gonzalez 1994). The two young activ-
ists who founded Teatro Campesino, Agustin Lira and Luis Valdez,
were familiar with the English-language repertoires of both the U.S.
labor movement and the African American civil rights movements.
Together, with the encouragement of Chavez, they set about devel-
oping Spanish-language versions of the songs that they could use in
the farmworker movement.5 Lira shares this remembrance of creat-
ing Spanish renditions of the songs during the famous strike against
grape growers in Delano, California, which began in 1966:
In Delano during the early years of the strike it was Luis
[Valdez] and myself who translated the civil rights songs
from English to Spanish. Of course this didn't take very long
composition-wise because the songs are very simple, but
effective-the mark of good songs. What took longer was
getting the music, the chord structures to the songs. In those
days I had my hands full with Mexican music since I had
only played the guitar in rock and roll bands before then. My
practical knowledge of chord structures then was nil, so I
bummed from one guitar player to another, stealing as much
as I could retain. Luckily for me, Delano was a magnet for
artists; musicians came from everywhere, and I drained as
much as I could from everyone. The songs ... were played


84 \ Chapter 5

everywhere imaginable, including burials. (Agustin Lira,
pers. comm., September 3, 2011)
Luis Valdez, Lira's collaborator, adds the following details about
their translation of "No nos moverin":
As I recall, "No nos moverin" was a direct lift from the Civil
Rights Movement. I began marching for civil rights at San
Jose State in 1958, so I was pretty well acquainted with "We
Shall Not Be Moved." It was one of the songs I regularly
heard at demonstrations all over the San Francisco Bay Area,
together with "Solidarity Forever." One of the first things
Augie [Lira] and I did as we began to work together was
translate old labor and civil rights songs into Spanish; some-
times on Cesar's [Chavez's] suggestion, most often on our
own initiative. The verses of "No nos moverin" were fairly
fluid as I recall, subject to change according to our circum-
stances. . . . In 1967, when the Teatro performed at Howard
University in Washington DC [the nation's most prominent
African American university] on our first national tour, we
sang "Nosotros venceremos" ["We Shall Overcome"] and "No
nos moverin" specifically to underscore our solidarity with
the civil rights movement. Now that I think about it, another
Spanish version of the song was circulating with slightly dif-
ferent words, "Fuertes, fuertes, fuertes somos ya" ["Strong,
strong, we're already strong"] instead of "No, no, no nos
moverin."6 In any case, the song is still viable. It is still part of
the song book of El Teatro Campesino, which remains active
after 46 years. (Luis Valdez, pers. comm., September 7, 2011)
In his comments to the authors of an essay accompanying a 2005
recording of UFW songs by the movement's activist musicians, Lira
shares the following recollection of hearing a record of black civil
rights movement "freedom songs" for the first time while working
with the union in Delano:
I walked into the pink house [union headquarters] in Delano
one day, and I remember hearing a record on the record player.


From English in the U.S. South to Spanish in the U.S. Southwest / 85

It was a black group, a gospel group. I think that they were
called the Freedom Singers. I remember hearing them sing-
ing those songs-it was a chorus-all of those voices, singing
together. It was very powerful. They were all movement songs.
We just took those songs and started translating them into
Spanish. They were songs that a whole group of people could
sing. I think that we actually got a chance later to hook up
with that group, and sing with them. (quoted in Peterson and
Scott 2005: 17)
These Spanish lyrics written by Lira and Valdez have become the
standard version of "No nos moverin" in the United States:
No, no no, no nos moverdn  No, no, no, they will not move us
No, no, no, no nos moverdn No, no, no, they will not move us
Como un drbolfirme junto  Like a tree firmly next to the
al rio'                 river
No nos moverdn           They will not move us
Unidos en la lucha ...   United in the struggle .. .
Unidos en la huelga ...  United in the strike ...
Etcetera                 Et cetera
The song was sung routinely by UFW activists at their union
meetings, on picket lines, and during their epic strike against Califor-
nia grape growers (see Heisley 1983; L6pez 1995; Peterson and Scott
2005; United Farm Workers of America 1975). Several farm worker
and Chicano movement versions of the song were recorded, circu-
lated, and widely listened to by Spanish-speaking activists (see, for
example, Rolas de Aztldn 2005 and United Farm Workers of America
1976).
The importance of "No nos moverin" in the farmworker move-
ment and among Chicanos more generally was underscored by its
prominent inclusion in Cesar Chavez, the 2014 Hollywood movie
about Chavez's life directed by Mexican actor and filmmaker Diego
Luna. Thirty-five minutes into the film, Chavez and other UFW
members are in the orchards of the San Joaquin Valley in California,
where they approach fruit pickers to try to convince them to join the
UFW's strike against growers. Along a dirt road at the edge of the


86 \ Chapter 5

orchard, a conjunto (Tex-Mex) band with bajo sexto (twelve-stringed
Mexican bass guitar), upright bass, and accordion sing, "iFirmes
estaremos, no nos moverin!" ("We will be firm!") as picketers shout
"iViva la huelga!" ("Long live the strike!") and "iViva Cesar Chavez!"
while waving the red UFW flag emblazoned with its famous iguila
azteca (Mexican eagle). Moments later the picketers are nearly run
over by a tractor speeding toward them. Chavez has the picketers
bunch together in a group to protect themselves, only to have the men
on the tractor spray them with tear gas or some kind of pesticide,
leaving the picketers coughing and rubbing their burning eyes as the
men on the tractor tear away down the road.8
Dolores Huerta, who along with Chavez was one of the founders
and principal leaders of the UFW, remembers that music played an
essential part in winning the union's famous five-year strike against
grape growers in Delano, California. Singing led by Valdez, Lira, and
others in the movement was a staple of the strikers' weekly Friday
night meetings, which served as much as a celebration of their com-
radery as a time to plan strike actions and conduct union business.
Huerta, who continues to be active in a variety of labor, civil rights,
and women's struggles in the United States today, recognizes "No nos
moverin" as being an especially important song in the farmworker
movement:
We sang "No nos moverin" every day. It was a song that was
in our repertoire and we sang it every single day. Because we
were on those picket lines from early morning till late in the
evening and we had to keep our spirits up on the picket lines.
And one way that we kept our spirits up on the picket lines
was to sing these songs.... You know, when you're talking
about a strike going on for five years-that was a long time
to be on strike! Music was extremely important to keeping
people from getting discouraged. "No nos moverin" symbol-
ized the spirit that we had and that we needed to maintain. To
keep people strong and let them know that eventually we're
going to win as long as we don't give up. That was one of the
most important things, and I always liked to quote Cesar on
that. Cesar always said, "You'll always win if you don't give
up. The only time we lose is when we give up." So "No nos


From English in the U.S. South to Spanish in the U.S. Southwest / 87

moverin" pretty much symbolizes that saying. When you put
the song in that context, it gives it a lot more meaning. It was
our battle cry, so to speak. We are on strike and we are not
going to give up until we win. And we did! (Dolores Huerta,
telephone interview with author, February 11, 2014)9
In an interview a year before his death in 1993, Chavez himself
testified to the importance to the farmworker movement of the cul-
tural work done by Teatro Campesino, including its singing of "No
nos moverin":
Well, it helped with the workers.... It was street theater....
[I]t was able to deal with three important things. One was just
deal with ... like we're here to stay. You know, [Luis Valdez]
came out and sang "Viva la Huelga" ["Long Live the Strike"]
and "No nos moverin" and that stuff-great! The other thing
he was able to ridicule. . . growers. . . which was great. Not
attack them. But ridicule . . . [t]hen deal with the internal
problems we had about the strikebreakers or being afraid....
Oh the Friday night meetings would be jammed with people
... because even though we were losing the strike ... they're
still coming because the teatro was there. (Cesar Chavez,
interview with Luis Torres, April 20, 1992, quoted in Rosales
1996: 136)
By the latter half of the 1960s, the famous folk singer Joan Baez,
whose father was a Mexican immigrant, began lending her voice to
the farmworker cause, giving benefit concerts and singing at rallies,
on picket lines, and at member funerals, much as she had done for
the African American civil rights movement (Chatfield 2004; KPBS
Radio 2010; United Farm Workers of America 1975). Baez was so well
known and appreciated by farmworker activists at the time that the
union's newspaper, El Malcriado, published a reader's effusive poem
written in her honor in its December 29, 1966, issue (Meza 1966).
She would already have been familiar with "We Shall Not Be Moved"
as an English-language freedom song, having in fact sung from the
same stage at the legendary 1963 March on Washington where the
Freedom Singers performed the song for tens of thousands of march-


88 \ Chapter 5

ers.10 Baez presumably learned Lira and Valdez's Spanish rendition
of the song through her contact with the farmworker movement." It
is not surprising, therefore, that when she recorded her first album
of Spanish-language songs in 1974, "No nos moverin" was featured
prominently. What was surprising, perhaps, was how she imagina-
tively linked the song with the cultural expressions and struggles of
the rest of Latin America by reciting verses from the Chilean poet
Pablo Neruda's famous poem "Las Alturas de Machu Picchu" in the
song's introduction. Here perhaps Baez was unwittingly channel-
ing Neruda's indirect connection to the song through the figure of
Paul Robeson. In the 1950s, Neruda commissioned a studio record-
ing of the Chilean song "Canto a la pampa" ("Song to the Plain")
from Robeson, whose right to perform in Peekskill, New York, as
discussed in Chapter 3, had been defended by unionists singing "We
Shall Not Be Moved."12 At the same time, Baez was already think-
ing about Chile when she recorded the album the year following the
military's takeover of the country. Indeed, the album's title, Gracias a
la vida (Thanks to Life), comes from the most famous song written by
Violeta Parra, the "godmother" of the Chilean new song movement,
and also includes a cover of Victor Jara's song "Te recuerdo, Amanda"
("I Remember You, Amanda").
Later, when she visited Chile on a human rights mission in 1981,
Baez led the women of the Agrupaci6n de Familiares de los Deteni-
dos Desaparecidos (Organization of Family Members of the Detained
and Disappeared) in a spontaneous rendition of the song, a moment
that was captured in the documentary There but for Fortune: Joan
Baez in Latin America (First Run Icarus Films 1983). Interestingly,
although these Chilean women clearly were familiar with the song,
they did not appear to know the lyrics of the refrain-"como un arbol
firme junto al rio" ("like a tree firmly next to the river")-that Baez
sang, with the women smiling and humming most of the song except
the line "no nos moverin" itself. Surely, this was because they were
instead familiar with Tiemponuevo's lyrics, "y el que no crea que haga
la prueba" ("let he who does not believe it put it to the test"). Thirty-
three years later, in March 2014, Baez returned to Chile to perform
for the first time since her 1981 human rights visit. She performed
two nearly sold-out concerts at the Teatro Caupolican in Santiago,
leading the audience in a rendition of "No nos moverin" on both


From English in the U.S. South to Spanish in the U.S. Southwest / 89

evenings as her final encore. On the first evening, she sang the refrain
with most of the audience enthusiastically singing with her the ini-
tial "no, no, no nos moverin" only to have them drop out when she
completed the refrain with the lyrics "como un arbol firme junto al
rio." On subsequent refrains, she motioned for the audience to sing
it on their own, which they did, even more enthusiastically: "y el que
no crea que haga la prueba." On the second night, she did not bother
to sing "como un arbol" at all, enjoying listening to the audience sing
the Chilean refrain from the outset.13 Baez has sung the song many
times in the Spanish-speaking world, but to no greater applause than
when she sang it on a television program in Madrid, performing in
Spain for the first time in her career following the death of Francisco
Franco, the fascist military dictator who had ruled the country with
an iron fist for four decades. In the next chapter, I explore how the
song traveled to Spain and gained popularity as an antifascist protest
anthem.


6/
Across the Atlantic to Spain
y the time Joan Baez arrived in Spain in 1977 to perform for the
first time, "No nos moverin" was already well known as a protest
song against the country's fascist regime. Generalisimo Francis-
co Franco, the country's dictator, had died in 1975, but Spain had not
yet made the transition to democracy. Baez had been an international
star for many years by then and was better-known in the Spanish-
speaking world than ever before, following her well-received album
Gracias a la vida, which had been released in 1974. She had refused
to perform in Spain until that moment to avoid the appearance of
condoning Franco's fascist regime and its many human-rights viola-
tions. One of the highlights of Baez's tour, and one that generated
considerable controversy, was her appearance on a popular television
show called Esta noche, fiesta, where she sang "No nos moverin,"
dedicating it to Dolores Ibirruri, "La Pasionaria," the famed com-
munist leader and orator who in 1936 had rallied Republican forces
in the defense of Madrid, and for whom San Antonio's Emma Tena-
yuca, discussed in the previous chapter, had been nicknamed. Baez
reminisces about this moment in her 1987 autobiography:
I spoke of the best-known heroine of the antifascist resis-
tance: "I wish to dedicate a song to a very brave woman who


Across the Atlantic to Spain / 91

is known for her courage in the resistance. I, too, am a soldier
for justice, but I fight without guns, with nonviolence. But
with much respect, I sing this song for La Pasionaria." . . . I
began the song I had chosen to honor La Pasionaria, which
was "No nos moverin," one of the anthems of the resistance,
known and sung in English as "We Shall Not Be Moved." It
was one of the songs censored from my Spanish album and
had not been sung openly in Spain for forty years.... At the
time, I had no idea of the impact this simple song would
have on so many people.... I was told that hearing "No nos
moverin" and La Pasionaria's name had broken a spell, or
perhaps broken through a layer of protective silence that
still surrounded the great, though entombed, Generalisimo
Franco. There was wild celebration, hugging, kissing, weep-
ing, and toasting in the living rooms and bars of Spain. Fresh
strength was lent to and derived from the ghostly memories
of the armies of the poor. The children in their rows of tiny
coffins were remembered again and through the tears were
rocked again by their mothers and kissed on their foreheads
by their fathers. I had brought healing and jubilation as my
gift to Spain. (Baez 1987: 256-258; emphasis added)1
The International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War
Based on Baez's account, it would seem that "We Shall Not Be Moved"
must have originally arrived in Spain in the 1930s, in time to have
been sung by loyalists in the face of the fascist onslaught of the civil
war. Given that the song had not been put to the service of union
organizing and other left-wing causes in the United States until the
early 1930s, it would seem that the song likely went to Spain with U.S.
volunteers in the famous Abraham Lincoln Brigade, which was orga-
nized to aid the defense of the Republic. This makes sense especially
given that many of its three thousand volunteers were either union
members, Communist Party members, or both, who shipped out to
Spain starting in 1936, a time when Congress of Industrial Organiza-
tions (CIO) organizing and strikes in the United States were at their
height and the song "We Shall Not Be Moved" was known by many
unionists all over the country. Robert Rosenstone (1980: 98), author


92 \ Chapter 6

of one of the definitive works on the Lincoln Brigade, reports that
"the average volunteer. . . was a man between the ages of twenty-
one and twenty-seven who lived in an industrial, urban center where
labor unions and radical political parties were active" and that "if
he did not work in a factory or on the docks, he might very well be a
seaman, struggling to organize a union, or a college student active in
the League Against War and Fascism." More specifically, Rosenstone
(1980: 100-101) notes that "more than 1,000 of the Lincolns had seen
violence and death on the picket lines long before they had reached
Spain ... [f]or this was the era when workers were seeking to unionize
the great American industries and when many employers were resist-
ing to the bitter end, utilizing private police, strikebreakers, thugs,
spies and agents provocateurs [as well as] tear gas, machine guns and
firearms." Although many brigadistas were communist sympathizers
or members of the Communist Party USA, no definitive figures on
the proportion of volunteers who had been party members are avail-
able. Moreover, as Rosenstone (1980: 114) remarks, "to say a man who
went to Spain was a member of the Communist Party is not to differ-
entiate him ideologically from nonparty members in the ranks," since
"there was a community of belief among the men who went to Spain;
all shared in one way or another in the 'conscience of the thirties"'
and "all believed that the rise of the right in Europe was a threat to
the workingman of America and all saw the war as a means of hitting
back at the fascism they abhorred."2 It is not surprising, therefore,
that when I asked Pete Seeger whether he knew who might have car-
ried "We Shall Not Be Moved" to Spain in the 1930s, he replied that
"there were so many lefties in the United States that knew the song by
then that it could have been anybody" (Pete Seeger, pers. comm., July
21, 2011). That said, Peter Carroll (1994: 19) estimates, without citing
sources, that "between two-thirds and three-quarters of all American
recruits identified themselves as members of the Communist Party
or one of its affiliated groups."
Looking at the backgrounds of some of the Lincoln Brigade's
individual volunteers is even more suggestive of the likelihood that
the brigadistas brought "We Shall Not Be Moved" to Spain with them
and then upon arrival saw the lyrical relevance of the song for steel-
ing the resolve of troops and civilians dedicated to the defense of
the Republic. In his memoir, Comrades: Tales of a Brigadista in the


Across the Atlantic to Spain / 93

Spanish Civil War, Harry Fisher (1997: 3) relates that before shipping
out to Spain several years later, he had been a student at Common-
wealth College, the radical Arkansas labor school allied with the
Southern Tenant Farmers' Union (STFU) that, as described in Chap-
ter 3, had adopted "We Shall Not Be Moved" as its anthem.3 Mack
Coad, a black volunteer who had been a steelworker in Birmingham,
Alabama, joined the Communist Party in 1930. In the early thirties,
before leaving for Spain, Coad had been involved in organizing the
Alabama Share Croppers' Union (Collum and Berch 1992: 68; Kelley
1990: 40-41), whose musical repertoire also prominently featured
"We Shall Not Be Moved" (Collum and Berch 1992: 12; Kelley 1990:
105). Black communists in Birmingham were apt to sing the song at
their gatherings, as were members of local CIO unions (Kelley 1990:
99, 136, 149). Finally, Lincoln Brigade veteran John Tisa, a New Jersey
unionist, student of Brookwood Labor College, and an entertainer in
one of Brookwood's well-known traveling labor "chautauquas" (Tisa
1985: 48-49), reports that brigadistas amused themselves by teaching
Spanish children revolutionary songs in English, though he does not
specify that "We Shall Not Be Moved" was one of them (Tisa 1937: 8).
Interestingly, the United Farm Workers (UFW) troupe, Teatro
Campesino, also included songs from the Spanish Civil War in its
repertoire. Luis Valdez says the following about the possible connec-
tion between the Spanish Civil War and the Spanish version of "We
Shall Not Be Moved" that he and Agustin Lira developed:
Joan Baez, of course, recorded her own version, but that was
some time after we had been singing the song at strike meet-
ings in Delano. The connection with Spain is not out of the
ordinary, as we also sang songs from the Spanish Civil War,
such as "Si Me Quieres Escribir" ["If You Wish to Write Me"].
These were some of my favorites, and they became part of our
repertoire. "No nos moverin" was not part of this group, but
I suppose it could have been. The link with the Civil Rights
Movement was more immediate. (Luis Valdez, pers. comm.,
September 7, 2011)
Nevertheless, there appears to be no written or aural record of
"We Shall Not Be Moved" in its original English version or as "No


94 \ Chapter 6

nos moverin" being sung by anyone in Spain before the late 1960s.
The song does not appear, for example, in any of the cancioneros
(songbooks) from the guerra civil (civil war),4 nor are musicologists
and folklorists familiar with its performance there during the war or
in the decades immediately following the fascist triumph.5 Similarly,
it is absent from recorded collections of Spanish Civil War songs,
including a selection of songs from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
performed by Pete Seeger, who almost certainly, given his personal
role in popularizing the song in the United States, would have includ-
ed a Spanish version of "We Shall Not Be Moved" from the period if
he had known that one existed.6
It is impossible to say definitively that no version of "We Shall Not
Be Moved" was sung in Spain during or in the decades immediately
following the guerra civil, for it is quite possible that, like the pecan
shellers' Spanish version sung in an San Antonio, Texas, jail in 1938,
one was invented and sung on one occasion and soon forgotten to all
but those who sang or heard it at that moment. Nevertheless, as the
musicologist and producer Xavier Pintanel points out, it is unlikely
that any "Republican" version of the song would have survived the
savage repression of the Franco dictatorship:
It is quite possible that this song was brought to Spain with
the international brigades. I doubt, however, that it would
have survived Franco's repression, where anyone suspected
of thinking even slightly differently than the regime was shot
or imprisoned if he didn't have the good fortune to be able to
cross the border into exile. In fact, the popular songs associ-
ated with the Republican cause survived in exile, but not in
Spain, and returned at the end of the seventies, once Franco
was dead. (Xavier Pintanel, pers. comm., August 8, 2011)'
In concluding this consideration of the possibility that the trans-
formation of "We Shall Not Be Moved" into "No nos moverin" in
Spain was the product of the participation of the Lincoln Brigade in
the guerra civil, it seems likely that Baez's belief that she had sung "No
nos moverin" for the first time in public in the country since the 1930s
owes to her confusing this song with the famous Republican anthem
"No pasarin" ("They Will Not Pass"), whose title and refrain echoes


Across the Atlantic to Spain / 95

La Pasionaria's famous words rallying Republicans to the defense of
Madrid. The music for this song was composed by the German Jewish
composer Hanns Eisler in 1937 after he visited Barcelona, and the lyric
was written by the Spanish writer and Republican soldier Jose Herrera
Petere (F. Klein 2008: 45). Another song titled "No pasarin" was writ-
ten in the United States by Leopoldo Gonzalez, a native of the Asturias
region in Spain, who resided in the 1930s in Tampa, Florida, where he
worked as a lector (reader) in a cigar-rolling factory. Gonzalez's version
of the song was popular among people on the left who sympathized
with the Republican cause (Fernindez 2012; Garcia 2000).8 Baez is
not the only person to confuse "No nos moverin" with "No pasarin."
Several people whom I approached for more information on the his-
tory of "No nos moverin" in Spain initially responded by telling me
about "No pasarin" instead. More tellingly, a correspondent for the
Mexican newspaper El Universal who reported on the massive protests
by the so-called indignados (the indignant ones) in Madrid's Puerta
de Sol (the city's central plaza) in May 20119 told of thousands chant-
ing, "'No nos moverin,' la celebre consigna que entonaban las tropas
republicanas durante la Guerra Civil espanola (1936-1939)" ("'They
will not move us,' the celebrated slogan sung by Republican troops
during the Spanish Civil War [1936-1939]") and that it had been "la
mis coreada durante toda la tarde" ("the most widely sung the whole
afternoon"; Anabitarte 2011).
"No nos moveran" and Student Protests against Franco
By the end of the 1960s, "No nos moverin" was being sung frequent-
ly in Spain in protests against the Franco dictatorship. Having
established that the song did not begin its career in Spain during
the guerra civil, the question remains of when and how, exactly, it
did arrive. In principle, the version sung in Spanish by the Teatro
Campesino could have made it through the activist network to Spain
by that time. That does not appear to be the case, however, given the
lyrical differences between Teatro's version and the one that came to
be sung commonly in Spain. While in Teatro Campesino's version,
the refrain says "como un arbol firme junto al rio" ("like a tree firmly
next to the river"), in Spain the refrain typically is sung as "igual
que el pino junto a la ribera" ("like the pine next to the riverbank").


96 \ Chapter 6

Moreover, none of the Spanish informants and written sources I have
consulted has mentioned any Spanish version of the song from the
United States, save for the one sung by Baez, which she did not record
until 1974 and which was not commercially available in Spain until
after Franco's death.
Xesco Boix and the Grup de Folk in Barcelona
Interestingly, the first version of "We Shall Not Be Moved" to become
popular in Spain was not sung in Spanish at all but rather in Catalan,
by a young musician and activist named Xesco Boix, who had learned
the song from the repertoire of Pete Seeger, whom Boix had met and
idolized. According to his friend and biographer, Lluis Panyella,10
Boix had participated in the Delegaci6n Diocesana de Escultismo
([DDE]; Diocesan Scouting Delegation) as an adolescent in Catalo-
nia, which in the 1950s operated as a branch of the international Boy
Scouts under the protection of the Catholic Church and served as a
nonfascist alternative to the Franco dictatorship's Organizaci6n de
Juventudes Espanolas (Spanish Youth Organization). Boix's experi-
ence in DDE included a great deal of singing on hikes, camping trips,
and jamborees, where he learned to sing folk songs from all over the
world. In 1963, when Xesco was seventeen years old, his brother-
in-law, a doctor, returned from a sojourn in the United States and
brought him the We Shall Overcome LP of Seeger's now-historic con-
cert in Carnegie Hall that marked a high point of the folk song reviv-
al in this country. The discovery of Seeger's music, which was banned
and largely unavailable in Spain except as contraband, inspired the
young Boix.11 He had this to say about it to Panyella:
When I read the words of Pete Seeger on the cover of one of
his albums, I discovered a new world and when I heard that
warm voice of his, with its vagabond air and the dynamics of
a free-wheeling man that transmitted honorability and sin-
cerity, I felt loved by a man who profoundly loved freedom.
That voice communicated conviction and hope through con-
troversial songs beyond the commercial model. It was as if
that voice was talking directly to your heart. When I listened
to that record, I realized that I wanted to sing, too, and play


Across the Atlantic to Spain / 97

the guitar like him and follow in his path and way of think-
ing. There were so many things broken in the world! And
songs could be a good tool to fix them. What a lovely dream!
And how difficult to turn it into reality! (Lluis Panyella, pers.
comm., August 28, 2012)
A year later (1964-1965), Boix spent a gap year studying in Los
Angeles, California, under the auspices of the international exchange
program known as American Field Service (http://www.afs.org).
During his time in the United States, Boix witnessed the rise of the
antiwar movement and the hippie counterculture, heard about the
civil rights movement, learned to play the guitar, and absorbed as
much as he could of the Anglophone folk music represented by the
example of Seeger. He also attended the famed Newport Folk Festi-
val, where he got to meet Seeger and saw him perform live for the first
time, along with other American folk icons, including Bob Dylan,
Baez, and Phil Ochs. Upon returning to Catalonia in 1965 and enter-
ing university, he found the cultural resistance to the dictatorship
in full swing, represented mainly by the Nova Cand6 movement,
inspired by Francophone singer-songwriters, such as Jacques Brel and
Georges Brassens. At the center of this movement stood the singer-
songwriter collective Els 16 Jutges (The Sixteen Judges), featuring the
singers Pi de la Serra, Raimon, Lluis Llach, Joan Manuel Serrat, and
Maria del Mar Bonet, among others. Boix threw himself musically
into the anti-Franco movement, inspired not by the French songwrit-
ers but rather by the singers he had heard in the United States. In
1966, he returned to the United States to visit friends there and spent
several days with Seeger at his rural home near Beacon, New York.
In 1967, Xesco and his friend Jaume Armella founded El Grup de
Folk de Barcelona, which performed translations of U.S. songs in an
American folk style. "We Shall Not Be Moved," with Boix singing and
playing the banjo, was an essential element of Grup de Folk's rep-
ertoire. Panyella, Boix's biographer, reports that Boix debuted "We
Shall Not Be Moved" in Catalan as "No serem moguts" at an anti-
Franco demonstration in Barcelona in 1967:
The singer Juame Armella testified to me that he was pres-
ent in 1967 when Xesco Boix debuted the song "No serem


98 \ Chapter 6

moguts." In the middle of a student demonstration against
the dictatorship in the middle of the "Gran Via" Avenue in
Barcelona, seated on the ground with his guitar and singing
with a group of students as Franco's police charged towards
them! Xesco Boix was beaten and arrested that day. . . . The
anti-Franco struggle inspired Xesco to translate "We Shall
Not Be Moved" into Catalan. Armella affirms that "that
song was perfect to use at a time when songs like 'No serem
moguts' were lacking in our struggle. The songs that Els 16
Jutjes sang, for example, were very pretty but they were diffi-
cult to learn and difficult to teach and get people to sing them
en masse in a demonstration." (Lluis Panyella, pers. comm.,
August 28, 2012)12
Eleven years after Boix's untimely death in 1984 (see J. Cohen
1984 and "Muri6 el misico catalin Xesco Boix" 1984), Baez per-
formed his version of the song in a concert in the Pau de la Misica de
Barcelona, which was recorded for Spanish television." Boix's Cata-
lan lyrics to "We Shall Not Be Moved" read as follows:

No serem, no serem moguts!
No serem, no serem moguts,
igual que elpi aprop de la
ribera,
no serem moguts!
Ens empara el Sindicat, no
serem moguts!
Ens empara el Sindicat, no
serem moguts,
igual que elpi aprop de la
ribera,
no serem moguts!
No serem, no serem moguts!
No serem, no serem moguts,

We will not be, we will not be
moved!
We will not be, we will not be
moved,
like the pine tree near the
riverbank
We will not be moved!
We protect the Union, we will
not be moved!
We protect the Union, we will
not be moved,
like the pine tree near the
riverbank,
We will not be moved!
We will not be, we will not be
moved!
We will not be, we will not be
moved,


Across the Atlantic to Spain / 99

igual que elpi aprop de    like the pine tree near the
la ribera,                 riverbank,
no serem moguts!           We will not be moved!
Lluitarem i aguantarem ...  We'll fight and endure ...
El Nord i el Sud tots junts ...  North and South together.. .
Grup de Folk's recording of "No serem moguts," featuring Boix
singing lead and playing the five-string banjo, Seeger-style, appears
on their 1968 album Festival de Folk (Als 4 Vents).14 It is worth noting
here that Grup de Folk's records were published by a label associ-
ated with a small bookstore publisher in Barcelona named Hogar del
Libro (Home of the Book). Armella, one of the founders of Grup de
Folk, had come to work with Hogar del Libro to publish pocket-size
editions of songbooks to be used by schools, churches, and scouting
groups on their excursions. Once this connection was established,
Angel Fibregas, one of the directors of the bookstore and an enthu-
siastic booster of the Catalan language and fan of the Nova Can6,
legally incorporated the record label Als 4 Vents to distribute the
recordings of Grup de Folk. The runs of these discs were always very
small, never more than three hundred copies that were distributed to
only a few stores that sold records. It appears that Franco's censors
did not believe that the pressing of these records constituted any kind
of political threat to the regime. Nevertheless, things were different
with regard to Grup de Folk's public performances: "You have to bear
in mind that of every three concerts, two were prohibited by the gov-
ernment. On many occasions the singing took place clandestinely
without permission or even hidden out in the woods" (Lluis Panyella,
pers. comm., July 25, 2013).
Cancion del Pueblo in Madrid
While Boix and his companions in Barcelona formed Grup de Folk, a
group of young singer-activists in Madrid formed a collective called
Canci6n del Pueblo (Song of the People), whose members were also
familiar with the Anglo American folk-protest repertoire. Like its
Catalan counterpart, Canci6n de Pueblo was founded in 1967 and
lasted only through the following year before its individual members,
who included the subsequently well-known singer-songwriters Hila-


100 \ Chapter 6

rio Camacho, Adolfo Celdrin, and Elisa Serna, went their separate
ways. Its members, mostly students at the Universidad Complutense
de Madrid, began to meet informally in 1966 and became known to
the public only after their first recital, titled "Folk Song (mnsica pop-
ular)," took place in the theater of the Instituto Ramiro de Maeztu in
November of the following year. After that concert, Serna explained
to a reporter that the mission of the singers who had performed in the
concert had been "to narrate, in a direct and easily understood way,
using a pure melody devoid of any commercialism, real situations or
the psychological reactions of the man on the street, of the people, in
the face of current social and political events" (quoted in Cardenas
2011). Years later, Celdrin explained that while all the members of
Canci6n del Pueblo shared their opposition to Franco's dictatorship,
the group had no specific party line, although several participants
were then or later became affiliated with the Partido Comunista de
Espana (Spanish Communist Party):
We were an opposition group. We took that as our role. It is
very clear to me that, in those days, opposing the system was
to be alive. To talk about sexuality or politics was to oppose
the system. To do what you wanted and what you felt was to
be opposed to the system. To shout out your happiness was
to oppose the system. (quoted in Gonzalez Lucini 1998: 129)
Like Grup de Folk in Barcelona, the members of Canci6n del
Pueblo were strongly influenced by the folk-protest-song movement
of the English-speaking world; the new generation of Francophone
songwriters; the poetry of Frederico Garcia Lorca, Le6n Felipe, and
Miguel Hernindez; and Latin American folk protest singers, such
as Atahualpa Yupanqui, Daniel Viglietti, and Violeta Parra (L6pez
Barrios 1976: 28; Gonzalez Lucini 2006: 399). Beginning in the early
1960s, Spanish youth had been able to listen to English-language
pop and folk music of all types on a popular radio program titled
Caravana Musical, which broadcast songs by Dylan, Seeger, Baez,
Ochs, and Tom Paxton (Claudin 1981: 171). According to Serna, she
and several other members of Canci6n del Pueblo believed that their
access to socially and politically conscious music from outside fas-
cist Spain was so important that they rented a secret space to store


Across the Atlantic to Spain / 101

records and songbooks that had been brought into the country clan-
destinely (Claudin 1981: 174). Celdrin had the following to say about
the influence of U.S. singer-songwriters on the collective:
These were times, in Franco's Spain, when we admired the hip-
pie movement and the movement against the war in Vietnam
and listened to the singers of U.S. folk songs: Pete Seeger [with
whom I have a photo, taken in Madrid with one of my Spanish
singing partners, Elisa Serna, from when he made a brief visit
to our country], Joan Baez, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and
so many others.... We played and translated their songs into
Spanish. (Adolfo Celdrin, pers. comm., June 13, 2012)
As a musical collective, Canci6n del Pueblo was unstable and
unwieldy from its outset. Upon leaving it, individual members con-
tinued with their solo careers and other groups emerged. One of
these groups was La Trigala, composed of Ignacio Fernindez Toca,
Hilario Camacho, Jose Manuel Bravo, Manuel Toharia, and Serna,
named for the song from the Republican repertoire from the guerra
civil. The journalism student Antonio G6mez was also affiliated with
the group, but more as the group's "political theorist" than as a musi-
cian and singer. In early 1967, Fernindez Toca went to Barcelona to
visit some friends during the holidays. He had lived in Barcelona as a
child, and one of his boyhood friends was, coincidentally, Xesco Boix.
Fernindez Toca looked up Boix on this trip and got together with
him and his fellow singers and musicians in Grup de Folk. The pur-
pose of the trip, according to Fernindez Toca, was social, not musical:
It was really just happenstance. When we were just getting
going with singing [in Madrid], I got in touch with Xesco
in Barcelona to see him while I was on a trip there and he
was the one who put us in touch with the groups there. But
I already knew him for personal reasons that had nothing to
do with singing. There was really not much contact between
Barcelona and Madrid at that time in terms of [protest song].
Barcelona had a big head start, going back to 1960 or 1961.
You had the group Els 16 Jutges from the beginning, reviving
folk-song in Catalan, and then other groups formed, and you


102 \ Chapter 6

had Raimon in there, too. So Catalonia was way ahead. They
were more professional. But really, at this level there wasn't
much contact. Perhaps with a few people, but nothing more.
(Ignacio Fernindez Toca, telephone interview with author,
June 9, 2014)
Fernindez Toca learned the Catalan version of "We Shall Not Be
Moved" directly from Boix on this visit and soon thereafter trans-
lated it verbatim from Catalan to Castilian Spanish.15 Fernindez
Toca subsequently taught the song to activists and fellow musicians
in Madrid, explaining to them what he knew of the song's history
in the United States as a union and black civil rights song, which he
had learned from talking with Boix on his visit to Barcelona.16 When
I spoke with him by phone some forty-seven years later, he told me
that he really had not known very much about the song's origins and
history when he taught it to his fellow activist singers in Madrid:
It evidently had to do with black civil rights, that part I under-
stood. I don't remember anything else. I don't know if it was
linked with themes of racists, of segregation, when they didn't
let blacks into certain places or how they had to sit in the back
of the bus or things of this sort. And that the song was tied to
union struggles as well. But although I may have known some
other details then, I can't remember them now. I'd be lying to
you if I said otherwise! (Ignacio Fernindez Toca, telephone
interview with author, June 9, 2014)
Needless to say, Franco's censors and the politically oriented
nature of Canci6n del Pueblo's project made certain that the songs
performed by the collective's members would have trouble getting
recorded and distributed by a commercial record label. In the face
of this situation, in early 1968 a group of university students, among
them Luis Jose Leal, one of the members of Canci6n del Pueblo,
gathered small donations from fellow students to found their own
independent record enterprise they named EDUMSA-Editorial
Universitaria Madrilena, Sociedad An6nima (Gonzalez Lucini 2006:
405). EDUMSA quickly published several records by various mem-
bers of the Canci6n del Pueblo collective. One of these was a single


Across the Atlantic to Spain / 103

containing two songs performed by Fernindez Toca, accompanied by
Manuel Toharia on guitar. Side 1 features Fernindez Toca singing one
of his own songs, "El canaveral," and Side 2 contains his now famous
version of "No nos moverin." In the absence of documentation of
other recordings of the song in Castilian Spanish17 that might have
existed at that time, it seems that this must have been the "grabaci6n
casi casera de activistas espanoles" ("almost homemade recording
from Spanish activists") obtained by members of the Chilean group
Tiemponuevo, whose own adaptation of the song to their country's
reality was broadcast on Radio Magallanes as the socialist govern-
ment of Salvador Allende fell on September 11, 1973. Fernindez Toca
confirms the primitive nature of his recording of the song:
They were really bad recordings. Really bad because none of
us had ever seen the inside of a studio before. And we'd go into
the studio and sit down and record whatever. [And when they
played it back for us] we'd say "Great! Wonderful!" because
we'd never ever heard ourselves like that in our lives! And
that's how things worked. With four friends who got together
to applaud one another. That was it and then we were out of
there! And then later, things got more professional. Some of
us started studying music more seriously and so on. But at
that moment, we were real amateurs. At least from my point
of view. (Ignacio Fernindez Toca, telephone interview with
author, June 9, 2014)
According to Antonio G6mez, a fellow member of the Canci6n
del Pueblo collective, fewer than one thousand copies of EDUMSA's
recording of "No nos moverin" were ever circulated. Neither G6mez
nor Fernindez Toca has a copy today. The song caught on via word of
mouth through the recitals of Canci6n del Pueblo and the singing of
songs at student demonstrations throughout Spain, as G6mez relates:
You have to take into account the situation in Spain at that
moment. It's a dictatorship. And in addition it was a time of
strict censorship. So the verses that were recorded [on the single]
say practically nothing: like a pine on the riverbank. And this
has almost no meaning. But the song took on meaning when it


104 \ Chapter 6

was sung collectively, when people sang it. In reality the records
that were put out in Catalan, in Castilian Spanish, and later in
Galician, had almost no impact. What did have an impact was
that the song got sung more and more in protests on univer-
sity campuses in the years '68, '69, and '70 and gets converted
into an absolute anthem. It was basically an anthem for univer-
sity students, who were the only ones who were in a position
to demonstrate, since they were all together in the same place
in the university and they saw each other every day and had
a lot of free time. And logically it was where it was easiest for
spontaneous and ongoing demonstrations to take place. And
it was more complicated in the working-class world. (Antonio
G6mez, telephone interview with author, July 22, 2013)
Adolfo Celdrin, a fellow member of the Canci6n del Pueblo collec-
tive, offers the following reminiscence about the early singing of "No
nos moverin" in Madrid and elsewhere in Castilian-speaking Spain:
We would sing various songs adapted from American folk
music in our performances. For example I translated and
sang "Kum Ba Yah." And in our performances, in which one
would sing some of his or her own songs, we'd frequently
finish up singing, performers and audience together, "No
nos moverin" that Ignacio Fernindez Toca first adapted
into Castilian Spanish and that then was converted into an
anthem of resistance against the dictatorship and in favor
of the democracy that we all aspired to. . . . Before Ignacio's
record came out in May 1968 no recorded version was in cir-
culation, unless there were individual homemade recordings
out there, which I doubt because back then tape recorders
were pretty primitive and quite heavy. We only sang the song
at our performances. And people learned it and sang it in
strikes, demonstrations, sit-ins, etcetera, making up verses
to fit the occasion. (Adolfo Celdrin, pers. comm., June 13-14,
2012)
Fernindez Toca confirms these accounts from his old comrades
in song and provides additional observations:


Across the Atlantic to Spain / 105

It took off on its own right away, completely independent
of me. Because it's a song that appeared at a moment when
sit-ins had become a common activity, which went along
with a pacifist attitude. And then because the people that
were directing mass meetings and things like that under-
stood that the song practically taught itself. It could be sung
in chorus without any rehearsal. And it got sung in situa-
tions like that, and really quite horribly! It was sung really
badly! [chuckles] Totally messing it up! Like it was a mili-
tary march or something, when there was nothing military
about it! But anyway, it was a song that started to get sung
in demonstrations that were basically promoted, as I recall,
by the Spanish Communist Party.... I wasn't a member [of
the party]. I was someone who was involved in the student
movement but I didn't belong to any party. At that time in all
the major actions in the struggle-mass meetings, demon-
strations, whatever it was-a lot of different people took part,
even though it was the parties, among them the Communist
Party, that played a bigger role in organizing them. They
were the ones that took the lead. (Ignacio Fernindez Toca,
telephone interview with author, June 9, 2014)
G6mez offers the additional observation that whereas in the civil
rights movement in the United States the song "We Shall Not Be
Moved" was often sung defiantly in sit-ins as demonstrators nonvio-
lently faced arrest, in Spain students would typically sing it as they
ran from the police who appeared on the scene to suppress a demon-
stration. G6mez's anecdote offers an ironic illustration of the point
made in this book's Introduction-that the identities social move-
ment participants affirm in song are just as often subjectively aspira-
tional as they are objectively real.
Franco's censorship and lack of resources severely limited the
ability of artists like the members of Canci6n del Pueblo to reach a
mass audience via professionally produced commercial recordings,
even compared to their Catalan-singing counterparts during the
same period. Fernando Gonzalez Lucini (2006: 409) explains that
the problems facing these singers in the Madrid of the mid- to late
1960s amounted to more than lack of access to the media. Their


106 \ Chapter 6

counterparts in Barcelona, for example, had the backing of a Cata-
lonian intellectual bourgeoisie for their nova canto, who saw this
musical form as part of the struggle to defend Catalonian language
and national identity. Moreover, Gonzalez Lucini notes, the Madrid
singers found themselves "in the eye of the hurricane" of Franco's
repression, "with nothing more than their songs and their dreams
to blaze a trail for their shared ideals." Performers who violated cen-
sors' rulings about what they could and could not play in public
could be jailed, as Serna and others were on numerous occasions.
The reasons given by censors for banning performances of certain
performers and certain songs could be truly comical. In the case of
Serna, for example, the Brigada de Informaci6n Social (Press Infor-
mation Brigade, the censorship agency) found on one occasion that
a public performance by her might "provocar un grado de excitaci6n
en el pdblico capaz de danar la paz social" ("arouse the public to the
point of damaging social peace"), which, according to the Madrid
newspaper El Pais, was a review that the U.S. singer Madonna later
would have paid half her fortune to receive (Nino 1996). Adolfo Cel-
drin had this to say about how the censorship of records and per-
formances took place under the Franco dictatorship in the late 1960s
and early 1970s:
When you were going to make a record, the record compa-
ny had to submit the song lyrics for approval ahead of time
to the Censura del Ministerio de Informaci6n y Turismo
[the Censorship Office of the Ministry of Information and
Tourism]. The same was true for all the books and anything
else published in that period. They would read them and put
a seal on them saying "permitted" or "prohibited." I have pho-
tocopies of songs filled with "prohibited" seals, among them
my version of the song "No nos moverin."18 In some cases,
they would permit you to record the song but they'd put a seal
on it saying "NO RADIABLES" ["NOT FOR RADIO BROADCAST"].
For example, on my first album Cajitas [Little Boxes] in 1969,
a song based on a text by Bertolt Brecht that I titled "General"
was classified by the censorship office as "not for broadcast."
And that's what we put on the back cover of the record. I don't


Across the Atlantic to Spain / 107

think that the censorship office liked that much since they
preferred that people not be reminded that censorship exist-
ed, even if everyone knew it. (Adolfo Celdrin, pers. comm.,
June 15, 2012)
G6mez reports that although the pressing of the original records
in Catalan, Castilian Spanish, and Galician of "We Shall Not Be
Moved" was permitted by censors, all of them were immediately clas-
sified as no radiables. Once the authorities realized that the song had
quickly become part of the repertoire of anti-Franco demonstrators,
its public performance was also banned. In 1977, after the death of
Franco and during the campaign for the first free elections in Spain
since the fall of the Republic, Celdrin released an album containing
songs that had been censored, titled Denegado (Censored).19 "No nos
moverin" was the opening track on the album. Even though Franco
had died and the dictatorship was in its death throes, Celdrin still
had to deal with the censors, as he relates here:
Paradoxically, even the songs I recorded in 1977 on my
Denegado [Censored] LP had to pass the censors. And to our
surprise the song "General" that in 1969 had passed as "not
for broadcast" this time was "prohibited." And this in the
middle of the campaign for the first democratic elections in
Spain since the [civil] war! Finally it came out because we
presented the permit for the song from 1968 for its record-
ing in the studio in 1969 and they had to shut up, ashamed, I
imagine, and permit it to be recorded. (Adolfo Celdrin, pers.
comm., June 15, 2012)
Nevertheless, the songs of Canci6n del Pueblo and other artists
"con conciencia" ("with a social conscience") could occasionally be
heard on the airwaves in at least some places, such as on the Par-
tido Comunista de Espana's (Spanish Communist Party's) short-
wave Radio Espana Independiente, better known by its nickname
La Pirenaica (the Pyrenean) that broadcast to Spain from Bucharest,
Romania. Ram6n Mendezona, the last director of La Pirenaica before
it ceased broadcasting in 1978, commented that by the late 1960s,


108 \ Chapter 6

"protest song" occupied "an extremely important place" in the mis-
sion of the station, ranging from "el iBasta ya! (Enough already!) by
Atahualpa Yupanqui (of Argentina)20 to the catchy iNo nos moverin!
sung by students in Zaragoza" (Mendezona 1995: 123).
"No nos moveran" in Post-Franco Spain
Since the fall of Franco, the song "No nos moverin" has become a
stable element, if not a major one, of Spanish popular culture. At the
beginning of the 1980s, it was part of the soundtrack of a popular
television series called Verano azul (Blue Summer), whose antepen-
ultimate episode bore the song's name.21 "No nos moverin" has also
become a common cdntico (chant or cheer) among Spanish soccer
fans as well as among fans in Great Britain, where presumably it
derives from the popularity of "We Shall Not Be Moved" with the
labor movement there (Labour Party 1955).22 And the song has been
a staple at rallies and meetings throughout Spain in recent years as
millions of indignados (indignant citizens) have taken to the streets
to demand a solution to the problems they face as a consequence of
the country's dire financial and employment crisis (Nino 2011 and
Tejeda 2011). Indeed, in 2011, a group calling itself "Indignados"
recorded several songs, including "No nos moverin" as part of an
mp3 "album" titled Canciones para un movimiento popular: Madrid
15 M (Songs for a People's Movement: Madrid May 15) that was avail-
able for download on the sites of a number of online vendors of music,
including Amazon.com. Paradoxically, the song did not seem to have
gained much currency in the massive student protest movement in
Chile that blossomed in 2011 (see McSherry and Molina Mejia 2011),
where presumably it would have made sense to sing in the face of
police attempts to dislodge young people from the public school cam-
puses they had occupied, on the one hand, and to disperse their street
demonstrations with tear gas, clubs, and water cannons, on the other.
"No nos moverin" nonetheless lives on in the memory of older activ-
ists and aficionados of the nueva cancion in Chile, as evidenced by
their hearty singing of Tiemponuevo's version of the refrain when
Baez performed the song in Santiago's historic Teatro Caupolican in
March 2014.


Across the Atlantic to Spain / 109

My comprehensive review of the empirical aspects of the history
of the journey of "I Shall Not Be Moved" and how it came to be
sung as "No nos moverin" in support of Chile's socialist government
of the early 1970s ends here. As I have traced its route from the camp
meetings of the U.S. South; through the U.S. labor, civil rights, and
farmworker movements; to student mobilizations against the Franco
dictatorship in Spain, I have shown how the song, in all its versions,
has fulfilled important functions for the social movements in which
it has been sung. As explained in the book's Introduction, these func-
tions have been varied. The song has helped movement participants
forge their identities as people committed to changing the world and
to building solidarity among themselves. It has enabled people to
overcome their fears, whether in an automobile workers' strike in
Michigan or in the face of a fascist mob in Peekskill, New York. It has
helped people to combat discouragement and to spiritually sanctify
and sustain their collective efforts in the face of adversity, from the
cotton fields of Arkansas to the streets of Santiago. In Part II, I con-
sider other conceptual aspects of the song's history, using the empiri-
cal details presented in Part I as data to interpret and analyze. The
chapters in Part II address, in turn, three main questions. First, what
were the social factors that promoted or inhibited the dissemination
of the song through so many social change movements? Second, what
cultural and linguistic complications did the participants in these
movements have to contend with to make the song work for them?
And third, to what extent might we regard a shared set of underlying
values and orientations among members of a transnational left-wing
"tribe" or "diaspora" as having facilitated the adoption of this song
as a transcultural resource for social change?



I/



7/

Social Movement
A Song's Journey across Time and Space
ven the loudest singing by the grandest choir cannot be heard
by anyone more than a few hundred feet away. Songs do not
just "blow in the wind" toward people geographically distant
from those who have sung them. Additionally, after their live per-
formance, songs do not remain in the air surrounding their sing-
ers and audiences, except in some metaphorical sense. Even within
the same geographical community, whose members are in regular
face-to-face communication with one another, songs are learned not
simply "by osmosis" but rather through repeated performance, lis-
tening, repetition, and memorization. For a song to be learned by
others outside the immediate confines of the community in which
it originated, concrete, socially constructed mechanisms must exist
to facilitate its transmission. Today, the transmission of songs is
facilitated on a massive basis by electronic communication systems
of varying types, often promoted by the investment of substantial
commercial resources. Most of the travels of "I Shall Not Be Moved"
from one place-bound and culturally distinct community to another
in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries took place largely without
the benefit of instantaneous electronic communication systems and
without commercial promotion. The song's travels through social
movements also occurred largely without recourse to written musi-


114 \ Chapter 7

cal scores, although its written arrangement did appear in a number
of popular church hymnals in the early decades of the twentieth
century. In this chapter, I examine and analyze the specific types of
social mechanisms that permitted the song's widespread dissemina-
tion from one movement to another across cultural, linguistic, and
national boundaries.
Globalization and the Deterritorialization of Culture
Scholars in a variety of disciplines have argued that one of the key
features of everyday life in the contemporary period is the way that
cultural practices, objects, and symbols have become increasingly
deterritorialized. By deterritorialized, they mean that such expres-
sions of culture have been detached from their places of origin and
made available for appropriation by geographically distant others
owing to historically recent advances in transportation and commu-
nication technologies.1
Thus, if the travels of "I Shall Not Be Moved" were to have taken
place today, they would be quite unremarkable, insofar as any song
in any language can be instantaneously downloaded from the ether
by anyone in any part of the globe, who can then put it to use for
the purposes she or he sees fit. Given the historical periods in which
they took place, the travels of "I Shall Not Be Moved" across time
and space were actually quite remarkable, depending not on anony-
mous consumption facilitated by advanced electronic technologies
and transnational capitalist enterprises2 but rather on sets of purpo-
sive civil society organizations composed of individuals committed
to a shared world view and moral project that transcended national
boundaries and that slave owners, capitalists, and states often did
their utmost to repress. Of course, the material and technological
aspects of the song's transmission in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries cannot be discounted, either, given that, as John Law (1994:
24) reminds us, "left to their own devices human actions and words
do not spread very far at all" (quoted in Urry 2000: 192). Thus, the
transmission of "I Shall Not Be Moved" depended on the publication
of the printed word (the Psalms in the King James Bible); transatlan-
tic ship travel to enable European military forces, missionaries, and
settlers and their African slaves to arrive on America's shores; and


Social Movement / 115

a system of roads and canals in North America to permit the circu-
lation of people, goods, and spoken and printed ideas throughout
the continent. Later, the development of the phonograph as a way of
recording and listening to music, combined with the possibility of
transoceanic air travel, made it possible for a young Xesco Boix to
first hear the music of the folk singer Pete Seeger in Barcelona in the
early 1960s, when Boix's brother-in-law returned from a trip to the
United States with one of Seeger's LPs. Nevertheless, the importance
of the participation of individuals in networked organizations that
promoted face-to-face cooperation should not be underestimated in
the way that "I Shall Not Be Moved" was adopted by different social
movements in far-flung geographical places. In this sense, we would
do well to think less in terms of how "I Shall Not Be Moved" traveled
from one spatially fixed, territorially bound society with its attendant
culture to another3 and more about how societies and cultures might
best be thought of sociologically as networks of material "scapes" and
flows of people, objects, and symbols (Appadurai 1996; Urry 2000). In
the next section, I examine the networks and scapes through which
"I Shall Not Be Moved" flowed on its way to being sung as "No nos
moverin" in Chile, using the concept of infrastructure to make better
sense of the social terrain traversed by this itinerant hymn.
Social and Institutional Infrastructure: The Wind
beneath the Wings of a Song
The Mexican social anthropologist Efren Sandoval refers to the set
of material and social networks outlined above as infrastructures that
permit the movement of persons and the circulation of objects among
institutions and individuals who inhabit a shared social space. In this
sense, he notes, "infrastructures are organized ... by social actors
that interact within the same social space; they are a manifestation of
and a means for carrying out the relations that constitute that social
space" (Sandoval 2008: 45). On the basis of his study of the trans-
border circulation of people and objects between the Mexican city of
Monterrey, Nuevo Le6n, and the U.S. city of San Antonio, Texas, San-
doval identifies three basic types of infrastructures: physical, institu-
tional, and social. For the purposes of analyzing the dissemination of
"I Shall Not Be Moved," the second two types are of greatest interest.


116 \ Chapter 7

By institutional infrastructures, Sandoval (2008: 46-48) means those
infrastructures developed and maintained by formal organizations,
including the state, private businesses, and civic associations, while
in his typology, social infrastructures refer to the structures under-
lying the circulation of people and objects deriving from informal
economic activity and interpersonal relations.
I am not the first scholar to recognize the importance of infra-
structures to the adoption and dissemination of songs by and through
social movements. The sociologist William Roy (2010) has amply
demonstrated the crucial role played by infrastructures in his path-
breaking study of the deployment of song as a tool of struggle in
the U.S. labor and civil rights movements of the twentieth century.
Although he does not develop a detailed typology comparable to that
of Sandoval, he makes it clear that cultural expressions in a society
require more than just creators and consumers of cultural objects;
they also require an "infrastructure" consisting of the "organiza-
tional and material activities and resources through which content is
expressed" (Roy 2010: 81). More specifically, he highlights the impor-
tance of "musical infrastructure," which includes "record companies,
music publishers, instrument makers, radio facilities, buildings and
managers, agents, professional associations, and so forth" (2010: 82).
In this regard, we could say that Roy is talking about an institutional
type of infrastructure, using Sandoval's framework, which exists for
the field of music. Relevant to analyzing the trajectory of "I Shall Not
Be Moved" on its way to becoming "No nos moverin," Roy contributes
the additional element of the necessity of infrastructure to the mobi-
lization of both material and cultural resources by social movements.
Counter-systemic movements, he argues, cannot rely on the physical
and institutional infrastructures of the wider society to achieve their
ends, pointing out that if a movement "does not mobilize cultural
activities within its own organizations, it cannot control the culture
and is dependent on others and vulnerable to cooptation of content
and degeneration of form." It was important, then, for the movements
that sang "We Shall Not Be Moved" to rely on their own infrastruc-
tures for disseminating their cultural products and thus prevent the
cooptation and corruption of "insurgent content" that was likely to
occur if they depended on the commercial mass media (Roy 2010: 82).


Social Movement / 117

Retracing the Route of "I Shall Not Be Moved" to
"No nos moveran" with an Eye toward Infrastructure
The conceptualization of society as consisting of a network of flows
of people, objects, and symbols across time and space combined
with the concept of infrastructure developed in parallel fashion by
Roy and Sandoval allows us to see the improbable journey of "I Shall
Not Be Moved" as a far more comprehensible and organized itin-
erary than first meets the eye. Institutional infrastructures of the
associative type (i.e., those involving civic associations) played an
indispensable role in the song's history from the outset, as Protes-
tant denominations brought English-language versions of the biblical
psalms with them from the British Isles in the eighteenth century and
taught them to both free whites and African slaves across the North
American continent. The camp meetings of the Second Great Awak-
ening in the rural U.S. South, spontaneous and free-wheeling as they
may have appeared, were also institutionally organized affairs, spon-
sored by evangelical churches with the purpose of gaining adherents
and founding new congregations on the frontier. Transmission of
early versions of "I Shall Not Be Moved" as a spiritual among slaves
may have occurred informally, through a social infrastructure of
personal relations, though there is no firm historical record of this
taking place. On the other hand, the institutional role of churches
was clear following the emancipation of slaves, as the song became a
standard part of the repertoire of both African and white Protestant
congregations throughout the southeastern United States, eventually
making its way into such hymnals as Spirituals Triumphant: Old and
New, published by the National Baptist Convention, a leading African
American Protestant denomination (see Chapter 2).
The initial adoption of "I Shall Not Be Moved" and its reworking
as "We Shall Not Be Moved" by the U.S. labor movement undoubt-
edly owed to the overlapping organizational memberships of miners
in Protestant churches and trade unions in the West Virginia coal
fields in the early 1930s. Its spread outward across the breadth of the
union movement in the United States was facilitated by not only the
formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) during
the Great Depression but also the founding of labor education orga-


118 \ Chapter 7

nizations, such as Commonwealth College in Arkansas (headed by a
Protestant preacher), Brookwood Labor College in upstate New York,
and the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. During this period,
unions published songbooks that invariably included versions of
"We Shall Not Be Moved," and scores of unionists received train-
ing-including in the use of singing as an organizing technique-in
these institutions. In this regard, the figure of Zilphia Horton, the
musical director of the Highlander School, looms especially large, as
she untiringly promoted singing in the union movement, conducting
myriad workshops, producing hundreds of mimeographed sheets of
song lyrics, and publishing a number of widely used songbooks. The
Communist Party USA also played a significant role in diffusing the
song among its adherents, many of whom participated in the trade
union movement in the 1930s and 1940s. The role played by social
infrastructure in the form of interpersonal networks was also impor-
tant during this period, as exemplified by the figure of Lee Hays,
the musical activist who collaborated with the Reverend Claude Wil-
liams at Commonwealth College in support of the Southern Tenant
Farmers' Union (STFU) and then brought "We Shall Not Be Moved"
with him to New York City as part of his repertoire of "militant"
songs, where he shared them with other musicians and members of
the bohemian left who visited the communal house occupied by the
Almanac Singers. The recording of the song by the Almanacs on an
album of labor songs for the obscure Keynote label never achieved
wide commercial circulation, whether in the form of radio play or
record sales, but it did serve as a way of getting the song heard among
urban activists and intellectuals on the left. Moreover, Pete Seeger's
learning of the song from Hays near the start of his lengthy indepen-
dent professional career as a politically committed folk singer led to
the song's being heard by a much wider variety of audiences outside
the labor movement and left-wing political organizations.
The concept of infrastructure may also shed some interpretive
light on the failure of "We Shall Not Be Moved" to "take" in the
Spanish language in the 1930s and 1940s, whether among the pecan
shellers in San Antonio or the antifascist movement in Spain. With
regard to the pecan shellers' strike in San Antonio in 1938, it is in
some ways unsurprising that "No nos moverin," however ecstatically
it was sung by strikers in the city jail as spontaneously led by CIO


Social Movement / 119

organizers George Lambert and Santos Vasquez, failed to catch on
among Mexican workers in the city. First, the pecan shellers' strike
was a locally initiated, more or less spontaneous walkout, to which
the existing unions of the CIO lent a hand only once it was underway.
The movement of the pecan shellers was neither planned by a CIO
union nor was it backed by the full institutional weight of the union
federation, including its nascent cultural infrastructure, which in any
event did not include much capacity to organize Spanish-speaking
workers in the U.S. Southwest. Second, the strike was settled quickly,
and within a couple of years mechanization displaced the Mexican
workers who had dedicated themselves to shelling pecans in San
Antonio. Thus, there was little time or incentive for CIO unions to
develop a set of culturally appropriate materials in Spanish to orga-
nize the city's Mexican workforce. Moreover, at that time, labor edu-
cation organizations, such as Brookwood and Highlander, lacked the
institutional capacity to develop materials for and train monolingual
Spanish-speakers, even though the historical record shows that at
least a handful of Mexican unionists from San Antonio attended
sessions at Highlander not long after the conclusion of the pecan
shellers' strike. Had the labor movement built an institutional infra-
structure for recruiting and organizing Spanish-speaking workers in
the United States, whether prior to the pecan shellers' strike or as a
response to it, it is likely that the permanent transformation of "We
Shall Not Be Moved" into "No nos moverin" would have occurred
many years sooner than it actually did.
The case of the trail of "We Shall Not Be Moved" going cold on its
way to Spain in the 1930s is an intriguing one that also makes more
sense in light of the importance of infrastructure to the transmission
of varying forms of cultural expression through social movements.
In principle, it would seem that "We Shall Not Be Moved" must have
first been brought to Spain by volunteers in the Abraham Lincoln
Brigade. After all, many, if not most, of the members of the Brigade
were unionists and members or sympathizers of left-wing politi-
cal groups, including the Communist Party, who would have been
familiar with what had rapidly become a standard labor movement
"hymn" in the 1930s. At the same time, it is important to remember
that the activists who traveled to Spain as volunteers with the Brigade
did so under the guise of soldiers prepared to do battle in solidar-


120 \ Chapter 7

ity with the Republican cause, not to gain converts or maintain the
resolve of adherents to their own cause. Thus, there did not appear
to be an institutional infrastructure set up in advance to enable the
brigadistas to bring their own liberatory messages to Spaniards. If
anything, it appears that survivors of the Brigade did more to carry
Republican songs back to the United States with them following the
victory of the fascists than to have contributed cultural expressions
of U.S. origin to the Spanish struggle, while left-wing movements'
infrastructure did more to preserve those songs than any songs the
brigadistas might have taken with them to Spain. The other thing to
bear in mind is that, even if brigadistas collaborated with Republican
comrades to develop a Spanish-language version of "We Shall Not Be
Moved," the organized Republican infrastructure for cultural expres-
sion was obliterated by Franco's fascist regime. Thus, any survivors
within Spain who recalled any version of the song they learned from
the international brigadistas would have been isolated individuals
fearing for their lives in the face of the mass repression-including
thousands of executions-that followed the end of the war.
As discussed extensively by Roy (2010), associative institutional
movement infrastructure also played an indispensable role in the
reworking of slave spirituals for use as "freedom songs" in the nascent
African American civil rights movement in the late 1950s and early
1960s. Although these spirituals were known by most of the black
activists in the movement, institutional infrastructure served as a
catalyst for activating this repertoire as a vital symbolic resource
for the movement and for its subsequent transmission as a power-
ful cultural practice. Without the song workshops organized for Stu-
dent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) activists by the
Highlander Center, it is unlikely that such songs as "We Shall Not Be
Moved" would have come to play so prominent a role in so many civil
rights movement actions. Moreover, without the commitment on the
part of SNCC activists in the South to promote and use "freedom
songs" as an organizing tool, they would not have come to serve as an
instantly recognizable "soundtrack" for the movement. In this regard,
the founding of a "professional" singing group whose repertoire con-
sisted largely of reworked spirituals-the Freedom Singers-was
crucial to broadening support for the movement by bringing its mes-
sages of liberation and redemption to progressive mixed-race audi-


Social Movement / 121

ences outside the U.S. South, including sympathetic white musicians
like Peter, Paul, and Mary; Bob Dylan; and Joan Baez. Recordings of
the freedom songs, however limited their commercial distribution
was, also proved to be important to their dissemination, as evidenced
by Agustin Lira's testimony in Chapter 5 that he first heard these
songs on a phonograph in the United Farm Workers (UFW) organiz-
ing headquarters in Delano, California. The power of institutional
infrastructure in the achievement by "No nos moverin" of anthemic
status among Mexican Americans is illustrated by the way in which
the UFW leadership supported the cultural-outreach initiatives of
Teatro Campesino, including its repertoire of union songs translated
into Spanish from their original versions in English. The growing
role played by commercial television in broadcasting news of the
African American civil rights movement nationally and interna-
tionally also served to cement freedom songs in the wider public's
mind as a symbol of the struggle for racial justice in the face of white
repression.
Xexco Boix's importing of "We Shall Not Be Moved" to Catalonia
in the 1960s reflects an interesting mix of infrastructural types. First,
we see the way in which his attitudes toward music and culture were
shaped by his participation in the diocesan scouting program, with
its practices of incorporating international songs into its official rep-
ertoire for activities and excursions. Second, his network of personal
relations played a crucial part, as represented by the gift of a Seeger
album from his brother-in-law. Third, his participation in a yearlong
program of study in a U.S. high school under the auspices of American
Field Service, a civil society association dedicated to promoting cultur-
al exchanges and cross-cultural understanding, enabled him to access
English-language folk music with socially conscious lyrics, including
by traveling within the United States to attend at least one major folk
music festival and by meeting and learning directly from some of the
genre's principal exponents, including Seeger. All of this, of course,
was also made possible by twentieth-century advances in communi-
cation and transportation technologies, including the recording of
music, the development of commercial air travel, and even the system
of railroads and interstate highways in the United States.
The adoption and dissemination of "We Shall Not Be Moved"
in Spain, first in Barcelona and then in Madrid and other regions,


122 \ Chapter 7

was facilitated by informally organized networks that correspond
most closely to the social category in Sandoval's typology of infra-
structures that construct social spaces. Thus, Boix's debuting of "No
serem moguts" in the midst of an anti-Franco demonstration in Bar-
celona seems to have been a more or less spontaneous and personal
decision of his own that then radiated outward among members of
his network of personal relations with dissident students and musi-
cians. Grup de Folk, for example, was not itself a formal organiza-
tion, nor was it sponsored by another social movement organization
that offered an infrastructure for circulating its cultural creations.
Similarly, the transfer of "No serem moguts" to Madrid as "No nos
moverin" took place as the result of personal network connections
among students participating in an antifascist counterculture, when
a young Ignacio Fernindez Toca visited Boix and his companions
in Barcelona in early 1967 and brought the translation of the song
back to his colleagues in Canci6n del Pueblo in Madrid. At the same
time, the institutional connections of young people with universi-
ties in both cities mattered in terms of having venues to perform
the song to students opposed to the dictatorship. Some were also
affiliated with or sympathetic to the Partido Comunista de Espana
(Spanish Communist Party), whose shortwave radio service, La
Pirenaica, also broadcast "No nos moverin" to Spain on occasion
from its studio in Bucharest, Romania. In addition, the existence
of the Hogar del Libro and its associated record label, Als 4 Vents,
provided something of an institutional vehicle, however small, for
the dissemination of "No serem moguts" on one of Grup de Folk's
albums. Similarly, anti-Franco students in Madrid organized their
own small record label, EDUMSA, as a vehicle for distributing the
music of Canci6n del Pueblo artists among members of the activist
community there. Although, as noted in Chapter 6, this tiny record
label never supplanted the live performance or group singing of "No
nos moverin" as the principal means of the song's dissemination,
its recording proved to be a necessary ingredient in the song's even-
tual arrival in Chile on the eve of the coming to power of Salvador
Allende and the Unidad Popular (UP).
It was through a copy of the primitive Canci6n del Pueblo record-
ing, supplied to them by the son of Spanish Republican exiles residing
in Chile, that the members of the group Tiemponuevo first heard the


Social Movement / 123

song "No nos moverin." Roberto Rivera Noriega, the group's found-
er, recalls their receipt of the song as follows:
Sergio Sanchez [a member of the band] arrived with a record-
ing .... that was typical of the kind of recordings obtained
through contacts with acquaintances of friends that trav-
eled in left-wing circles. That's how we first got, for example,
recordings by the Venezuelan singer-songwriter Alf Primera,
from which we took the song "Dispersos" that we recorded for
our first album on the DICAP label and another song "Oigan
muchachos" (by an unknown Colombian guerilla fighter)
that we recorded on our first album in Chile for the Pena de
los Parra label. In the case of "No nos moverin," that record-
ing came to us through a young Chilean of Spanish descent
whose parents wound up in Valparaiso as refugees from the
Spanish Civil War. There were a large number of Spanish
Republicans that settled in Valparaiso and were affiliated
with the "Centro Espanol" as well as another pro-Franco
group that revolved around the "Club Espanol." They peri-
odically got into fights with one another on occasions such
as basketball games, since both groups had their own teams
in the league. In this sense you are correct that this kind of
information traveled through these channels of social con-
tact. (Roberto Rivera Noriega, pers. comm., January 4, 2014)4
Once "No nos moverin" arrived in Chile and was adapted by
the members of Tiemponuevo to that country's social and political
realities, a variety of institutional infrastructures contributed to its
widespread dissemination. These included some that were entrepre-
neurial (i.e., involving for-profit businesses), such as the folk clubs
known as penas in Valparaiso and Santiago; others that were asso-
ciative and movement-sponsored, such as the DICAP record label of
the Juventudes Comunistas (Communist Youth); as well as activities
and fora sponsored by the UP government, such as the Tren Popular
de la Cultura (People's Culture Train). And, of course, the premiere
example of institutional infrastructures that served to disseminate
"No nos moverin" was Radio Magallanes, the station of the Chil-
ean Communist Party, which broadcast the song repeatedly in the


124 \ Chapter 7

months leading up to the military coup on September 11, 1973, that
aborted the country's experiment with an electoral path to socialism.
Examining the objective infrastructure that permitted the wide-
spread dissemination of "We Shall Not Be Moved" through social
movements on three continents has helped make sense of what at
first blush might have appeared to have been the song's random and
serendipitous route. As demonstrated by looking at the song's history
with an eye toward infrastructure, the connections between individ-
uals and movements involved in its transmission were actually quite
ordered in social-structural terms, even as the spontaneous actions
of individuals and chance encounters between them served as cata-
lysts for the song's movement farther down the road it was traveling.
In the next chapter, I address subjective questions concerning how
musicians and social movement participants overcame cultural and
linguistic differences to make the song work for them in their unique
cultural, historical, and political moments.


8/
Translation and Transcendence
in the Travels of a Song
he history of this peripatetic song transcends many borders,
making stops in several countries and getting sung in several
different languages. In doing so, it provides an apt illustration of
Simon Frith's (1996b: 276) recognition that music may well be the cul-
tural form best able to cross the boundaries that groups erect around
themselves, given the ways that "sounds carry across fences and walls
and oceans, across classes, races, and nations." It also illustrates how
musical meanings can be appropriated in serial fashion across differ-
ent cultural groups, as members of one group take "bits and pieces
that appeal" from another group's musical practices and "incorporate
them into the larger body of their own practices," giving them new
meanings in their own cultural context (Small 2011: xv-xvi). The fact
that sounds can carry across a variety of natural and human-erected
barriers does not mean, however, that the sounds that make perfect
subjective sense to people on one side of such a barrier will imme-
diately make sense to people on the other side of that barrier, unless
members of the latter group put in a significant amount of effort. To
adapt those sounds to their own purposes implies yet another round
of effort. To interpret how this sense-making process has worked for
"I Shall Not Be Moved" on its way to becoming "No nos moverin," I
turn to the anthropological concept of transculturation, a term intro-


126 \ Chapter 8

duced into the scholarly literature in the mid-twentieth century by
the Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz (1947).
The Transcultural Dimension
Like many scholarly concepts, the idea of the transcultural has been
elaborated and employed in differing ways by different authors. In
some cases, it has been applied in a quite literal way. For example, in
an essay on ethnographic film, David MacDougall (2009: 47) asserts
that transcultural refers to that which "transcends the limits of cul-
tures" and that which "crosses cultural boundaries." For this author,
ethnographic film is transcultural not only because it crosses cultural
boundaries (in the sense that those who watch it are from a different
culture than those who appear in it) but also because it challenges cul-
tural limitations, reminding viewers that "cultural difference. . . is a
fragile concept, frequently undone by perceptions that are the product
of sudden affinities between ourselves and those who are apparently
so different from ourselves" (MacDougall 2009: 48). In this way, the
transcultural "includes cultural change, movement, and exchange,"
as members of one culture are placed face to face with members of
another culture (MacDougall 2009: 67). Krys Verrall's (2011: 56-57)
approach to the transcultural is similar, with the added element that
he refers explicitly to the potential of music to build communication-
al bridges between different cultural groups, using as examples the
transcultural interaction that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) Freedom Singers had with white, northern audi-
ences in the United States and the cross-pollination that occurred
between the songs of the labor movement, on the one hand, and those
of the civil rights movement, on the other. The historians Matthew
Graves and Elizabeth Rechniewski (2010: 3-4), for their part, high-
light how the transcultural perspective refuses to grant analytical pri-
macy to national boundaries, since cultures "take place" at all societal
levels, including the national, infra-national, and supra-national. Most
importantly, according to these authors, the term transcultural "draws
our attention to the intersection and confrontation of cultures," which
permits new lines of historical inquiry (2010: 6). In the same vein, the
Grupo Interdisciplinario de Investigaci6n sobre las Americas (Inter-
disciplinary Group for Research on the Americas [n.d.]) emphasizes


Translation and Transcendence in the Travels of a Song / 127

that processes of transculturation always involve the imposition of
borders, the transgression of borders, and/or cross-border interac-
tions, while recognizing that borders need not be national but can also
exist between different cultural groups, regardless of whether these
groups reside within the same nation.1
Without a doubt, the most widely discussed perspective in the
social scientific and humanities literatures with regard to the trans-
cultural is the one associated with the process of transculturation, the
neologism that Ortiz introduced into the scholarly literature in the
mid-twentieth century to aid in the interpretation of Cuban history
and society, characterized by the mixing of European, African, and
Caribbean indigenous elements.2 Ortiz proposed the concept as an
alternative to the concept of acculturation, whose use in the anthro-
pological literature was on the rise at that time and which suffered
from the bias of overemphasizing the unidirectional movement of the
members of one cultural group toward another, with the concomi-
tant abandonment of the cultural practices of their place of origin
and their subsequent "de-culturalized" integration into the receiving
culture. Ortiz observed that in Cuba and the rest of the Americas,
there was abundant evidence that the contact between Europeans,
Africans, and indigenous people did not result in one group coming
to resemble another in cultural terms but rather consisted of the
groups' mutually influencing and transforming one another, even
as one group oppressed and exploited another. He asserted that "the
result of every union of cultures is similar to that of the reproductive
process between individuals: the offspring always has something of
both parents but is always different from each of them" (Ortiz 1947:
103). For Ortiz and his followers, transculturation is a dynamic pro-
cess that never ends once and for all but rather is "the process of
individuals and of societies changing themselves by integration of
diverse lifeways into a new dynamic whole," in which "subsequent
interactions and transcultural lives will again change this new-and
transitory-culture" (Hoerder 2006: 91). Of special interest for our
consideration of the history of "No nos moverin," Diana Taylor (1991:
91) reminds us that transculturation processes always have a politi-
cal dimension that involves questions of power and resistance. For
Taylor, such processes can promote "the consciousness of a society's
own historically specific, cultural manifestations in contact with


128 \ Chapter 8

but differentiated from other societies." Furthermore, the study of
transculturation processes requires us to not only interpret mean-
ings, as in what the same symbols might mean in different contexts,
but also investigate how groups make use of symbols in their collec-
tive struggles for empowerment, investigating when and why certain
"forms, symbols, or aspects of cultural identity" become salient to
the advance or defense of a group's own agenda in its confrontations
with other groups.
Taylor's observations lead us to consider another aspect of the
transcultural: that the knowledge obtained by subaltern individuals
and communities in their interactions with other cultures can serve
as an important resource-capital in the sense that the sociologist
Pierre Bourdieu gives to the term-in their struggles to defend and
advance their interests in the sociopolitical realm. Here, we can ref-
erence the work of Anna Triandafyllidou (2009: 94), who speaks of
transcultural capital, which consists of "the strategic use of knowl-
edge, skills, and networks acquired by migrants through connections
with their country and cultures of origin which are made active at
their new places of residence." Although she discusses the case of
African immigrants in Europe and not the case of left-wing activists
in diverse countries, it strikes me as reasonable to argue that the case
that she discusses is analogous to that of people who acquire knowl-
edge through their contact with other cultures and make use of it in
their places of origin. Moreover, the concept of transcultural capital
nicely complements the observations that Graves and Rechniewski
(2010: 6) make concerning the relationship between the process of
transculturation and the struggles among groups to valorize the
symbolic capital of varying aspects of their history, as well as those of
Dirk Hoerder (2006: 91), who speaks of the importance of "strategic
transcultural competence" that permits "conceptualizations of life
projects in multiple contexts and informed choice between cultural
options." And, finally, these observations lead us to Donald Cuccio-
letta (2002: 8), whose review of the concept of transculturation sug-
gests to him that the phenomenon, being the fruit of the encounter
and the mixing of different peoples and cultures, opens the possibil-
ity for people to recognize that their identities are multidimensional
and can be defined and understood positively with regard to those
of others.


Translation and Transcendence in the Travels of a Song / 129

The Contributions and Limitations of
the Transcultural Perspective
Although it is evident that the evolution of the song "I Shall Not Be
Moved/We Shall Not Be Moved/No serem moguts/No nos moverin"
exhibits strong features of the process of transculturation described
by Ortiz at certain liminal moments in its history, not all stages of its
development have exhibited transcultural traits to the same extent
and in the same way. In this section, I review the following moments
of its evolution, reflecting on the extent to which a transcultural
approach helps us understand how and why the song has played an
important role in so many different places and movements: (1) its ori-
gins as a spiritual sung by African slaves following their conversion
to Protestant Christianity, (2) its subsequent spread throughout the
southeastern United States in the nineteenth century by Protestant
churches, (3) its adoption by the U.S. labor movement, (4) its rein-
terpretation and appropriation by the African American civil rights
movement, (5) its importation into Franco-ruled Spain and its use in
Catalonia and Castile as a protest song, and (6) its embrace by left-
wing Chilean singers during the years of the Allende government. In
reviewing these moments in its history, I seek to add nuance to our
understanding of not only how singing is put to work in social justice
movements but also how we should conceptualize transcultural pro-
cesses involved in the relationship between music and social justice
movements around the world.
The origins of "I Shall Not Be Moved" in the camp meetings of
the Second Great Awakening are perhaps where we can best appreci-
ate this song as the fruit of the kind of transculturation process that
Ortiz describes in the case of Cuba. Here, we see very directly how the
collision between West African and European Anglo Protestant cul-
tures produced an unexpected and beautiful fruit: the spiritual song
of Christianized African slaves. According to Arthur Jones (1993:
7), spirituals emerged as "a creative blend of African traditions and
Christianity, creating a new, transformed religion different in form
and substance from the religion of the slave holder." This new genre
of song retained African structural and expressive forms while at the
same time incorporating a liberatory interpretation of the Christian
gospel that white Protestants taught to their African slaves, each serv-


130 \ Chapter 8

ing as a symbolic and communicative resource in slaves' resistance to
their oppression and persecution. As several authors have observed,
the African musical legacy that slaves preserved in the New World
consisted of such elements as the integration of singing into everyday
life as a group activity (Epstein and Sands 2006: 36), repetitive cho-
ruses led by a "song leader," a call-and-response structure (antiphony)
in which the constant repetition for the response encourages all to
participate (Burnim 2006: 54-55), and a strong and often syncopated
rhythm (Walker 1979: 52-59). For their part, as noted in Chapter 2,
Roger Abrahams and George Foss (1968: 57-58) suggest that these
African influences are also reflected in a large number of tradition-
al songs sung by whites. The simplicity of the camp-meeting songs
owed to not only African influences contributed by slaves but also
the physical conditions of these encounters, which often took place
at night, lit by torches, and the fact that most of the participants were
illiterate. In other words, in these circumstances, lyrical and melodic
simplicity, the repetition of choruses, and catchy rhythms facilitated
the rapid learning, memorization, and dissemination of the songs
that provided the soundtrack for these passionately religious gather-
ings. "I Shall Not Be Moved" seems to have been taken up as much by
white as by black Protestant congregations in their respective musical
repertoires in the southern United States, with an evident stylistic
and affective bifurcation between the two. At the same time, it should
be noted that this bifurcation did not mean that African influences
disappeared in the versions of the song sung by southern whites,
given that their singing was often accompanied by the five-string
banjo, another African contribution to American music.
The African characteristics of the jubilee spirituals described
above and their emergence from the crucible of the camp meetings
have played an indispensable role in the adoption of "I Shall Not Be
Moved" in all the social, political, and linguistic contexts under con-
sideration in this book. In this sense, the transculturation that took
place between Africans and European Protestants that gave birth
to the song in the southern United States at the beginning of the
nineteenth century has been sustained in all the subsequent stages of
its evolution, including in Chile. Lee Hays, the activist in the move-
ment to unionize sharecroppers in the cotton fields of Arkansas in
the 1930s and who later brought "We Shall Not Be Moved" with him


Translation and Transcendence in the Travels of a Song / 131

to New York, where he taught it to his bandmates in the Almanac
Singers, was one of the first people to see the potential of these kinds
of songs as a weapon to be used in labor struggles. In addition to
their didactic and confrontational elements, these struggles con-
tained a deep spiritual dimension that could be nourished by group
singing. Furthermore, Hays was the person who nicknamed them
zipper songs, owing to the way that new lyrics could be quickly and
spontaneously inserted in such a way that the songs could be easily
adapted to the diverse and changing circumstances that social move-
ment activists confronted.
The adoption of "I Shall Not Be Moved" by the trade union move-
ment in the United States was quite organic, given that it was a song
already known by many black and white workers in the South and that
the only changes needed were to substitute "We" for "I" and to insert
new phrases related to labor struggles for it to serve perfectly well as a
union "hymn" that could be adapted to any struggle with any business
owner or corporation. Here, it could be said that transculturation did
not play a particularly substantial role in the transfer and transforma-
tion of the song as it moved from the religious to the union realm.
Curiously, at the moment when African American civil rights
activists reclaimed the song "I Shall Not Be Moved," which had origi-
nated in the history of their own people during slavery, we observe a
greater level of transcultural negotiation than in the case of the labor
movement's appropriation of the song for its struggles. To understand
why this was the case, it is important to take into account the fact
that in African American spirituals, the word "I" typically referred
not so much to the individual but rather to U.S. Africans as a people,
in such a way that the resistance of this "I" to racial oppression rep-
resented not the stance of a single individual who longed for her own
liberation but rather the U.S. African people in their totality. Never-
theless, when U.S. African civil rights activists reworked "I Shall Not
Be Moved" with white activists who were veterans of the labor move-
ment, they had to be persuaded by these whites that it was necessary
to change the "I" to "We" to emphasize that theirs was a collective
rather than an individualist struggle, consistent with Bernice John-
son Reagon's explanation discussed in Chapter 4.
One might think that transculturation played a more signifi-
cant role in the translation of "We Shall Not Be Moved" to "No nos


132 \ Chapter 8

moverin" than in the case of its move out of Protestant churches into
the labor movement and from the largely white labor movement to the
black civil rights movement, given that translating a song adequately
from one language to another and from one singing style to another
is no easy task. Nevertheless, there is little evidence that such was the
case, at least the first two times the song was adapted into Spanish
in the United States. In the first place, as has been discussed above,
the song's structure, melody, and lyrics are all decidedly simple and
flexible. Second, the message communicated by the song-that of
strength and endurance in the face of oppression-is also straightfor-
ward and readily transferable to innumerable situations of struggle
for social justice. And third, the people who translated the song in the
United States, both in the San Antonio, Texas, city jail in the 1930s
and in the San Joaquin Valley in California in the 1960s, were union
activists who made the decision to translate what had already been
for them a U.S. union hymn and sing it in other union struggles in
the same country. It might have implied a greater transcultural effort,
for example, had Agustin Lira and Luis Valdez of Teatro Campesino
sought to transform a religious song that had derived from the same
psalm as "I Shall Not Be Moved," given that if they were already recit-
ed or sung in Spanish, the lyrics would likely have been rendered as
"Yo no vacilare' ("I will not vacillate"), "No resbalare" ("I will not
slip"), or "No sere conmovido" ("I will not be moved [in my convic-
tions, rather than in the physical sense]"), as the phrase variously
appears in Christian bibles published in Spanish (see Sociedad Biblica
Americana 1926; Sociedades Biblicas en America Latina 1960; and
Vicaria de Pastoral n.d.) Moreover, the Anglo Protestant religious
tradition was quite dissimilar to the Hispanic Catholicism that most
Mexican American families practiced. In reality, Lira and Valdez did
not face a very big challenge, given that they never thought that they
were translating a biblical song but rather a song of labor and civil
rights struggle. In addition, much of the music that the two were
accustomed to hearing and playing in California, both Mexican and
Anglo American, made use of the simple 4/4 rhythm that "We Shall
Not Be Moved" uses, making the task of adapting it into Spanish even
easier. In this sense, transforming "No serem moguts" into "No nos
moverin" in Spain was similar: it consisted of a literal translation
from one language to another within the same country and between


Translation and Transcendence in the Travels of a Song / 133

two wings of the same movement, in this case not a labor movement
but rather the movement against the Franco dictatorship, a move-
ment whose participants were mainly youthful students, who also
shared a generational cultural element in common.
The case of the appropriation of "We Shall Not Be Moved" by
the young Catalan singer Xesco Boix to sing in his own language
in the movement against Franco in Catalonia might be regarded an
intermediate case between the two poles of the transcultural that we
have contemplated thus far. On the one hand, "No serem moguts"
is definitively the fruit of the contact that Boix had with a culture
very different from his own during his stay in the United States, not
only linguistically but also politically and musically, as most notably
indicated by his distinctive use of the five-string banjo, an instru-
ment that had never before been heard in Catalan music and that
was emblematic of his idol Pete Seeger, who to him represented music
with social conscience and corresponding attitudes that were sorely
lacking in his country. It is worth mentioning here that the young
members of the Madrid collective Canci6n del Pueblo shared with
Boix similar attitudes concerning the U.S. folk protest movement of
the early years of the 1960s and that some of them made their own
adaptations into Spanish of songs by such singers as Seeger, Joan
Baez, and Bob Dylan. Adolfo Celdrin, for example, recorded his own
versions of two songs popularized by Seeger, "Kumbayah" and "Little
Boxes."
On the other hand, we observe that the adoption of "No nos
moverin" by Boix and subsequently by the members of Canci6n del
Pueblo and the Chilean group Tiemponuevo perhaps is less an exam-
ple of transculturation than of the transmission of ideas and ways of
expressing them musically among individuals and groups that even
before sharing the same cultural object already shared certain values
and leftist political projects to advance social justice. In this sense, we
can see that the appropriation of "We Shall Not Be Moved" to express
opposition to the Franco regime or to defend the Unidad Popular (UP)
did not require much more transcultural processing than did the task
of literal translation that Lira and Valdez undertook in California. At
the same time, we might ask whether the transcultural process was
any stronger in the case of Boix than it was in the case of the negotia-
tion between African Americans and white participants in the U.S.


134 \ Chapter 8

civil rights movement concerning the difference between "I" shall not
be moved and "we" shall not be moved. Indeed, one might just as well
say that the transfer of "We Shall Not Be Moved" to contexts in which
it is sung in Spanish serves less as an example of transculturation pro-
cesses and more as an example of how the characteristics of West Afri-
can and camp-meeting singing that the song still retains-simplicity,
rhythm, repetition, and antiphony-have facilitated its application to
new situations in diverse cultural contexts. In other words, we might
well conclude that the most important transcultural process in the
history of the song took place long before its translation from English
to Catalan and Spanish.
n this chapter, I have investigated how a traditional spiritual song
from the southern United States has been repeatedly transformed as
it moved through movements across multiple social, cultural, linguis-
tic, and political contexts over the course of nearly two centuries. The
interrelated concepts of transculturation and transculturalism help
us better interpret the processes through which the serial transfor-
mations of "We Shall Not Be Moved" have taken place. At the same
time, it has become clear that as much as the song has been repeat-
edly transformed, it has retained its essential structure, including its
message of unswerving commitment to a strongly held ideal of egali-
tarian justice in the face of adversity and opposition. Moreover, it is
evident that the people who have sung the song in so many different
cultural contexts have shared certain moral and political commit-
ments in spite of their different races, languages, and nationalities. In
the book's Conclusion, I consider how the shared moral and political
commitments of activists living and engaging in a variety of social
justice struggles in different national contexts might be best under-
stood as elements of an underlying culture of the left that transcends
other, more superficial cultural differences among them.


Conclusion

An Internationalist Culture
of the Singing Left in
the Twentieth Century
Our faith cries out, "We have no fear!"
We dare to reach our hand
to other neighbors far and near,
to friends in every land.
Isn't this a time?
Isn't this a time?
A time to free the soul of man!
Isn't this a wonderful time?
-From the song "Wasn't That a Time?"
by LEE HAYS AND WALTER LOWENFELS'
he song "We Shall Not Be Moved" has achieved a level of tran-
scendence that few other "political" songs have, in the sense that
it has transcended numerous racial, cultural, linguistic, and
political boundaries during the course of the past two centuries and
continues to move back and forth across such boundaries today. In
this Conclusion, I argue that the song's appearance in so many move-
ments and in so many distinct national contexts owes to not only
the material infrastructure and transcultural processes discussed in
Chapters 7 and 8 but also the internationalist outlook and values of
musicians and social justice activists around the world. In some cases,
these musicians and activists were members of organized left-wing
parties, while in others they were motivated by more diffuse moral
and philosophical commitments, much the same as is discussed in
Chapter 6 with regard to the U.S. members of the Abraham Lincoln
Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. More specifically, I suggest that the
cosmopolitan orientations of many of the participants in the dissemi-


136 \ Conclusion

nation of "We Shall Not Be Moved" contributed to their appreciation
of such songs as a potentially valuable resource to incorporate into
their own struggles. In addition, their adoption of cultural objects
from outside their own set of local or national practices reinforced
their sense that their particular struggles were part of a larger world-
wide struggle for social justice.
Globalization from Below: Another World Is Possible
By the last decade of the twentieth century, the social sciences had
begun extensive research and analysis about the impacts that global-
ization was having on contemporary societies. Richard Appelbaum
and William Chambliss (1997: 5), drawing on the work of Roland
Robertson (1992), define globalization as "the processes by which the
lives of all people around the planet become increasingly intercon-
nected in economic, political, cultural, and environmental terms,
along with an awareness of such interconnections." In the burgeon-
ing scholarly literature on globalization, most attention has been
paid to processes of world economic integration "from above," as
a project undertaken by political, corporate, and intellectual elites.
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, there has
been growing recognition of processes of globalization from below
as well, undertaken by nonelite actors. In some cases, these processes
involve the household survival strategies of international migrants
who collectively begin to form transnational communities of inter-
action and cooperation across borders (see Basch, Glick Schiller, and
Szanton Blanc 1994; Smith and Guarnizo 1998; and Portes 1996). In
other cases, globalization from below involves the economic activities
of small-scale entrepreneurs who construct informal and/or illicit
channels for the distribution of varying types of consumer goods in
multiple national territories (Mathews, Lins Ribeiro, and Alba Vega
2012). In still other cases, globalization from below involves the rise
of antisystemic social movements of varying types (environmental,
feminist, peasant-agriculturalist, proletarian) that coordinate strat-
egies and actions across international boundaries.2 Today, this last
type of globalization from below is illustrated annually by the meet-
ing of the World Social Forum, begun in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001,
which brings together thousands of altermundista (alternate-world)


Translation and Transcendence in the Travels of a Song / 137

activists from dozens of countries to assert that "another world is
possible" and to discuss how to work jointly toward its creation (see
Brecher, Smith, and Costello 2000; Mertes 2004).
As should already be clear to the reader, the history of how "I
Shall Not Be Moved" became "No nos moverin" exemplifies process-
es of globalization from below in a variety of ways in the twentieth
century, long before the term itself came into existence. Here, I would
like to focus on globalization from below as it relates to the contacts
and cultural exchanges between left-wing movements in a variety of
countries in Europe and the Americas. I would like to argue the case
that participants in left-wing social movements around the world,
at least to a certain extent, can be fruitfully conceptualized as con-
stituting a kind of transnational tribe, insofar as they share a set of
values (culture) in common (as a minority or marginalized group
with strong ties of solidarity within the group and so forth) and com-
municate among themselves, making use of institutional and social
infrastructures that channel their exchanges of ideas, information,
values, and cultural objects (see, for example, the trope of the tribe in
Appadurai 1996: 159-164). In other words, in spite of their linguistic
differences, the activists who have taken "I Shall Not Be Moved" and
adapted it to their own circumstances already shared a "culture of
the left" in common that facilitated the incorporation of this song
into their own national and in some cases local movements, as was
the case of the so-called nueceras (pecan shellers) in San Antonio,
Texas. In this sense, we might regard matters of cultural and linguis-
tic differences between the members of the different movements in
which "We Shall Not Be Moved"/"No nos moverin" has been used as
being relatively superficial in comparison with their deeper underly-
ing affinities in terms of egalitarian values and world view.
Internationalism of the Marxist Left
In fact, the profoundly internationalist orientation of left political
movements dates to the publication of The Manifesto of the Com-
munist Party, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in 1848. In it, they
make it clear that for them, the proletarian struggle against the bour-
geoisie is a worldwide struggle in which the battles between classes
within nations are but specific instances of the wider class conflict


138 \ Conclusion

within a global capitalist system. For this reason, Marx and Engels
made explicitly antinationalist appeals in the Manifesto, insisting
that working people had no country to call their own and therefore
needed to unite across national boundaries in their joint struggle
against the bourgeoisie. It is not trivial, therefore, that they stated
that the "ruling classes" trembled in fear of a communist revolution
and that when the exploitation of one individual by another and one
class by another was put to an end, so would the exploitation of one
nation by another (Marx and Engels 1848). Neither is it an accident
that communist movements in various countries in Europe came
together in consecutive federations known as "internationals," begin-
ning in the late nineteenth century and running through the middle
of the twentieth century. Prior to World War I, the various commu-
nist movements from different nations that participated in the First
and Second Internationals were on more or less equal footing. With
the triumph of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and the subsequent
launch of the Third International or Comintern, the Soviet Union
played a dominant and directive role, hosting the federation's head-
quarters in Moscow (see James 1937 and Stern 1990). The founding
of the Third International in March 1919 included a strong statement
of internationalist, anti-imperialist, antiracist, and multiculturalist
principles, signed by both Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, among
others. Its signatories declared that "the only means of securing the
possibility of a free existence for the small nations is by a proletarian
revolution which releases all the productive forces in every country
from the tight grip of the national States, unites the nations in close
economic cooperation based on a joint social economic plan, and
grants to the smallest and weakest nation the possibility of develop-
ing its national culture independently and freely." Furthermore, they
argued that "the liberation of the colonies will only be feasible in
conjunction with the liberation of the working classes in the mother
countries." Only then will "the workmen and peasants, not only in
Annam, Algiers, and Bengal, but also in Persia and Armenia, have a
chance of an independent existence" (quoted in James 1937: 113-114).
Of course, as a state the Soviet Union often did not live up to these
principles, especially under the tyrannical rule of Joseph Stalin, who
violated them on a massive scale. That does not mean, however, that
many communist militants and their sympathizers around the world


Translation and Transcendence in the Travels of a Song / 139

did not believe in and act on these principles. Indeed, even after the
demise of the Third International, communist governments contin-
ued to organize international gatherings of unionists, students, writ-
ers, artists, and musicians in which left-oriented individuals from
around the world and from many walks of life participated. Partici-
pants in these kinds of events included, for example, the acclaimed
Chilean singer-songwriters Violeta Parra and Victor Jara in the 1950s,
1960s, and 1970s (Acevedo et al. 1999: 10-23; Parra 2009: 225-229).
After the triumph of its revolution in 1959, Cuba became one of the
main hosts of these kinds of events for Latin Americans.
The Communist Movement
Only a relatively small proportion of all the people who have sung
"We Shall Not Be Moved" or "No nos moverin" as part of a social
movement in the United States, Spain, or Chile were members of a
communist party or even sympathetic to the international commu-
nist movement of the twentieth century. At the same time, commu-
nists were present and quite active in practically all the movements I
have reviewed, at times quite overtly and at others more quietly. Many
were active in the great union-organizing campaigns of the 1930s in
the United States, for example, and more than a few former commu-
nists participated in the African American civil rights movement.
Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Woody Guthrie, all of whom participated
in the dissemination of "We Shall Not Be Moved," had affiliations
with the Communist Party USA at one time or another and suffered
for them during the Red Scare of the 1950s. Although Xesco Boix was
never a member of a communist party, he did sympathize and col-
laborate at times with the Marxist-oriented Partido Socialista Uni-
ficado de Catalunya (Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia).3 Some of
the members of Canci6n del Pueblo in Madrid, including Adolfo Cel-
drin and Elisa Serna, also were members of the Spanish Communist
Party or collaborated with it in their resistance to the dictatorship.
The founder and contemporary leader of Tiemponuevo, Roberto
Rivera Noriega, was a member of the Partido Comunista de Chile,
and the group recorded its version of "No nos moverin" on DICAP,
the record label of the Juventudes Comunistas de Chile (Commu-
nist Youth of Chile). Following the fall of the Unidad Popular (UP)


140 \ Conclusion

in 1973 and the military takeover of their country, the members of
Tiemponuevo were eventually taken in as political exiles by the com-
munist government of the German Democratic Republic in Berlin.
It is important to bear in mind that the Chilean left in the twen-
tieth century was also internationalist in its ideological orienta-
tion, dating at least to the taking in of Republican refugees from
the Spanish Civil War by the government of Pedro Aguirre Cerda
in the 1930s. As a member of the Partido Comunista de Chile, the
poet Pablo Neruda venerated and actively collaborated with artists
and intellectuals of the left in other countries. These included the
U.S. African singer, actor, and activist Paul Robeson (see Chapter 3),
to whom Neruda dedicated a famous ode, from whom he solicited a
studio recording of the song "Canto a la pampa" ("Song to the Plain")
about nitrate miners in the Chilean North, and with whom he shared
the World Peace Prize awarded in Moscow in 1959. In the 1960s and
1970s, members of the Chilean left were quite aware and supportive
of social justice struggles going on outside their country, and not only
elsewhere in Latin America. So, for instance, Chilean university stu-
dents of the left in 1967 organized a march of several thousand people
from Valparaiso to Santiago in solidarity with the people of Vietnam
in their struggle to expel the United States from their country (Punto
Final 1967). These same activists were aware of and supported the
civil rights and black power movements in the United States, dem-
onstrating, for example, in favor of the exoneration of Angela Davis,
wrongly imprisoned by U.S. authorities for allegedly abetting the kid-
napping and shooting death of a federal judge.4
La nueva cancion chilena
La nueva cancion chilena (the Chilean New Song) movement got
its start in the mid-1960s in Santiago and featured poetic lyrics, the
use of indigenous instruments from throughout Latin America, and
a political message of anti-imperialism and social justice. Its lead-
ing songwriting voices included Violeta Parra, Victor Jara, Rolando
Alarc6n, Angel Parra, and Patricio Manns, who promoted a Latin
American identity and voice that actively challenged domination of
the continent by the United States, Europe, and the ruling Creole
elites who were subservient to those foreign powers (see Chaparro,


Translation and Transcendence in the Travels of a Song / 141

Seves, and Spener 2013; Gonzalez, Ohlsen, and Rolle 2009; McSherry
2015). All these songwriters had affiliations of one sort or anoth-
er with the Partido Comunista de Chile, which had long attracted
Chilean artists, musicians, and writers-most famously the Nobel
Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda-and all traveled widely outside
Chile, not only throughout Latin America but also in Europe, includ-
ing to festivals and other cultural gatherings in the socialist coun-
tries. Some of the members of the two most well-known New Song
groups-Quilapayun and Inti-Illimani-were also party members, as
was Roberto Rivera Noriega of Tiemponuevo, the group that record-
ed "No nos moverin" on DICAP, the record label of the Juventudes
Comunistas (Communist Youth). This is not to say that the musical
creations of these artists were in any way directed or controlled by
the party-although, as noted by Eduardo Carrasco (2003: 137-142),
the founder of Quilapayun, the Chilean Communist Party did dem-
onstrate some seriously authoritarian tendencies in its internal orga-
nization-but rather that these artists' sympathies and ideological
orientations were aligned with a movement that saw itself, in impor-
tant ways, as an international movement rather than a collection of
national ones. Thus, the composers of the New Song movement wrote
about struggles not only elsewhere in Latin America but also in Viet-
nam, Angola, and Spain. In her song "Ayddame, Valentina," about
the corruption and injustices she observes in the world around her,
Violeta Parra tellingly invokes the name of the famous Soviet cosmo-
naut Valentina Tereshkova, who in 1963 became the first woman to
travel in space. In another song from the early 1960s, " Que diri el
Santo Padre?" ("What Will the Holy Father Say?"), Parra denounces
the execution of the Spanish communist leader Julian Grimau by the
Franco regime.
The Chilean New Song musicians also adapted and performed
songs of struggle not only from other countries in Latin America but
also from such countries as Spain and Italy. And although the creators
of la nueva cancion were strongly anti-imperialist in their political
and cultural attitudes toward the United States, that did not mean
that they evinced a chauvinistic rejection of any and all literature and
music from the United States. In fact, like their counterparts in Spain,
the New Song musicians were not averse to adapting English-language
songs into Spanish and adding them to their repertoires. Thus, in


142 \ Conclusion

Victor Jara's repertoire we find "El martillo," his adaptation of Lee
Hays and Pete Seeger's song "If I Had a Hammer," as well as "Las
casitas del barrio alto," his version of Malvina Reynolds's song "Little
Boxes," the same song that Adolfo Celdrin had adapted to the Spanish
context. Rolando Alarc6n, for his part, performed a Spanish version of
Seeger's "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" and also translated into
Spanish "Oh, Brother, Did You Weep?" ("Hermano lloraris"), a song
that protested the U.S. invasion of Vietnam that was written by Peggy
Seeger, Pete's half-sister, and her British husband, Ewan MacColl.
It is not exceptional, then, that the members of Tiemponuevo
would have been aware of the status of a song like "We Shall Not Be
Moved" with the liberation movement of U.S. Africans at that time
and have seen it as a desirable addition to their own repertoire to
perform in Chile. In so doing, they aptly illustrated the serial appro-
priation of musical meanings across different cultural groups dis-
cussed by Christopher Small (2011: xv-xvi) as consisting of members
of one group taking "bits and pieces" from another group's musical
practices and giving them new meaning in their own context. At the
same time, if we can think of the singing left as something of a global
tribe where members share some fundamental values and orienta-
tions, we might also want to think of the travels of "I Shall Not Be
Moved" through geographically dispersed movements as illustrating
appropriations that in some sense, at least, can be thought of as intra-
cultural rather than cross-cultural-that is, that have been facilitated
by underlying cultural commonalities instead of being made more
difficult by cultural differences. In this sense, we can conceptualize
an internationalist, singing left as a specific variant of what Thomas
Turino (2003: 61) has called trans-state cultural formations-that is,
a grouping that shares common "habits and resources for living" that
are the result of processes of socialization that have produced "shared
internalized dispositions" that transcend national boundaries.
Cosmopolitan Citizenship on the Left
Without intending to romanticize the twentieth-century history
of the left in the Americas and Europe, replete as it has been with
internal conflicts and failures to live up to its own principles, here I
would suggest that at their best, left social movement activists have


Translation and Transcendence in the Travels of a Song / 143

tended to manifest a cosmopolitan vision of society and a welcoming
of the cultural production of other countries, especially in the case
of cultural production that promotes egalitarian ideals of distributive
justice. Here, two interrelated sociological concepts-cosmpolitan-
ism and cosmopolitan citizenship-can help orient our interpretation
of this aspect of the history of "No nos moverin." In reviewing the
work of Jeremy Waldron (2000), cultural theorist Stuart Hall (2002:
26) argues that cosmopolitanism refers to the process in which social
actors "draw on the traces and residues of many cultural systems,
of many ethical systems [and represents] the ability to stand out-
side of having one's life written and scripted by any one community,
whether that is faith or tradition or religion or culture."5 In addi-
tion, according to Ulrich Beck (1998), cosmopolitanism points to the
recognition that "the central human worries are 'world' problems"
and require transnational collaboration to address them. Further-
more, he suggests, addressing problems that transcend individual
nation-states requires the creation of what he calls "world parties,"
whose goals have a cosmopolitan foundation that attempts to appeal
to "values and traditions in every culture and religion" and whose
members "feel an obligation toward the planet as a whole." For his
part, Michael Ignatieff (1999: 142) argues that while every cosmopoli-
tan "defends universal values against national ones," he distinguishes
between "Marxist cosmopolitans," who "stand for the brotherhood
of working men [sic] or the brotherhood of oppressed colonial peo-
ples against various forms of reactionary nationalism" and "liberal
cosmopolitans," who "proclaim their adherence to universal human
standards rather than national cultural traditions." In accordance
with any or all of these three authors' explanations of what cosmo-
politanism is, cosmopolitan citizenship refers to a type of citizenship
that engages the individual not only with her or his own national
culture but also with cultures at all levels of society, ranging from
the neighborhood to the region within a country, to the rest of the
continent, to communities on the other side of the ocean (Cuccioletta
2002: 4). Cosmopolitan citizenship refers, in other words, to people
coming to understand themselves as citizens of a world of intercon-
nected peoples and cultures. Especially relevant for our discussion of
the internationalist singing left, cosmopolitan citizens "are attracted
and related to members in the same and other sites around the world


144 \ Conclusion

through a substantial degree of cultural similarity as well as travel,
institutions, and concrete communication loops" (Turino 2003: 62).
It seems clear to me that most of, if not all, the key participants in
the transmission of "We Shall Not Be Moved" as a "movement" song
can fruitfully be understood as cosmopolitan citizens. In this regard,
Pete Seeger, whose vast repertoire of songs and melodies was multina-
tional and multilingual, is exemplary, having sought out and learned
musical forms from multiple cultures as well as having reached across
multiple cultural boundaries to perform them. But Seeger was not the
only one. At Highlander in the 1950s, Guy Carawan's multicultural
vision and knowledge of both black and white cultural forms allowed
him to serve as a catalyst for the development of a "freedom song"
canon for the civil rights movement. Bernice Johnson Reagon of the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Freedom Sing-
ers may not have been a cosmopolitan when she began her career as
an activist and a singer, but she quickly became one as a consequence
of her participating in the civil rights movement and serving as its
musical ambassador to white, northern audiences. Similarly, Teatro
Campesino founders Agustin Lira and Luis Valdez quickly developed
an awareness of and connections to a broader cultural world beyond
the daily lives of farmworkers through their organizing work. More-
over, their native bilingualism and biculturalism gave them some-
thing of a cosmopolitan perspective from childhood. Although he
was a Catalan nationalist, Xesco Boix clearly recognized himself as
a participant in cultural and political matters beyond the confines
of his country and actively sought to learn from other cultures and
bring what he learned to bear on the situation in Catalonia. The mem-
bers of Canci6n del Pueblo in Madrid shared similarly cosmopolitan
attitudes and behaviors with Boix and his colleagues in Barcelona.
And clearly the Chilean participants in the nueva cancion movement
during the time of Salvador Allende were well aware of the relation-
ship between the social, political, and cultural changes occurring in
their country and elsewhere in the world, in spite of their country's
geographic isolation. In the specific case of the members of Tiem-
ponuevo, their upbringing in the port city of Valparaiso also undoubt-
edly contributed something to the group's cosmopolitan outlook.
In this regard, it might be helpful to think of cosmopolitanism as
an aspect of what Pierre Bourdieu (1977) refers to as habitus-that is,


Translation and Transcendence in the Travels of a Song / 145

the attitudes, world views, and dispositions toward varying types of
stimuli that are the imprint left on individuals by the varying types
of socialization to which they have been subjected.6 These types of
socialization can involve a variety of aspects of human existence,
including but not limited to nationality, religion, language, social
class, occupation, racial and ethnic group membership, historical
generation, and urban versus rural residence. Habitus can also be the
outcome of political socialization, including individuals' experiences
in social movements. Thus, we can think of cosmopolitanism of the
type discussed here as a "way of being in the world" or habitus asso-
ciated with political struggles of the left in many parts of the world.
More specifically, we can conceive of this habitus as a disposition
toward valuing and assimilating the contributions of other cultural
groups to a worldwide struggle for social justice, however vaguely
"social justice" is to be defined.
Song as a Resource
In Part II of this book, I have interpreted the trajectory of "I Shall Not
Be Moved" on its way to becoming "No nos moverin" sociologically
and anthropologically, first by looking at the material and institu-
tional infrastructures that permitted the song's dissemination; then
by discussing the transcultural aspects of its appropriation by vari-
ous social movements in different historical, political, and linguis-
tic contexts; and finally by interpreting its adoption by social justice
movements of varying stripes through the lens of cosmopolitan citi-
zenship. In conclusion, I would like to return to the question of what
singing a song can do for members of social movements in different
settings. In so doing, I would like to propose that we think of the
deployment of "We Shall Not Be Moved" in particular as an exam-
ple of what Anna Triandafyllidou (2009) calls transcultural capital,
which she defines as "the strategic use of knowledge, skills, and net-
works acquired by migrants through connections with their country
and cultures of origin which are made active at their new places of
residence." With Professor Triandafyllidou's express approval (pers.
comm., June 21, 2014), I extend her definition of the term as follows:
"Alternatively, transcultural capital can refer to the strategic use of
knowledge, skills, and networks acquired by individuals through


146 \ Conclusion

connections with other countries and cultures which are made active
in their home countries and cultures."
At this point, I must confess that I am acutely aware of the irony of
referring to a song used by anticapitalist activists as a form of capital.
Let me clarify, therefore, that I am doing so only in the special sense
given to the term capital by the (very left-wing) French sociologist
Bourdieu (1986), for whom it consists of any tangible or intangible
resource that groups or individuals could make use of in any arena
of social struggle. In this case, the song originally known as "I Shall
Not Be Moved" has served as a significant emotional and symbolic
resource for members of social movements in a variety of histori-
cal and cultural settings, as documented throughout this book. Of
particular interest is the way that this resource has become available
to and been used by nonelite actors through social and cultural pro-
cesses that transcended national boundaries during historical peri-
ods in which such processes were presumably far less prevalent and
intense than they have subsequently become in a world characterized
by instantaneous global communication among geographically far-
flung individuals. In Part II of this book, I have been at pains to show
that the broadcast of an old slave spiritual from the United States
on Radio Magallanes in Santiago, Chile, on September 11, 1973, was
much less "random" than it may have seemed at first blush. Indeed,
the transmission of ideas, symbols, and songs through complex net-
works of movements and activists around the world is likely to con-
tinue to produce such unforeseen outcomes well into the future.


Coda

s a spiritual, "I Shall Not Be Moved" was born of the oppression,
exploitation, and longing for liberation of enslaved Africans in
North America. Over the past two centuries, the song has contin-
ued to express that deep longing for freedom and justice in many dif-
ferent voices, on several different continents, and in several different
languages. It has been transmitted largely by word of mouth among
members of intersecting and interlocking social justice movements,
unexpectedly popping up again and again in new places in the ser-
vice of new struggles throughout its history. As the song has traveled
through these activist networks, it has also served to forge new links
in the chain that ties activists together across time and space. To con-
clude my telling of the song's history and to illustrate this point, I leave
readers with five vignettes, some involving people already discussed
in these pages, and others whose names appear for the first time.
Luis Corvalin was a Chilean senator and leader of the Chilean Com-
munist Party. Committed to the building of socialism in Chile
through democratic means, Corvalin was one of Salvador Allende's
most important allies in the Unidad Popular (UP) coalition that gov-
erned the country from 1970 to 1973. After the coup, Corvalin was


148 \ Coda

arrested and imprisoned in a concentration camp on Isla Dawson,
in southernmost Chile, in the frigid Strait of Magellan. His son was
a member of the Juventudes Comunistas (Communist Youth) and
was also arrested and tortured by the Pinochet regime, dying of his
injuries in exile. In 1976, Corvalin was released from prison by the
dictatorship as part of a prisoner exchange involving the Soviet dissi-
dent Vladimir Bukovsky. Following his release, he traveled to Berlin,
where he was given a hero's welcome in a ceremony in the Palast der
Republik on January 29, 1977, before a host of dignitaries, includ-
ing Erich Honecker, the secretary general of the governing Socialist
Unity Party. The ceremony included a rousing performance of "No
nos moverin," sung in Spanish by Dean Reed, a U.S. pop star who
had settled in the German Democratic Republic in the early 1970s.1
Reed was born in Colorado in 1938 and moved to Hollywood as
a young man to pursue an acting and singing career around the same
time as such pop stars as Frankie Avalon and Fabian were becoming
known. Although he never achieved the notoriety in the United States
of other singers and actors of his generation, Capitol Records promot-
ed his music in South America, and Reed became a sensation in Chile
and Argentina. While touring the Southern Cone, he was horrified by
the extreme poverty he saw and experienced a political conversion to
socialism. Reed set up residence in Buenos Aires but frequently visited
Chile and Uruguay. In Chile, he met Allende and got to know many
of the exponents of the nueva cancion chilena, including Victor Jara,
Angel and Isabel Parra, and the members of Quilapayin. While per-
forming at the annual music festival in Vina del Mar in 1971, he met
Roberto Rivera Noriega and the other members of Tiemponuevo in
the dressing room they shared backstage. Reed asked them about the
origins of their two best-known songs, "No nos moverin" and "Hemos
dicho basta." He was surprised to learn that "No nos moverin" was
from the United States, as he was unfamiliar with the song "We Shall
Not Be Moved." Rivera Noriega gave him a copy of the lyrics, and
Reed later recorded both songs, first as a single in Uruguay and later
on an album published in the Soviet Union. The single was recorded
as a jingle for the first presidential campaign of the left-wing coalition
known as the Frente Amplio, whose candidate, Liber Seregni, ran in
the last free and open national elections before Uruguay's own mili-
tary coup took place in June 1973.2


Coda / 149

Luis Corvalin spent the rest of the 1970s living in Moscow and
Berlin. In 1983, he underwent plastic surgery to be able to reenter
Chile clandestinely. Once back in the country, he worked tirelessly
to promote a popular uprising against the Pinochet dictatorship.
In 1990, shortly after the return of civilian rule, Corvalin resigned
as secretary general of the Partido Comunista de Chile. He died of
natural causes in 2010, at the age of ninety-three.3 The members of
Tiemponuevo remained friendly with Dean Reed during the years
they all lived in Berlin. Rivera Noriega remembers seeing him at a
party of Chilean exiles there, full of alegria y comaradera (happi-
ness and camaraderie), just a week before his mysterious drowning
death in 1986.4
s a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Com-
mittee (SNCC) and a founding member of the Freedom Singers,
Bernice Johnson Reagon played an indispensable role in establish-
ing "We Shall Not Be Moved" as one of the key "freedom songs" of
the African American civil rights movement. Raised in rural Geor-
gia, she cut her teeth as an activist in the struggle to desegregate her
hometown of Albany. Then, as a member of the Freedom Singers, she
traveled widely throughout the United States and Canada, spread-
ing the "good news" of the movement. In the 1970s, she completed a
doctorate in U.S. history at Howard University in Washington, D.C.,
writing a pioneering dissertation about the importance of song in the
civil rights movement. Also in the 1970s, she founded the women's a
capella vocal ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock, dedicated to spread-
ing a black feminist message of social justice throughout the African
diaspora. In 1974, she founded the Program in Black American Cul-
ture at the Smithsonian Institution, which she directed until 1993,
and where she established her reputation as a leading scholar of Afri-
can American music. Sweet Honey in the Rock has performed world-
wide and continues to make music today, although Reagon retired as
the group's musical director in 2004.
As a scholar of the African diaspora and a committed social
justice activist, Dr. Johnson Reagon had developed a global vision of
culture and politics by the 1970s. Increasingly, the songs she wrote
brought international issues together with matters of civil rights in


150 \ Coda

the United States. One of the clearest examples of this integration,
and the most relevant for the purposes of this book, is her song
"Chile, Your Waters Run Red through Soweto," written in 1979 and
appearing on Sweet Honey in the Rock's 1981 album Good News. In
the song, Reagon links the concurrent struggles for justice and lib-
eration in Chile and South Africa with the battle to free ten young
black desegregation activists in Wilmington, North Carolina, who
were unjustly jailed in 1971 for a crime they did not commit. In
the song, she first calls attention to the shared oppressions of Chil-
eans and South Africans, declaring that "the hands that choked the
spirit of Allende" were the same hands that pulled the triggers on
the guns that killed children protesting apartheid on the streets of
the Soweto township.5 Next, she extends the metaphor by declar-
ing that the hands that oppressed Chileans and South Africans
were the same "hands of oppression" that jailed and killed African
American dissidents and rebels in the U.S. South, such as those in
Wilmington. In the final verse, Reagon reaches back further into
history, linking the massacre of Chileans and South Africans with
the 1898 massacre of dozens of black citizens of Wilmington by
white supremacist death squads that overthrew the town's biracial
coalition government. The song ends with the plaintive cry that
"the waters of Chile fill the banks of Cape Fear," the name of the
river into which the bodies of the victims of the Wilmington mas-
sacre were tossed.6
he death of Nelson Mandela at age ninety-five in December 2013
prompted a worldwide outpouring of praise for the hero of South
African blacks' victorious struggle against apartheid. In Washington,
D.C., a mix of hundreds of civil rights activists and official digni-
taries attended a memorial service in the National Cathedral in his
honor that was organized by the South African embassy. Among the
many performers who sang and played music in homage to Mandela
were the current members of Sweet Honey in the Rock, the same
women's a capella ensemble that Bernice Johnson Reagon founded in
the 1970s. One of the songs they performed as part of a "civil rights
medley" was a rafter-shaking rendition of "We Shall Not Be Moved."7


Coda / 151

Although we do not know for certain whether Mandela ever heard
or sang the song himself, given his long imprisonment on Robben
Island, we do know that "We Shall Not Be Moved" was an important
piece in the repertoire sung by black South Africans and their white
and "coloured" allies in their long struggle to end apartheid.8
In 2008, the South African poet Diana Ferrus told researcher
Omotayo Jolaosha that she and fellow anti-apartheid activists had
learned the song "We Shall Not Be Moved" from Joan Baez's ver-
sion of it as "No nos moverin" from her Gracias a la vida album and
adapted it to their own purposes, denouncing the killing of black
children and the razing of black homes in the 1970s and 1980s:
No, no, we shall not be moved
No, no, we shall not be moved
We're not afraid, we're fighting for our children
We shall not be moved
Let them kill our children, we shall not be moved ...
Let them take our houses, we shall not be moved.9
n May 1, 2012, in Fresno, California, hundreds of activists, includ-
ing many agricultural workers, gathered for a May Day march for
worker and immigrant rights. At the end of the march, people gath-
ered in Courthouse Park downtown for a rally, which included the
performance of songs by El Coro del Pueblo (The People's Choir), a
mixed group of Chicana/o and Mexican singers and musicians. The
song they chose to end their program was the Chilean anthem "El
pueblo unido jamas seri vencido" ("The People United Will Never
Be Defeated"), led rousingly by their director, Patricia Wells So-
l6rzano.0
Wells Sol6rzano grew up in California's Imperial Valley on the
border with Mexico. She became active in the farmworker movement
in 1975 while studying at California State University at Northridge.
Several years later, she moved to Mexico City to study Mexican and
world history at the Universidad Nacional Aut6noma. For many
years, she has been a member of the musical ensemble Alma (Soul)
and co-director of Teatro de la Tierra in Fresno, California." Her


152 \ Coda

principal collaborator in both Alma and Teatro de la Tierra has been
Agustin Lira, co-founder of the United Farm Workers' (UFW's)
Teatro Campesino and who, with Luis Valdez, penned one of the
first Spanish versions of "We Shall Not Be Moved." In 2007, Wells
Sol6rzano and Lira produced a play with Teatro de la Tierra titled
A Yellow Rose from Texas: Emma Tenayuca, based on their research
about the woman who led the 1938 pecan shellers' strike in San Anto-
nio. The play opens with a group of women walking onto the stage
in a single-file line, singing "No nos moverin."12 In February 2014,
Lira and Wells Sol6rzano performed the song in Alma's concert with
Chilean singer Lichi Fuentes in a chapel on the Trinity University
campus in San Antonio, Texas. Also on the program that evening was
Chicana feminist historian Antonia Castaneda, who linked Chilean
and Chicano political struggles and talked about Chicana/o artists'
and activists' support of the Chilean resistance to the Pinochet dic-
tatorship in the 1970s and 1980s.
In November 2010, Castaneda participated in a sit-in at the San
Antonio office of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison to pressure the poli-
tician to support legislation (the so-called Dream Act) that would
allow undocumented youth to remain in the United States legally and
pursue university studies. As police arrived to arrest the protestors
and end the nine-hour occupation of the senator's office, Castaneda
and community activist Maria Antonietta Berriozabal led students in
singing "No nos moverin" in Spanish and English to affirm the spirit
of resistance of this struggle and its connection to those that came
before. Both women were also among the many people singing the
song years earlier at Emma Tenayuca's rosary.
n September 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement erupted in
New York, seemingly from nowhere. By October, the movement had
gained tens of thousands of adherents and had spread to many other
cities around the United States. It was drawing worldwide attention,
mirroring the expression of mass indignation by protesters in Cairo,
Tunis, Madrid, and Santiago. On Friday, October 21, Pete Seeger,
then ninety-two years old, participated in a benefit concert in Man-
hattan for Clearwater, the environmental organization he founded


Coda / 153

in 1969 to demand the cleanup of the heavily polluted Hudson River.
At the end of the concert, Seeger and fellow performers-including
Woody Guthrie's son Arlo and Bernice Reagon's daughter Toshi-
joined a crowd of more than one thousand Occupy protesters who
were waiting outside for them. Pete traded his banjo for two canes
and marched several miles with the peaceful crowd to Columbus
Circle, as his fellow marchers sang "We Shall Not Be Moved" and
other songs he had made famous during his seventy-year career as
an activist and musician.13
Seeger died peacefully in his sleep on January 27, 2014, in a hos-
pital in Manhattan. The day before Seeger died, Peter Yarrow, of the
famed folk trio Peter, Paul, and Mary, went straight from the airport
to visit him in the hospital. Yarrow had just returned from the West
Bank town of Ramallah, where he had been attending a gathering of
activists promoting peace between Palestine and Israel and had led
participants in singing several of Seeger's most famous songs, includ-
ing "If I Had a Hammer." When he arrived, Yarrow found Seeger
surrounded by friends and family, who were standing at his bedside
singing to him. Here is an excerpt of Yarrow's account of his last visit
with his old friend and mentor:
When I had first entered Pete's room, I had quickly unpacked
my guitar and then waited for the loveliest of songs to be fin-
ished by one of Pete's extended family. Then I started to sing a
subdued but still gently defiant (if that be possible) version of
"We Shall Not Be Moved." We all crowded around Pete, sing-
ing this old Union Song together, with friends on each side of
the bed holding his hands. We sang that song for perhaps 7 or
8 minutes, with many verses about "young and old together,"
"black and white together," "gay and straight together," "the
union is behind us," "no more poison fracking," on and on.
Slowly the strength and beauty of the singing began to carry
us all with it as we felt each other's hearts unite, all of us sing-
ing directly to Pete, and beginning to ride on the sweetness
of the sound we were making together.... I left feeling really
peaceful and complete, with a feeling that Pete was, as he has
always been, deep inside me. I also knew, though Pete would


154 \ Coda
have been shy to acknowledge it, that there are thousands of
(as Mary called our trio) "Seeger's Raiders" who will carry on
with Pete in their hearts, sharing the great gift of his music
and his truly giving, uncompromising, pure spirit still reso-
nating within us all.14
Pete Seeger will never again sing "We Shall Not Moved" on this
green, round earth, but others of us surely will, and for the same rea-
sons he did. It is just a question of where and how soon.


Appendix
Note on Methods and Sources
he research that resulted in the publication of this book was con-
ducted in a variety of ways. When I first learned that "No nos
moverin" was the last song broadcast on September 11, 1973,
on the last radio station loyal to the government of Salvador Allende
in Chile, I began searching online for more information about the
broadcast of the song on that fateful day. That initial online search
led me to a number of Spanish-language books that mentioned that
broadcast of the song, which, in turn, introduced me to the names
of some of the direct and indirect participants in the drama of that
day. Some of these-like Rene Largo Farias-had already died many
years before, while others, such as Guillermo Ravest, the manager of
Radio Magallanes, were still living and were reachable via telephone
or e-mail. One of the most important informants I was able to inter-
view was Roberto Rivera Noriega, the founder of Tiemponuevo, who
has lived in Berlin for many years and continues to perform with the
band that made "No nos moverin" famous in Chile.
A similar process put me in touch with key informants about
the history of "No nos moverin" in Spain, including the surviving
members of the Canci6n del Pueblo collective in Madrid and Lluis
Panyella, the bandmate and biographer of Xesco Boix, the Catalan
singer who first performed the song on the Iberian peninsula as "No


156 \ Appendix

serem moguts." Searches of the online databases and consultations
and referrals from the staff of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives
in New York City helped me eventually abandon my initial assump-
tion that "We Shall Not Be Moved" had arrived in Spain with U.S.
volunteers in the international brigades who fought on the Republi-
can side in the country's civil war in the 1930s. Chilean musicians
and musicologists also put me in touch with their counterparts in
Spain, who provided me with valuable orientation to the history of
antifascist songs in their country.
Consultations with Chicano historians helped put me on the path
to uncovering the history of "No nos moverin" among Spanish speak-
ers in the United States. Materials stored in the Texas Labor Archive in
the library of the University of Texas-Arlington proved invaluable to
learning the details of the spontaneous singing of the song in the San
Antonio city jail during the great 1938 pecan shellers' strike led by the
firebrand labor organizer Emma Tenayuca. LeRoy Chatfield, coordina-
tor of the Farmworker Movement Documentation Project, was instru-
mental in pointing me to written evidence of the song's importance in
that movement in the 1960s and 1970s. More importantly, he put me
in touch with Agustin Lira and Luis Valdez, the members of Teatro
Campesino who translated "We Shall Not Be Moved" into Spanish and
taught it to farmworkers on the picket lines.
Candie Carawan and the staff of the Highlander Research and
Education Center in New Market, Tennessee, provided me with
references to important bibliographic sources concerning the roles
played by Guy Carawan and Zilphia Horton in the promotion and
dissemination of "We Shall Not Be Moved" in the U.S. labor and civil
rights movements. Similarly, the staff of the Tennessee State Library
provided access to the Zilphia Horton Folk Music Collection, which
contains many labor movement songbooks and mimeographed song
sheets that include "We Shall Not Be Moved."
The Dictionary of North American Hymnology (DNAH) was
indispensable in my search for nineteenth- and early-twentieth-
century Protestant hymnals in the United States that include the
spiritual "I Shall Not Be Moved." DNAH is a decades-old project of
The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada that attempts
to index all hymnals printed in North America prior to 1979. It cur-
rently indexes the contents of approximately five thousand hymnals


Appendix I 157

and more than one million "hymn instances." Today, the DNAH is a
searchable online database available at Hymnary.org.
A great deal of my effort to sketch the history of "We Shall Not Be
Moved" has involved hunting for references to the song in the many
scholarly and nonscholarly publications that record the histories of
African American and white spirituals, the U.S. labor and civil rights
movements, the San Antonio pecan shellers' strike and the Chicano
farmworker movement, the Spanish Civil War and the antifascist
resistance movement, and the left political movements in Chile that
produced the socialist government of Salvador Allende, which held
power from 1970 to 1973. Much of my research was akin to looking
for a needle in a haystack, since relatively few published histories of
social movements give prominence to the role that music has played
in them. The challenge, therefore, was to somehow weave together
an intelligible and coherent account of the role that "We Shall Not
Be Moved" has played in social movements from hundreds of scat-
tered and often fragmentary references to its singing by movement
participants. In other words, writing the history of "We Shall Not Be
Moved" has involved locating unknown or missing pieces to a puzzle
that were widely strewn about across time and space and then, once
locating them, figuring out how they fit together to form a coherent
whole. It is my hope that readers find that my efforts in this regard
have been successful.



Notes
Introduction
1. The group's name fuses the Quechua word "Inti," meaning "sun," with the
Aymara word "Illimani," meaning "golden eagle," which refers to the name of the
snow-capped volcano that rises above La Paz, Bolivia.
2. Subsequent editions of this songbook, a bit more professionally put
together, would be titled Rise Up Singing, a line from the George Gershwin song
"Summertime," from the musical Porgy and Bess.
3. La sonrisa de Victor Jara (Victor Jara's Smile), by Jorge Coulon Larranaga
(2009).
4. A lovely cover of "Letter to Eve," by Greg Artzner and Terry Leonino,
the duo known as Magpie, can be heard online at https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=Czm8tFaUSSs. In the lyrics to another song titled "False from True,"
Seeger conveys a similar sentiment, saying that no song he could sing could
"take the gun from a hate-filled man." Nevertheless, he announces that he will
keep singing for social justice just so long as he has "the breath within." A cover
of this song was performed by Warren Haynes and Steve Earle in Madison
Square Garden in New York at a concert honoring Seeger's ninetieth birthday
on May 3, 2009. A recording of this performance can be viewed online at https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOZSTCoUMUI.
5. Another musicologist, David Hesmondhalgh (2013: 89-90), has critiqued
Small's claims regarding the meaning of musicking in this regard. He disputes the
notion that "musicians and listeners have a common concern with bringing into
being an ideal set of social relationships" and the presumption that "people have
a powerful pre-existing inclination towards community and collectivity" that


160 \ Notes to the Introduction

is embodied in musicking. Thomas Turino's (2008: 90-91) distinction between
"participatory performance" and "presentational performance" is helpful in this
regard. In my treatment of the history of "We Shall Not Be Moved," I believe that
the strength of Small's musicking concept mainly pertains to instances of "par-
ticipatory performance," which is typically how the song is performed.
Chapter 1
1. Several written accounts, with contradictions among them, describe how
Salvador Allende came to give his last address to the nation on Radio Magallanes
and how his words were recorded and saved for posterity. See Ravest Santis 2009
and Valenzuela 2009.
2. In addition to the recording of Allende's speech on Radio Magallanes,
his words are preserved in a song titled "Las nltimas palabras" ("Last Words")
composed by Marcelo Coulon and recorded in exile by the Chilean musical
group Aparcoa on their 1975 LP Chile. Aparcoa's rendition of the song may be
heard online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I7446NGur0.
3. Tiemponuevo continues to perform today under the direction of its
founder, Roberto Rivera Noriega, who has resided in Berlin for many years
since fleeing Chile in 1973. The group's website may be consulted at http://www
.tiemponuevo.de/. More information on the history of the group can be found
at http://www.musicapopular.cl/3.0/index2.php?op=Artista&id=381. Tiem-
ponuevo's recording of "No nos moverin" can be heard online at https://youtu
.be/Du5gxaKRJ8A.
4. The translations of all Spanish-language quotations throughout the book
were done by the author. Several other authors also mention the broadcast of "No
nos moverin" on Radio Magallanes on the morning of the coup. See G6mez A.
1998; Harrington and Gonzalez 1987; Valenzuela 2009; and Varas and Vergara
1973. Chilean musicologist Juan Pablo Gonzalez, director of the Instituto de Mnsi-
ca of the Universidad Alberto Hurtado, also has a vivid memory of hearing the
song broadcast that fateful morning on the radio of some workers employed on a
construction site next to his aunt's home in an affluent section of Santiago, shortly
before brown shirts from the fascist organization Patria y Libertad (Fatherland
and Freedom) arrived in the neighborhood (interview with author, May 11, 2014).
5. An example of this would be the group's verse "ni con un golpe de estado"
("not even with a coup d'etat"), which refers to the assassination of General
Rene Schneider, commander in chief of the Chilean Army, on October 25, 1970,
in a failed kidnapping attempt by his enemies within the armed forces that was
intended to provoke a military coup that would prevent president-elect Allende
from taking office. For more information about Schneider, his loyalty to the
Chilean constitution, and his murder, see Schneider 2010.
6. The Mapuche are the original indigenous inhabitants of south-central
Chile.


Notes to Chapter 1 / 161

7. The Unidad Popular's platform included forty immediate measures to be
taken following the 1970 election. Measure number 15 was to guarantee a half
liter of milk every day to Chilean children, regardless of their families' ability
to pay. See http://www.abacq.net/imagineria/medidas.htm.
8. Eulogio Divalos performs the guitar and discusses his experiences with
the Tren Popular de la Cultura in an informative videotaped interview at the
Universidad de Santiago de Chile, available online at http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=9ovw9jiLbLk. To learn more about the cultural promotion projects of
the Unidad Popular government, see Albornoz 2005 as well as a brief video on
the site of the Asociaci6n de las Televisiones Educativas y Culturales Iberoamer-
icanas, available at http://video.atei.es/development/index.php?option=com_
marcas&id=1829&msg=&task=&pageNo=461.
9. In March 1973, for example, Gladys Marin, secretary of the Juventudes
Comunistas, was interviewed on this program about the Unidad Popular's slate
of candidates running in the upcoming legislative elections that would test the
socialist government's support in the face of confrontation with the increasingly
restive right-wing opposition (undated recording contained in the archive of the
Fundacion Salvador Allende).
10. Victor Jara was one of the Chilean New Song Movement's leading com-
posers and singers. He was also a prominent theater actor and director. Jara was
murdered by the military in the Estadio Chile in the days following the coup.
To learn more about his life, work, and death, see Chaparro, Seves, and Spener
2013 and Jara 2008.
11. In many English-language publications the Estadio Chile-today
known as Estadio Victor Jara-has been confused with the Estadio Nacional,
the country's largest football (soccer) stadium, which was also used by the mili-
tary as a detention center following the coup. In the years prior to the coup, the
Estadio Chile, in addition to hosting sporting events, frequently hosted musical
events, including the first festival of the Chilean New Song in 1969, in which
Jara won first prize for his song "Plegaria a un labrador" ("Prayer to One Who
Works the Land").
12. This famed encounter among the giants of country and rock 'n' roll
music of the period has been memorialized in a Broadway musical titled The
Million Dollar Quartet. See the show's website at http://www.milliondollar
quartetlive.com and its review by the New York Times at http://theater.nytimes
.com/2010/04/12/theater/reviews/l2million.html?pagewanted=all&_moc.semi
tyn.retaeht. The quartet's recording of "I Shall Not Be Moved" can be heard
online at https://youtu.be/JXrAe5Odzds. Elvis Presley, it should be noted, was a
strong supporter of Richard Nixon, visiting the president in the White House in
1970 and offering to serve as one of his informants in the music business, which
at the time was home to many countercultural opponents of Nixon's policies.
See http://www.gwu.edu/-nsarchiv/nsa/elvis/elnix.html for documentation of
this meeting.


162 \ Notes to Chapter 2

Chapter 2
1. In recognition of the fact that America is an entire continent, not just
the nickname of the United States, I try to avoid, wherever possible, the use of
America or Americans to refer exclusively to residents of the United States. I
use the term U.S. Africans to refer to nonwhites of African ancestry who reside
in the United States. I interchange this term with the more commonly used
African Americans throughout this text, in recognition of the struggle by U.S.
civil rights activists to gain acceptance for the latter term, which, they argue,
designates people by their cultural traits rather than their phenotype. For a
useful discussion of the problems associated with use of the terms America and
Americans in the U.S. context, see Villafane Santos 2005.
2. These renditions are from The King James Version of the Holy Bible,
available at http://www.turnbacktogod.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/
King-James-Bible-KJV-Bible-PDF.pdf, accessed March 17, 2013. The King James
version also contains the following verse from Jeremiah 17:8: "For he shall be
as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river."
3. The terms spiritual, hymn, and gospel are often used inconsistently or even
interchangeably with regard to African American music, by both scholars and lay-
persons. Generally speaking, the term spiritual is used to refer to religious folk
songs of anonymous authorship sung by slaves prior to the U.S. Civil War. The
term hymn typically refers to songs with known composers that appear in pub-
lished church hymnals. The term gospel refers to the style of African American
religious songs that became popular in urban African American congregations in
the first half of the twentieth century. Gospel songs have known composers and
share melodic and rhythmic elements with blues and jazz. Indeed, Waldo Martin
(2000: 363) refers to gospel songs as "spiritual blues." The distinctions among these
types of songs is complicated by the fact that spirituals could eventually be formally
arranged by musically literate composers and published in church hymnals. See
Burnim 2006; Darden 2004; Harris 1992; Reagon 2001; and Southern 1997.
4. These lyrics are from Jackson 1968: 17.
5. For more on spirituals and Harriet Tubman's participation in the Under-
ground Railroad, see Cone [1972] 1991: 80-82; Darden 2004: 85-96; Jones 1993:
44-47 and 50-51; and Reagon 2001: 132-140.
6. Harold Courlander (1963: 33), for his part, emphasizes the diversity of
African American religious songs, which range from quiet, sorrowful reflec-
tions to "rocking and reeling songs that truly shake rafters" and "spirited tunes
that are nothing less than marches," so that the customary term spiritual is
inadequate to describe them.
7. See Darden 2004 for further commentary on African Americans' partici-
pation in camp meetings.
8. Charles Johnson (1955: 116-117), citing a variety of primary and sec-
ondary sources, similarly characterizes the contrast between African and white
musicality in the camp meetings.


Notes to Chapter 3 / 163

9. Eileen Southern's summary here is consistent with Mellonee Burnim's
(2006: 53-55) account of the emergence of black spirituals from slaves' places
and moments of unsupervised, "autonomous" worship.
10. Pullen Jackson's additional claims that blacks' spirituals were largely
derivative of whites' camp-meeting songs have been met with strenuous objec-
tions from other scholars of African American music. For a summary of this
polemical debate, see Darden 2004: 57-60 and Maultsby, Burnim, and Oehler
2006: 11-12. Lawrence Levine (2007: 23-24), for his part, suggests that condi-
tions in the antebellum southern United States "allowed slaves to retain a good
deal of the integrity of their own musical heritage while fusing it to comparable
elements of Euro-American music." The result, he argues, "was a hybrid with a
strong African base."
11. See also Bruce 1974: 90-91 concerning this point.
12. Johnson (1955: 192) similarly notes that many favorite camp-meeting
songs were never written down or published.
13. John Stauffer and Benjamin Soskis (2013: 17-28) similarly propose ear-
ly-nineteenth-century southern camp-meeting origins for another song that has
served a variety of social movements in U.S. history: "The Battle Hymn of the
Republic."
14. For more on this point, see Walker 1979. Regarding the way the African
musical legacy lives on in the practices of African American Protestant congre-
gations in the contemporary period, see Pitts 1991. Dickson Bruce (1974: 84-85)
notes that the call-and-response format was also typical of antebellum camp
meetings among both blacks and whites.
15. The National Baptist Convention is a predominantly African American
Protestant denomination. The Sunday School Publishing Board is its in-house
press.
16. In 1906, Alfred Ackley, a white religious composer, published a different
hymn titled "As a Tree Planted by the Water" that sometimes also goes by the
name "I Shall Not Be Moved." Though it clearly draws from the same or similar
biblical text(s), Ackley's hymn has a different melody and structure, both lyrical
and musical, than the song under consideration in this book.
Chapter 3
1. For a complete history of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," from which
"Solidarity Forever" is derived, see Stauffer and Soskis 2013.
2. A tipple was a structure at a traditional mine used to load the extracted
coal into rail cars.
3. To learn more of Lee Hays's life and music, see Willens 1988.
4. Although he does not use the term zipper song, the union troubadour Joe
Glazer (2001: 14-15) gives examples of how he led workers in creating myriad
new verses to "We Shall Not Be Moved" in Hays's "zipper" fashion on picket
lines around the United States in the mid-twentieth century.


164 \ Notes to Chapter 3

5. Disturbingly, only whites participated in the march. Black workers and
their families feared lynching if they participated.
6. By the 1930s, fortunes of the Socialist Party had waned considerably. Its
pacifist leader, Norman Thomas, ran for president six times but never competed
seriously with the Democratic Party once the New Deal was underway. Read-
ers interested in the history of the Socialist Party in the United States should
consult Shannon 1955.
7. For a useful summary of the characteristics of the sharecropping system
that emerged in the former Confederacy following the end of the U.S. Civil War,
see Jaynes 2000: 168-171.
8. Donald Grubbs (1971: 65-66) also notes the strong religiosity with which
(STFU) ritual practices were imbued, including the adaptation of Protestant
hymns to the union cause, which prominently featured the singing of "We Shall
Not Be Moved."
9. Here it should be noted that this is an English translation of a letter that
was originally written in Chinese. The translation was written by a striker
named Alice Dong. The author of Unbound Voices, Judy Yung, informed me
that the original Chinese version of the letter did not contain the reference to
"We Shall Not Be Moved" (Judy Yung, pers. comm., December 17, 2014). It is
thus unclear whether the Chinese women strikers actually sang the song in
their struggle. It is clear, however, that at least one striker knew the song and its
importance to the U.S. labor movement in other parts of the country.
10. The term chautauqua refers to an educational event consisting of pub-
lic lectures, concerts, and dramatic performances. The concept originated in
1874 in the village of Chautauqua, New York. Today, the term is used more
generically to refer to any such event, especially if it involves travel from one
community to another. For more information, see http://ciweb.org/about-us/
about-chautauqua/our-history.
11. These materials are contained in the Zilphia Horton Folk Music Collec-
tion in the Tennessee State Library and Archives.
12. For a more thorough investigation into the role played by song and sing-
ing in the communist movement in the United States, see Robbie Lieberman's
(1995) book My Song Is My Weapon: People's Songs, American Communism, and
the Politics of Culture, 1930-50.
13. Later, to mark the event, Pete Seeger glued to the chimney of his cabin
one of the softball-size rocks that crashed through the window of the car in
which he was driving his wife and small children away from the concert (Dun-
away 1981: 11).
14. Following the Peekskill concert and riots, Woody Guthrie wrote a col-
lection of twenty-one songs in reaction to the events he witnessed there. See
Kaufman 2011: 163-164.
15. The veracity of some of the events described by Guthrie in Bound for
Glory, including this one, should be taken with a grain of salt.


Notes to Chapter 4 / 165

Chapter 4
1. Guy Carawan died on May 2, 2015, in New Market, Tennessee (Fox 2015).
2. Bernard Lafayette and James Bevel were leaders of the African American
civil rights movement. They participated in the founding of the Student Non-
violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and also worked with the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
3. It should also be noted that there was initial resistance on the part of
some young activists to reviving spirituals as civil rights songs given their asso-
ciation with slavery, whose legacy these activists sought to overcome (see Bled-
soe 1969: 237-240). Their reaction to the singing of such songs reflected the
ambivalence regarding the singing of spirituals in African American churches
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, discussed by Michael Har-
ris (1992: 111-113) and Walter Pitts (1991: 331-332).
4. See also Denisoff 1970: 820 on this point. For an excellent description of
how the song "We Shall Not Be Moved" exemplified this call-and-response pro-
cess of spontaneous innovation, see Bernice Johnson Reagon's (1987: 110-112)
account of a mass meeting held in Greenwood, Mississippi, in the fall of 1963.
5. For a succinct description of how the call-and-response format works in
many of the freedom songs derived from U.S. Africans' spirituals, see Gravlee
1987: 60.
6. The value of song to the civil rights movement was amplified when imag-
es of singing protestors being brutalized by white police were transmitted to
the public on the television news (Verrall 2011: 61). TV was a powerful tool for
communicating to a wider public that labor union singers did not have available
to them in previous decades.
7. See also Guitars 101 for a list of the performers who sang at the March on
Washington and the songs they sang, available at http://www.guitars0.com/
forums/f90/march-on-washington-for-jobs-amp-freedom-1963-a-154385.html.
The Freedom Singers' performance of "We Shall Not Be Moved" at the March on
Washington can be heard online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsLYB_
g7dg0. Film of them performing the song on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
can viewed at https://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.49737.
8. Kerran Sanger (1995) offers a useful discussion of these rhetorical aspects
of freedom songs, giving special attention to "We Shall Not Be Moved." See also
Reed 2005: 30-32 in this regard.
9. Indeed, "We Shall Not Be Moved" was one of many songs that demon-
strators sang to keep their spirits up as they successfully completed the march
from Selma to Montgomery several weeks after being attacked by police on the
Edmund Pettus Bridge (Seeger 1965).
10. Harry Koger Papers, 1945-1963, AR-66-1-5, housed at the Texas Labor
Archive, in the Special Collections of the Library of the University of Texas-
Arlington.


166 \ Notes to Chapter 4

11. In her extensive review of the rhetorical characteristics of the "freedom
songs," Sanger (1995: 74) also observes that most of the songs are "self-referential"
in their lyrics, such that "the sheer frequency of self-references suggests that the
activists were concerned with their own stories and with setting forth a clear
identity for themselves. The songs provided a potent outlet for this emerging
self-definition, one well suited to the goals of the movement and easily shared."
Moreover, she notes that many of the songs, including "We Shall Not Be Moved,"
also contained "negative assertions" about what they "would not do" as a way
for movement members to reinforce their "determination in the face of adver-
sity" and their commitment not "to respond in the passive manner expected by
whites" (Sanger 1995: 87).
Chapter 5
1. Readers interested in learning more about Emma Tenayuca's life and
work should consult Calder6n and Zamora 1990; Rips 1983; Vargas 1997 and
2005; and Tenayuca and Brooks 1939.
2. Simon Legree, a vicious southern slave owner, was a character in Harriet
Beecher Stowe's famous nineteenth-century abolitionist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.
3. A "closed shop" means that only members of the union who have signed
a contract with management may work in an establishment.
4. Telephone interview with Sharyll Teneyuca, niece of Emma Tenayuca,
July 28, 2014. The singing of the song at her aunt's rosary was videotaped by staff
of the Esperanza Center for Peace and Justice in San Antonio.
5. See Latinopia 2010 and Farmworker Movement Documentation Project
2004.
6. The origins of the "Fuertes somos ya" rendition of "We Shall Not Be
Moved" remain obscure. It is much less commonly sung in the United States
than "No nos moverin" and virtually unknown outside the United States. Lyrics
to "Fuertes somos ya" are included in the Rise Up Singing songbook (Blood-Pat-
terson 1988: 260) and were also published in Broadside magazine in 1968, which
mistakenly attributes this version to El Teatro Campesino. It is also reflected
in the title of a Chicago mural painted in 1970 to honor the founding of a free
"people's health center" by the Latin American Defense Organization (Cock-
croft, Weber, and Cockcroft 1977: 84-86).
7. When performing the song in February 2014 at Trinity University,
Agustin Lira and his singing companion, Patricia Wells Sol6rzano, sang this
line as "como un arbol crece junto al rio" ("like a tree grows next to the river").
8. Los Rebeldes de Sonora was the conjunto who performed "No nos
moverin" in the Chavez movie.
9. Dolores Huerta also participated in acts of solidarity with the Chilean
people, both during the Salvador Allende years and the subsequent military
dictatorship. Indeed, she reports being in labor with a son on the day of the
coup on September 11, 1973. In memory of the deposed socialist president, she


Notes to Chapter 6 / 167

named her baby Ricardo Salvador. Readers can learn more about Huerta's life
and work on the website of the Dolores Huerta Foundation, available at www
.doloreshuerta.org.
10. The list of singers performing at the March on Washington may be
reviewed on the website of Guitars 101, where recordings of the songs performed
may also be downloaded. See http://www.guitars101.com/forums/f90/march-
on-washington-for-jobs-amp-freedom-1963-a-154385.html.
11. Joan Baez did not respond to the author's queries concerning how she
learned "No nos moverin."
12. Paul Robeson's recording of "Canto a la pampa" ("Song to the Plain"),
written by Francisco Pezoa, appears on the 33-1/3 RPM record Pablo Neruda y
Paul Robeson: La pampa salitrera (The Nitrate Plain), published in Uruguay in
1963 on the Carumbe label. The disc also includes a recording of Pablo Neruda
reciting his "Oda a Paul Robeson," from his 1955 collection of poetry titled
Nuevas odas elementales (New Elementary Odes).
13. A video of Baez singing the song in her March 14, 2014, concert in San-
tiago can be viewed online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZyxsK3Tlao.
A video of the singing of the song at her second concert on March 15 can be seen
at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGxNoYVSoGo.
Chapter 6
1. A brief video clip of Joan Baez's dedication of "No nos moverin" to La
Pasionaria on Esta Noche, Fiesta can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=vpdnoYHMXso. Her performance of the song was noted in Madrid's
leading newspaper, El Pais (Costa 1977). In a 2013 interview with the Spanish
newspaper Tiempo, the host of Esta Noche, Fiesta confirmed the audaciousness
of Baez's singing of the song and her homage to La Pasionaria. He noted that
although he and his staff did not suffer any direct reprisals following Baez's
appearance on the show, such reprisals from the military, even in 1977, were
very possible (Memba 2013).
2. Michael Denning (1996) makes the same point more generally with
regard to labor and left-wing political activism within Franklin Roosevelt's New
Deal coalition.
3. William Cobb (2000: 158) notes that several Commonwealth students left
the school in the 1930s to enlist in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
4. See, for example, Diaz Viana 2007; F. Klein 2008; and Puche Macia 2008.
"No nos moverin" also fails to appear in the collection of anti-franquista songs
Cantos de la Nueva Resistencia Espanola, 1939-1961 (Liberovici and Straniero
1963).
5. Personal communication with Joaquina Labajo (June 10, 2012), Geofrrey
Lawes (August 9, 2011), and Xavier Pintanel (August 8, 2011).
6. None of the following recorded collections of Spanish Civil War songs
include "No nos moverin": Musicas populares de la Guerra Civil, by Brigada


168 \ Notes to Chapter 6

Bravo (2008); Spain in My Heart: Songs of the Spanish Civil War, by Pete Seeger
and other artists (2003); Songs of the Spanish Civil War, Volumes 1 and 2, by Pete
Seeger, Ernst Busch, and others (1961); Songs of the Spanish Civil War: From
Both Sides, by various artists (2011); Pasiones: Songs of the Spanish Civil War
1936-1939, by Jamie O'Reilly and Michael Smith (1997); Himnos y canciones de
la Guerra Civil Espanola: Espana 1936-1939 Volumenes 1 y 2, by Coro Popular
Jabal6n (1994); La Guerra Civil Espanola, by Francisco Curto (2011); Canciones
de izquierdas, Guerra Civil Espanola: Canciones e himnos republicanos, by vari-
ous artists (2011); Bando Republicano: 25 himnos y canciones de la Guerra Civil,
by Banda y Coro Republica Hist6rica (2012); and Canciones de la Guerra Civily
Resistencia Espanola, by Oscar Chavez (2011).
7. For a complete account of the horrific repression meted out by the Franco
regime against its opponents, see Preston 2012.
8. In his 1968 album of songs of the Spanish Civil War, the Chilean singer-
songwriter Rolando Alarc6n includes another version of "No pasaran" using
a different melody, presumably of his own composition. See Valladares and
Vilches 2009: 109-114.
9. This spontaneous mass movement arose out of indignation with the cor-
ruption and inefficacy of Spain's political system in the face of the grave eco-
nomic crisis that began in 2008. See El movimiento 15-M 2012.
10. Lluis Panyella, like Xesco Boix, is an accomplished banjo player and
singer who was also one of the members of Grup de Folk, the musical group
he founded with Boix in Barcelona in the late 1960s. Today, he and Maria Josep
Hernandez form the duo La Bicicleta. See www.labicicleta.cat. To learn more
about the life and work of Xesco Boix, readers of Catalin may consult Panyella
and Hernandez 1995 and 2010. The information provided here about Boix was
provided to the author by Panyella via e-mail correspondence in September 2012.
11. In reality, a few of Pete Seeger's records began to be imported and dis-
tributed in Spain in 1967. Titled Cantemos con Pete Seeger, Volmenes 1 y 2 and
distributed by the Movieplay label, these discs were reissues of his Folkways
records titled American Favorite Ballads, which had been recorded some years
earlier. It should be noted that the only songs included on these records were
folk songs, devoid of any real political content. It is also worth mentioning that
the person in charge of importing and distributing Seeger's records in Spain was
Joaquin Diaz, a close friend of Xesco Boix.
12. In 1967, Jaume Armella also recorded a single with Boix dedicated to
African American spirituals (Gonzalez Lucini 2006: 107).
13. A video recording of Baez's rendition of "No serem moguts" can be
viewed online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apKB72wUTq4.
14. A recording of "No serem moguts" being sung by Boix accompany-
ing himself on the banjo can be heard online at https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=YEkM5U9yDM4.
15. According to Lluis Panyella, Boix also exchanged many songs and lyr-
ics with his friend Joaquin Diaz, who imported Pete Seeger's records for the


Notes to Chapter 7 / 169

Movieplay label. Boix and Diaz collaborated on a number of song translations,
including a translation of "No serem moguts" to "No nos moverin" (Lluis Pan-
yella, pers. comm., July 25, 2013).
16. A newspaper article published in El Pais in 1996 erroneously reports
that members of La Trigala learned and translated "We Shall Not Be Moved"
after Antonio G6mez returned to Madrid from a trip to London in 1967 with a
Seeger record that he had purchased there. At that point in his life, G6mez had
never traveled to London. See Nino 1996.
17. The Galician singer Xoan Rubia recorded a version of the song in the
language of his region of Spain as "No nos van mover" for his self-titled album
released in 1968.
18. A copy of the letter Adolfo Celdran received censoring his version of
"No nos moverin" can be viewed online at http://fernandolucini.blogspot.com/
search?q=denegado/.
19. For more information on this album and other aspects of his musical
career, readers may consult Celdrin's website at http://www.adolfoceldran.com/.
20. The Argentine composer Atahualpa Yupanqui's "Basta ya" is a different
song from the song "Hemos dicho basta," sung by the Chilean group Tiem-
ponuevo and mentioned in Chapter 1. The Chilean group Quilapaynn recorded
Yupanqui's song and popularized it in Chile around the same time that "No nos
moverin" was popularized by Tiemponuevo.
21. A clip from this episode featuring the song being sung by the cast can
be viewed online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=ES&hl=es&v=ekdmeS
kQZMO.
22. To see an example of the chant at a Spanish soccer match, see https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmhL_5mkNjg. To hear Manchester United fans
chanting/singing "We Shall Not Be Moved," see https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=6xrUdFEKC5s. And, finally, there is this lament for fans of teams that
get beaten by Real Madrid, sung to the tune of "No nos moverin": Por culpa del
Madriiid, me voy a emborrachar, por culpa del Madriiid, me voy a emborrachar,
lalalalaaalalalalalalaaaa, me voy a emborrachar. See http://es.answers.yahoo.
com/question/ index?qid=20080708132359AAcMAUy. Interestingly, "No nos
moverin" does not seem to appear as a cdntico defutbol in any Spanish Ameri-
can country, on the basis of an informal survey conducted by the author of his
futbol-fan friends from Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay.
Chapter 7
1. See Hernandez i Marti 2006 for a useful review of the origins and use of
the concept.
2. See, for example, Ritzer 2013 on McDonald's as a model global network
for facilitating mass consumption of standardized products.
3. In this regard, we should bear in mind the mutually defining sociological
conceptualizations of society and culture, where a society consists of a group of


170 \ Notes to Chapter 7

interacting people sharing a common culture and culture consists of the shared
beliefs, products, and practices of an interacting group of people, regardless of
whether the group of interacting people is located in the same geographic terri-
tory (Appelbaum and Chambliss 1997: 59-60).
4. In Roberto Rivera Noriega's recollection, the recording they received of "No
nos moverin" was not a vinyl record but rather a tape recording of some kind.
Given that the group had access to reel-to-reel tape recorders at the Chile-Demo-
cratic Republic of Germany Institute in Santiago, among other places, he believes
that this was the format in which they received it. Within a few years, the audio-
cassette format became widely available in Latin America and would serve as a
vital means of circulating oppositional music in Chile and other South American
dictatorships of the 1970s. See Jordan 2009 and Morris 1986. Here, it is also worth
mentioning that a group of students in the music education program at the Univer-
sidad de Playa Ancha in Valparaiso who were working on a joint thesis about Tiem-
ponuevo interviewed Sergio Sanchez's sister, who remembers her brother striking
up a friendship with some Spanish sacerdotes obreros (literally, "worker priests,"
implying that they were of left-wing sympathies) who were doing missionary out-
reach in Chile in the late 1960s. According to his sister, Sanchez and the priests
shared an interest in the music of each other's countries and spent time listening
to music and singing together. Although she does not remember them specifically
listening to or singing the Castilian version of "No nos moverin" together, this is
another possible route by which the song could have been introduced to the mem-
bers of Tiemponuevo (Edison Argandona, pers. comm., May 13, 2015).
Chapter 8
1. See also Triandafyllidou 2009: 103 regarding this point.
2. Here, I should note that a large body of scholarly literature exists that
discusses the related but rather broader concept of cultural hybridity. One of the
exemplary and most frequently cited works in that literature is Nestor Garcia Can-
clini's 2005 book Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity.
Conclusion
Acknowledgment: The lyrics from the song "Wasn't That a Time?" by Lee Hays
and Walter Lowenfels, are reproduced with permission from Sanga Music, Inc.
(BMI). Administered by Figs. D Music (BMI) c/o The Bicycle Music Company.
1. Walter Lowenfels (1897-1976) was a U.S. poet, journalist, and member of
the Communist Party USA. He was arrested in 1953 while serving as the editor
of the Daily Worker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; charged with conspiracy to
advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government by force; and sentenced to two
years in federal prison. His conviction was overturned on appeal in 1957, for lack
of evidence (Guttman 1965). A clip of Pete Seeger singing this verse of the song,
taken from Wasn't That a Time, a 1961 film by Michael and Philip Burton about


Notes to the Coda / 171

Seeger's persecution by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC),
is available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPngPq6HaF8.
2. With regard to political globalization from below, it is worth noting that
some theorists argue that the term internationalism from below better commu-
nicates the spirit of this type of solidarity that transcends national boundaries.
David Featherstone (2012: 8), for example, insists that the term internationalism
better captures the efforts of "left political movements to reshape the world on
more equitable terms."
3. Lluis Panyella, personal communication, June 14, 2014.
4. Angela Davis visited Chile in 1972 and later denounced the U.S. role in the
coup that overthrew the democratic socialist government of Salvador Allende.
Evidence of Chileans' support for Davis can be seen in a mural painted by the
Brigada Ramona Parra and a poster demanding Davis's release, both of which
can be viewed online at http://www.abacq.net/imagineria/exp29.htm, as well as
filmed footage of Davis's visit to the Universidad Tecnica del Estado in 1972,
viewable online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6YdNf7Z31Y. The mural
and the poster are from the work by Fernando Orellana, Chile: Breve imaginerfa
politica: 1970-1973, traveling and online exhibition (Santiago de Chile: Fernando
Orellana, 2000). The film footage comes from the Archivo de Documentaci6n
Grafica y Audiovisual de la Universidad de Santiago de Chile, available online at
http://www.archivodga.usach.cl/index.php/en/.
5. Stuart Hall's conceptualization of cosmopolitanism is similar in some
ways to that of Robert K. Merton's classic 1940s sociological study of local ver-
sus cosmopolitan "influentials" in a small town on the East Coast of the United
States (see Merton 1968), except that Hall's version is more explicitly focused on
the cultural dimension of people's orientations.
6. Although they do not make explicit use of the term, thinking of cos-
mopolitanism as an aspect of habitus is consistent with Steven Vertovic and
Robin Cohen's (2002: 13) reference to it as "an attitude and a disposition" that is
acquired through experience.
Coda
1. Dean Reed's performance of the song, along with images of Corva-
lin and Honecker, may be viewed online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=bnPgouRYf6Y.
2. The Frente Amplio's Jose "Pepe" Mujica, internationally admired for his
folksy wisdom and personal austerity, was the president of Uruguay at the time
of this writing.
3. The sources consulted for information concerning Luis Corvalan are Bib-
lioteca del Congreso Nacional n.d.; Davison 2010; and Ramirez 2013.
4. The sources consulted for information concerning Dean Reed are Die-
ner 2013, Laszewski 2005, Nadelson 2006, and personal communication with
Roberto Rivera Noriega, June 21, 2014.


172 \ Notes to the Coda

5. In 1976, thousands of black students in the Soweto township outside
Johannesburg demonstrated against being forced to receive their instruction
in public schools exclusively in the language of the white Afrikaner minority.
Police opened fire on the demonstrators, killing many children and teenagers in
one of the worst atrocities committed by the apartheid regime (Blackwell 2013).
6. Sources: Cecelski and Tyson 1998; Graham and Blythe 2012; Moore
2010; Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage 2014; Bernice
Johnson Reagon 2014; and Sweet Honey in the Rock 1981. An a capella ver-
sion of the song performed by Billy Bragg at an open-air Artists against Apart-
heid concert in London can be viewed online at https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=ZYuWNpowaR4. Bragg's performance begins a little more than seven-
teen minutes into the video.
7. Sources: Markoe 2013 and National Cathedral 2013.
8. Sources: Finnegan 1986: 167; Gilbert 2005: 14; United Democratic Front
n.d.; and personal communication with Dr. Shirli Gilbert, professor of history,
University of Southampton, June 25, 2014.
9. Personal communication with Omotayo Jolaosho, July 6, 2014. For a more
extensive discussion of the circulation of U.S. songs among anti-apartheid activ-
ists in South Africa, see Jolaosho 2012. To learn more about the poet Diana
Ferrus, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Ferrus.
10. A video of this performance may be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=TtOZIVOW-t4.
11. To learn more about Patricia Wells Sol6rzano's life and work, see http://
teatrotierraonline.org/alma-musicians/.
12. To learn more about Teatro de la Tierra's production of this and other
plays, see http://teatrotierraonline.org/performance/a-yellow-rose-from-texas/.
13. A video of Pete Seeger marching with the crowd can be viewed at http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmMiLmHiESs. Unfortunately, the videographer
did not capture or did not upload footage of the marchers singing "We Shall
Not Be Moved."
14. Sources: Hudson River Sloop Clearwater 2014 and Yarrow 2014.


References
Abrahams, Roger D., and George Foss. 1968. Anglo American Folksong Style.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Acevedo, Claudio, Rodolfo Norambuena, Jose Seves, Rodrigo Torres, and Mau-
ricio Valdebenito. 1999. Victor Jara: Obra musical completa. 2nd ed. San-
tiago, Chile: Fundacion Victor Jara.
Albornoz, Cesar. 2005. "La cultura de la Unidad Popular: Porque esta vez no se
trata de cambiar un presidente." In Cuando hicimos historia: La experien-
cia de la Unidad Popular, edited by Julio Pinto Vallejos, 147-176. Santiago,
Chile: LOM Ediciones.
Ames, Russell. 1960. The Story of American Folk Song. New York: Grosset and
Dunlap.
Anabitarte, Ana. 2011. "Espana: Miles dicen 'no nos moveran."' El Universal,
May 21. Available at http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/primera/36886.html.
Accessed September 18, 2011.
Angelou, Maya. 1990. I Shall Not Be Moved. New York: Random House.
Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globaliza-
tion. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Appelbaum, Richard P., and William J. Chambliss. 1997. Sociology. 2nd ed. New
York: Longman.
Arreola, Daniel. 1987. "The Mexican American Cultural Capital." Geographical
Review 77:17-34.
Associated Press. 1935. "Shots Spatter in Strike Riot." Milwaukee Journal, Feb-
ruary 22.
Auerbach, Jerold. S. 1968. "Southern Tenant Farmers: Socialist Critics of the
New Deal." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 27 (2): 113-131.


174 \ References

Babb, Sarah. 2012. "The Washington Consensus as Transnational Policy Para-
digm: Its Origins, Trajectory, and Likely Successor." Review of International
Political Economy 20 (2): 268-297.
Baez, Joan. 1987. And a Voice to Sing With: A Memoir. New York: Summit Books.
Bardacke, Frank. 2011. Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two
Souls of the United Farm Workers. New York: Verso.
Basch, Linda G., Nina Glick Schiller, and Cristina Szanton Blanc. 1994. Nations
Unbound: Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments, and Deterri-
torialized Nation-States. Amsterdam: Overseas Publishers.
Beck, Ulrich. 1998. "The Cosmopolitan Manifesto." New Statesman, March 20.
Electronic edition.
Bernice Johnson Reagon (website). 2014. Washington, DC: Songtalk Publishing.
Available at http://www.bernicejohnsonreagon.com/. Accessed June 28, 2014.
Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional. n.d. "Resena Biografica Parlamentaria: Luis
Corvalin Lepe." Valparaiso, Chile: Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional.
Available at http://historiapolitica.bcn.cl/resenasparlamentarias/wiki/
Luis_Corval%C3%Aln_Lepe. Accessed June 25, 2014.
Blackwell, Amy. 2013. "Soweto Massacre." In Atrocities, Massacres, and War
Crimes: An Encyclopedia, edited by Alexander Mikabaridze, 607-608. Santa
Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO.
Bledsoe, Thomas. 1969. Or We'll All Hang Separately: The Highlander Idea.
Boston: Beacon Press.
Blood-Patterson, Peter, ed. 1988. Rise Up Singing. Bethlehem, PA: Sing Out.
Boatner, Edward, ed. and arranger. 1927. Spirituals Triumphant, Old and New.
Nashville, TN: Sunday School Publishing Board.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. London: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
1986. "The Forms of Capital." In Handbook of Theory and Research for
the Sociology of Education, edited by John G. Richardson, 241-258. West-
port, CT: Greenwood Press.
Brecher, Jeremy, Brendan Smith, and Timothy Costello. 2000. Globalization
from Below: The Power of Solidarity. Boston: South End Press.
Brookwood Labor College. n.d. Brookwood Chautauqua Songs: A Singing Army
Is a Winning Army. Katonah, NY: Brookwood Labor Publications.
Broyles-Gonzalez, Yolanda. 1994. El Teatro Campesino: Theater in the Chicano
Movement. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Bruce, Dickson D. 1974. And They All Sang Hallelujah: Plain-Folk Camp-Meet-
ing Religion, 1800-1845. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Burnim, Mellonee V. 2006. "Religious Music." In African American Music: An
Introduction, edited by Mellonee V. Burnim and Portia K. Maultsby, 51-77.
New York: Routledge.
Calder6n, Roberto R., and Emilio Zamora. 1990. "Manuela Solis Sager and
Emma Tenayuca: A Tribute." In Chicana Voices: Intersections of Class, Race,


References / 175

and Gender, edited by Teresa C6rdova, Norma Elia Cantu, Gilberto Carde-
nas, Juan Garcia, and Christine M. Sierra, 30-41. Albuquerque: University
of New Mexico Press.
Carawan, Guy, and Candie Carawan. 1990. Sing for Freedom: The Story of the
Civil Rights Movement through Its Songs. Bethlehem, PA: Sing Out.
Cardenas, Jose C. 2011. "El colectivo Canci6n del Pueblo y los poetas." Msica
y poesia [blog], August 4, 2011. Available at http://cancionypoema.blogspot
.mx/search/label/CANCI%C3%93N%20DEL%20PUEBLO. Accessed June
14, 2012.
Carrasco, Eduardo. 2003. Quilapayun: La revoluci6n y las estrellas. 2nd ed. San-
tiago, Chile: RIL Editores.
Carroll, Peter N. 1994. The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Americans
in the Spanish Civil War. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Carson, Clayborne. 1981. In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the
1960s. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Carter, Vicki K. 1994. "The Singing Heart of Highlander Folk School." New
Horizons in Adult Education 8 (2): 4-24.
Cecelski, David S., and Timothy B. Tyson, eds. 1998. Democracy Betrayed: The
Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and Its Legacy. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press.
Chaparro, Moises, Jose Seves, and David Spener. 2013. Canto de las estrellas: Un
homenaje a Victor Jara. Santiago, Chile: Ceibo Ediciones.
Chatfield, Leroy. 2004. "Joan Baez Sings for Cesar Chavez." Sacramento: Farm
Worker Movement Documentation Project. Available at https://libraries
.ucsd.edu/farmworkermovement/medias/music/. Accessed August 5, 2012.
Claudin, Victor. 1981. Cancion de autor en Espana: Apuntes para su historia.
Madrid: Ediciones Jncar.
Cobb, Jelani. 2014. "Ferguson October: A Movement Goes on Offense." New
Yorker, October 15. Electronic edition. Available at http://www.newyorker.
com/news/news-desk/ferguson-october. Accessed October 25, 2014.
Cobb, William H. 2000. Radical Education in the Rural South: Commonwealth
College, 1922-1940. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.
. 2012. "Commonwealth College." The Encyclopedia of Arkansas His-
tory and Culture. Little Rock: Central Arkansas Library System. Avail-
able at http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail
.aspx?entryID=10.
Cockcroft, Eva, John Weber, and Jim Cockcroft. 1977. Toward a People's Art:
The Contemporary Mural Movement. New York: E. P. Dutton.
Cohen, Judith. 1984. "Obituary: Xesco Boix." Canadian Folk Music 18 (4): 35.
Cohen, Norm. 2005. Folk Music: A Regional Exploration. Westport, CT: Green-
wood Press.
Cohen, Ronald D. 2002. Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival and American
Society, 1940-1970. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.


176 \ References

Collum, Danny Duncan, and Victor A. Berch. 1992. African Americans in the
Spanish Civil War: This Ain't Ethiopia, but It'll Do. New York: G. K. Hall.
Cone, James H. [1972] 1991. The Spirituals and the Blues: An Interpretation.
Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
Conrad, David Eugene. 1965. The Forgotten Farmers: The Story of Sharecroppers
in the New Deal. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Corbin, David Alan. 1976. "'Frank Keeney Is Our Leader and We Shall Not Be
Moved': Rank-and-File Leadership in the West Virginia Coal Fields." In
Essays in Southern Labor History: Selected Papers, Southern Labor History
Conference, 1976, edited by Gary M. Fink and Merl E. Reed, 144-156. West-
port, CT: Greenwood Press.
1981. Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields: The Southern West
Virginia Miners, 1880-1922. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Costa, Jose Manuel. 1977. "Joan Baez: 'No vine antes porque estaba Franco':
Dedico el 'No nos moverin' a 'Pasionaria."' El Pais, November 16. Avail-
able at http://elpais.com/m/diario/1977/11/16/sociedad/248482804_850215
.html. Accessed December 26, 2014.
Coulon Larranaga, Jorge. 2009. La sonrisa de Victor Jara. Santiago, Chile: Edito-
rial USACH.
Courlander, Harold. 1963. Negro Folk Music, U.S.A. New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press.
Cuccioletta, Donald. 2002. "Multiculturalism or Transculturalism: Towards a
Cosmopolitan Citizenship." London Journal of Canadian Studies 17:1-11.
Darden, Robert. 2004. People Get Ready: A New History of Black Gospel Music.
New York: Continuum.
Davison, Phil. 2010. "Luis Corvalan: Communist Who Helped Allende Become
Chile's President and Was Later Exchanged for the Soviet Dissident
Bukovsky." Independent, July 24. Available at http://www.independent
.co.uk/news/obituaries/luis-corvalan-communist-who -helped-allende-
become-chiles-president-and-was-later-exchanged-for-the-soviet-dissi
dent-bukovsky-2034138.html. Accessed June 25, 2014.
Della Porta, Donatella, and Mario Diani. 1999. Social Movements: An Introduc-
tion. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Denisoff, R. Serge. 1969. "Folk Music and the American Left: A Generational-
Ideological Comparison." British Journal of Sociology 20 (4): 427-442.
. 1970a. "Protest Songs: Those on the Top Forty and Those of the Streets."
American Quarterly 22 (4): 807-823.
. 1970b. "The Religious Roots of the American Song of Persuasion." West-
ern Folklore 29 (3): 175-184.
Denning, Michael. 1996. The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture
in the Twentieth Century. New York: Verso.
Diaz Viana, Luis. 2007. Cancionero popular de la Guerra Civil Espanola: Textos
y melodias de los dos bandos. Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros, S.L.


References / 177

Diener, Norbert. 2013. Dean Reed: Let Me Sing with My People (website). Kiel,
Germany: Dean Reed Website Team. Available at http://www.deanreed.de/
index.html. Accessed June 23, 2014.
Dreier, Peter. 2006. "Rosa Parks: Angry, Not Tired." Dissent 53 (1): 88-92.
Duberman, Martin Bauml. 1988. Paul Robeson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
DuBois, W.E.B. (1903) 2007. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
Dunaway, David King. 1981. How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger. New
York: McGraw Hill.
. 2011. A Pete Seeger Discography: Seventy Years of Recordings. Lanham,
MD: Scarecrow Press.
Dunaway, David King, and Molly Beer. 2010. Singing Out: An Oral History of
America's Folk Music Revivals. New York: Oxford University Press.
Dunson, Josh. 1965. Freedom in the Air: Song Movements of the Sixties. West-
port, CT: Greenwood Press.
Eby, Cecil D. 2007. Comrades and Commissars: The Lincoln Battalion in the
Spanish Civil War. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Epstein, Dena J., and Rosita M. Sands. 2006. "Secular Folk Music." In African
American Music: An Introduction, edited by Mellonee V. Burnim and Portia
K. Maultsby, 35-52. New York: Routledge.
Eslinger, Ellen. 1999. Citizens of Zion: The Social Origins of Camp Meeting Reviv-
alism. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Eyerman, Ron, and Andrew Jamison. 1998. Music and Social Movements: Mobi-
lizing Traditions in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Farias, Rene Largo. 1977. "El 11 de septiembre en la Moneda." Literatura chilena
en el exilio 1 (2): 25-28.
Farmworker Movement Documentation Project. 2004. "Music." Sacramento:
Farmworker Movement Documentation Project. Available at https://
libraries.ucsd.edu/farmworkermovement/medias/music/. Accessed July 2,
2013.
Fast, Howard. 1951. Peekskill USA. New York: Civil Rights Congress.
Featherstone, David. 2012. Solidarity: Hidden Histories and Geographies of
Internationalism. London: Zed Books.
Fernandez, James D. 2012. "Facing Fascism, in Tampa, Florida, for Example."
Volunteer, March 30. Available at http://www.albavolunteer.org/2012/03/
facing-fascism-in-tampa-florida-for-example/. Accessed July 26, 2012.
Finnegan, William. 1986. Crossing the Line: A Year in the Land of Apartheid.
New York: Harper and Row.
First Run Icarus Films. 1983. There but for Fortune: Joan Baez in Latin America.
New York: First Run Icarus Films.
Fisher, Harry. 1997. Comrades: Tales of a Brigadista in the Spanish Civil War.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.


178 \ References

Floyd, Samuel A., Jr. 1995. The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History
from Africa to the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.
Foner, Philip S. 1965. The Letters of Joe Hill. New York: Oak Publications.
Fowke, Edith, and Joe Glazer. 1973. Songs of Work and Protest: 100 Favorite
Songs of American Workers, Complete with Music and Historical Notes. New
York: Dover Publications.
Fowler, Gene, and Bill Crawford. 2002. Border Radio: Quacks, Yodelers, Pitch-
men, Psychics, and Other Amazing Broadcasters of the American Airwaves.
Austin: University of Texas Press.
Fox, Margalit. 2015. "Guy Carawan Dies at 87; Taught a Generation to Over-
come, in Song." New York Times, May 7. Electronic edition.
Frith, Simon. 1996a. "Music and Identity." In Questions of Cultural Identity,
edited by Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay, 108-127. London: SAGE Publica-
tions.
. 1996b. Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
"Fuertes Somos Ya/We Shall Not Be Moved." 1968. Broadside 93 (July-August):
n.p.
Galeano, Eduardo. 1993. Las palabras andantes. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Cata-
logos.
Garcia, William F. 2000. "Tampa Does Not Forget Elisa Moris." Volunteer,
Summer 2000.
Garcia Canclini, N6stor. 2005. Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leav-
ing Modernity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Gilbert, Shirli. 2005. "Popular Song, Gender Equality, and the Anti-apartheid
Struggle." In Gender and Sexuality in South African Music, edited by Chris
Walton and Stephanus Muller, 11-18. Stellenbosch, South Africa: SUN
PReSS.
Glazer, Joe. 2001. Labor's Troubadour. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Glen, John M. 1988. Highlander: No Ordinary School, 1932-1962. Lexington:
University Press of Kentucky.
G6mez A., Le6n. 1988. Que el pueblo juzgue: La historia del golpe. Santiago,
Chile: Terranova Editores.
Gonzalez, Juan Pablo, Oscar Ohlsen, and Claudio Rolle. 2009. La historia social
de la musica popular en Chile, 1950 a 1970. Santiago, Chile: Ediciones Uni-
versidad Cat6lica de Chile.
Gonzalez Lucini, Fernando. 1998. Crnica cantada de los silencios rotos: Voces y
canciones de autor, 1963-1997. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
. 2006. Y la palabra se hizo musica: La canci6n de autor en Espana. Vol. 1.
Madrid: Fundaci6n Autor.
Graham, Nicholas, and John Blythe. 2012. "February 1971-The Wilmington Ten."
This Month in North Carolina History. Available at http://www.learnnc
.org/lp/editions/nchist-postwar/6006. Accessed June 28, 2014.


References / 179

Graves, Matthew, and Elizabeth Rechniewski. 2010. "From Collective Memory
to Transcultural Remembrance." PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary
International Studies 7 (1): 1-15.
Gravlee, G. Jack. 1987. "A Black Rhetoric of Social Revolution." In A New Diver-
sity in Contemporary Southern Rhetoric, edited by Calvin M. Logue and
Howard Dorgan, 52-88. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
Green, George. 1971. "Transcribed Interview with Mr. George Lambert." Oral
History Project, University of Texas-Arlington, Division of Archives and
Manuscripts. Arlington: Special Collections of the University of Texas-
Arlington Library.
Grubbs, Donald H. 1971. Cry from the Cotton: The Southern Tenant Farmers'
Union and the New Deal. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Grupo Interdisciplinario de Investigaci6n sobre las Americas. n.d. "Trans-
culturation and Cultural Hybridity." Montreal, Quebec: Institut National
de la Recherche Scientifique. Available at http://www.gira.info/en/about-
us/research-questions-and-key-notions/transculturation-and-cultural-
hybridity. Accessed December 31, 2013.
Guthrie, Woody. (1943) 1970. Bound for Glory. New York: Signet.
Gutierrez, David G. 1995. Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican
Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Guttman, Allen. 1965. "Walter Lowenfels' Poetic Politics." Massachusetts
Review 6, no. 4 (Autumn): 843-850.
Hall, Stuart. 2002. "Political Belonging in a World of Multiple Identities." In
Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context, and Practice, edited by S.
Vertovec y P. Cohen, 25-31. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harding, Rachel E., and Vincent G. Harding. 2004. "Singing to Freedom."
Sojourners Magazine 33 (8): 32-35. Available at https://sojo.net/magazine/
august-2004/singing-freedom. Accessed October 28, 2015.
Harrington, Edwin, and M6nica Gonzalez. 1987. Bomba en una calle de Pa-
lermo. Santiago, Chile: Editorial Emisi6n.
Harris, Michael W. 1992. The Rise of Gospel Blues: The Music of Thomas Andrew
Dorsey in the Urban Church. New York: Oxford University Press.
Haynes, Jo. 2013. Music, Difference, and the Residue of Race. New York: Rout-
ledge.
Heaton Vorse, Mary. 1938. Labor's New Millions. New York: Modern Age Books.
Heisley, Robert Michael. 1983. Corridistas de la huelga: Songmaking and Sing-
ing in the Lives of Two Individuals. Ph.D. diss. University of California, Los
Angeles.
Hernandez i Marti, Gil Manuel. 2006. "The Deterritorialization of Cultural
Heritage in a Globalized Modernity." Transfer: Journal of Contemporary
Culture 1:91-106.
Hesmondhalgh, David. 2013. Why Music Matters. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.


180 \ References

Highlander Research and Education Center. 2012. "Timeline: 100 Years of
Fighting for Justice." New Market, TN: Highlander Research and Education
Center. Available at http://highlandercenter.org/media/timeline/. Accessed
January 2, 2013.
Hille, Waldemar, ed. 1948. The People's Song Book. New York: Boni and Gaer.
Hoerder, Dirk. 2006. "Historians and Their Data: The Complex Shift from
Nation-State Approaches to the Study of People's Transcultural Lives."
Journal of American Ethnic History 25 (4): 85-96.
Horton, Aimee Isgrig. 1989. The Highlander Folk School: A History of Its Major
Programs, 1932-1961. New York: Carlson.
Horton, Myles. 1990. The Long Haul: An Autobiography. New York: Doubleday.
Horton, Zilphia, ed. 1939. Labor Songs. New York: R. R. Lawrence and Textile
Workers' Union of America.
Ignatieff, Michael. 1999. "Benign Nationalism? The Possibilities of the Civic Ideal."
In People, Nation, and State: The Meaning of Ethnicity and Nationalism, edited
by Edwin Mortimer and Robert Fine, 141-148. London: I. B. Taurus.
Irons, Janet. 2000. Testing the New Deal: The General Textile Strike of 1934 in the
American South. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Jackson, Bruce. 1968. "The Glory Songs of the Lord." In Our Living Traditions:
An Introduction to American Folklore, edited by Tristram Potter Coffin,
108-119. New York: Basic Books.
James, C.L.R. 1937. World Revolution, 1917-1936: The Rise and the Fall of the
Communist International. London: Martin, Secker, and Warburg.
Jara, Joan. 2008. Victor, un canto inconcluso. Santiago, Chile: LOM Ediciones.
Jayne, Gerald D. 2000. "Blacks in the Economy from Reconstruction to World
War I." In Upon These Shores: Themes in the African American Experience,
1600 to the Present, edited by William R. Scott and William G. Shade, 167-
181. New York: Routledge.
Johnson, Charles A. 1955. The Frontier Camp Meeting: Religion's Harvest Time.
Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University Press.
Jones, Arthur C. 1993. Wade in the Water: The Wisdom of the Spirituals. Maryk-
noll, NY: Orbis Books.
Jordan, Laura. 2009. "Mnsica y clandestinidad en dictadura: La represi6n, la cir-
culaci6n de mnsicas de Resistencia y el casete clandestino." Revista Musical
Chilena, no. 212, pp. 77-102.
Kaufman, Will. 2011. Woody Guthrie, American Radical. Urbana: University
of Illinois Press.
Kelley, Robin D. G. 1990. Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the
Great Depression. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
King, Martin Luther. 1964. Why We Can't Wait. New York: Harper and Row.
King, Richard H. 1988. "Citizenship and Self-Respect: The Experience of Poli-
tics in the Civil Rights Movement." Journal ofAmerican Studies 22 (1): 7-24.
Klein, Fernando. 2008. Canciones para la memoria: La Guerra Civil Espanola.
Barcelona: Ediciones Bellaterra.


References / 181

Klein, Joe. 1980. Woody Guthrie: A Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Klein, Naomi. 2008. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New
York: Picador.
Knight Raymond, Tiffany. 2009. Labor, Performance, and Theatre: Strike Cul-
ture and the Emergence of Organized Labor in the 1930's. Ph.D. diss, Uni-
versity of Southern California.
Koppelman, Robert S., ed. 2003. Sing Out Warning! Sing Out Love! The Writings
of Lee Hays. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Kornbluh, Peter. 2013. Kissinger and Chile: The Declassified Record. National
Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 437. September 11. Wash-
ington, DC: National Security Archive. Available at http://www2.gwu
.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB437/. Accessed June 16, 2014.
Korson, George. 1943. Coal Dust on the Fiddle: Songs and Stories of the Bitumi-
nous Industry. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
KPBS Radio. 2010. "The Legacy of Cesar Chavez." Transcript of radio show
These Days broadcast on March 31. San Diego, CA: KPBS Radio. Available
at http://www.kpbs.org/news/2010/mar/31/legacy-Cesar-Chavez/. Accessed
July 26, 2012.
Kuzmack, Nick. 2014. "Salt Lake City Indicts the System: Rally for Justice for Eric
Garner!" Salt Lake Underground (SLUG) Magazine, December 10. Available
at http://www.slugmag.com/articles/8640/SaltLakeCityIndictstheSystem
RallyforJusticeforEricGarnerl206.html. Accessed December 15, 2014.
Labour Party. 1955. The Labour Party Song Sheet: Labour Anthems, Traditional
Songs, and Community Favourites. London: Labour Party.
Lambert, George. 1938. "The Jersey City of the South." Unpublished manuscript
submitted to The Nation magazine. George and Latane Lambert Papers,
1935-1974, housed at the Texas Labor Archive, Library of the University of
Texas-Arlington (AR 127-16-12).
Lanser, Susan S. 1986. "Who Are the 'We'? The Shifting Terms of Feminist Dis-
course." Women's Studies Quarterly 14 (3/4): 18-20.
Laszewski, Chuck. 2005. The Life and Mysterious Death of Dean Reed. Edina,
MN: Beaver Pond Press.
Latinopia. 2010. "100 Years of Latino Music." Los Angeles: Latinopia. Available
at http://latinopia.com/latino-music/100-years-of-latino-music/. Accessed
June 8, 2012.
Law, John. 1994. Organizing Modernity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Letelier, Orlando. 1976. "The Chicago Boys in Chile: Economic Freedom's
Awful Toll." The Nation, August 28.
Levine, Lawrence W. 2007. Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-Amer-
ican Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom. 30th anniv. ed. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Lewis, David L. 1970. King: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: Penguin Books.
Lewis, John, with Michael D'Orso. 1998. Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of
the Movement. New York: Simon and Schuster.


182 \ References

Liberovici, Sergio, and Michele L. Straniero. 1963. Cantos de la Nueva Resisten-
cia Espanola, 1939-1961. Montevideo, Uruguay: Editorial El Siglo Ilustrado.
Lieberman, Robbie. 1995. My Song Is My Weapon: People's Songs, American
Communism, and the Politics of Culture, 1930-50. Champaign: University
of Illinois Press.
Lira, Agustin. 2007. A Yellow Rose from Texas: Emma Tenayuca. Fresno, CA:
Teatro de la Tierra.
Lomax, Alan, ed., with Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. 1967. Hard Hitting
Songs for Hard-Hit People. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
L6pez, Sabino. 1995. Transcript of oral history interview with Sabino L6pez.
Sacramento: Farmworker Movement Documentation Project. Available
at http://farmworkermovement.com/media/oral history/ParadigmTran
scripts/LopezSabino.pdf. Accessed July 2, 2013.
L6pez Barrios, Francisco. 1976. La nueva cancion en castellano. Madrid: Edi-
ciones Jncar.
Lovell, John, Jr. 1972. Black Song: The Forge and the Flame. The Story of How
the Afro-American Spiritual Was Hammered Out. New York: Macmillan.
Lynch, Timothy P. 1996. "'Sit down! Sit down!' Songs of the General Motors
Strike, 1936-1937." Michigan Historical Review 22 (2): 1-47.
MacDougall, David. 2009. "Cinema transcultural." Antpoda 9 (July-Decem-
ber): 47-88.
"March on Washington: The Day That Changed History. Readers Share Their
Experiences at the March on Washington 50 Years Ago." 2013. Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette, August 28. Electronic edition.
Markoe, Lauren. 2013. "National Cathedral Bids a Warm, Prayerful Goodbye to
Nelson Mandela." Washington Post, December 11. Electronic edition. Avail-
able at http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/national-cathe
dral-bids-a-warm-prayerful-goodbye-to-nelson-mandela/2013/12/11/52d9
8050-62b1-11e3-af0d-4bb80d704888_story.html. Accessed June 26, 2014.
Martin, Bradford D. 2001. "Politics as Art, Art as Politics: The Freedom Singers,
the Living Theater, and Public Performance. In Long Time Gone: Sixties
America Then and Now, edited by Alexander Bloom, 159-187. New York:
Oxford University Press.
. 2004. The Theater Is in the Street: Politics and Performance in Sixties
America. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Martin, Waldo F. 2000. "The Sounds of Blackness: African American Music."
In Upon These Shores: Themes in the African American Experience, 1600
to the Present, edited by William R. Scott and William G. Shade, 251-269.
New York: Routledge.
Marx, Karl, and Frederick Engels. 1848. Manifesto of the Communist Party.
Marxist Internet Archive. Available at https://www.marxists.org/archive/
marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/.
Mathews, Gordon, Gustavo Lins Ribeiro, and Carlos Alba Vega, eds. 2012. Glo-
balization from Below: The World's Other Economy. London: Routledge.


References / 183

Mattern, Mark. 1998. Acting in Concert: Music, Community, and Political
Action. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Maultsby, Portia K., Mellonee V. Burnim, and Susan Oehler. 2006. "Intellectual
History." In African American Music: An Introduction, edited by Mellonee
V. Burnim and Portia K. Maultsby, 7-32. New York: Routledge.
McGuire, Meredith B. 2008. Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life.
New York: Oxford University Press.
McSherry, J. Patrice. 2015. Chilean New Song: The Political Power of Music,
1960s to 1973. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
McSherry, J. Patrice, and Raul Molina Mejia. 2011. "Chilean Students Challenge
Pinochet's Legacy." NACLA Report on the Americas 44, no. 6 (November-
December): 29-34.
Memba, Javier. 2013. "Jose Maria inigo: El veterano presentador publica La
tele que fuimos (B), un homenaje personal a la television." Tiempo, June 13.
Available at http://www.tiempodehoy.com/entrevistas/ jose-maria-inigo2.
Accessed December 26, 2014.
Mendezona, Ram6n. 1995. La pirenaica y otros episodios. Madrid: Libertarias/
Prodhufi.
Mertes, Tom, ed. 2004. A Movement of Movements: Is Another World Really
Possible? London: Verso.
Merton, Robert K. 1968. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press.
Meza, Leopoldo V. 1966. "Joan Baez." El Malcriado, no. 52 (December 29): 15.
Monson, Ingrid. 2007. Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Moore, Wayne. 2010. Triumphant Warriors: The Story of the Wilmington 10.
Website. Available at http://triumphantwarriors.ning.com/forum/topics/
roots-of-the-wilmington-10?xgsource=activity. Accessed June 29, 2014.
Morris, Nancy. 1986. "Canto porque es necesario cantar: The New Song Movement
in Chile, 1973-1983," Latin American Research Review, 21 (2): 117-136.
. 2014. "New Song in Chile: Half a Century of Musical Activism." In The
Militant Song Movement in Latin America: Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina,
edited by Pablo Vila, 19-44. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
El movimiento 15-M: Construyendo la revoluci6n. 2012. Madrid: El Pais.
Munoz, Juanita. 1939. "In San Antonio, Texas." In We the Students: Highlander
Folk School, Winter Term 1939, edited by Students of the Highlander Folk
School, 58-59. Monteagle, TN: Highlander Folk School.
"Muri6 el mnsico catalin Xesco Boix, pionero de la canci6n 'folk."' 1984. El
Pais, July 23.
Nadelson, Reggie. 2006. The Life and Mystery of Dean Reed, the All-American
Boy Who Brought Rock'n'Roll to the Soviet Union. New York: Walker.
National Cathedral. 2013. "Celebrating the Life, Legacy, and Values of Nelson
Rolihlahla Mandela, July 18, 1918-December 5, 2013." Program for memo-
rial service organized by the Embassy of South Africa at the National
Cathedral in Washington, DC, on December 10, 2013.


184 \ References

Nino, Alex. 1996. "Las armas de la voz." El Pais, March 6. Electronic archive. Avail-
able at http://elpais.com/diario/1996/03/05/madrid/826028665_850215
.html. Accessed June 10, 2012.
O'Brien, M. J. 2013. We Shall Not Be Moved: The Jackson Woolworth's Sit-in and
the Movement It Inspired. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Ortiz, Fernando. 1947. Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf.
Oviedo, Telesforo. 1939. "Pecan Shelling in Texas: A Mexican Speaks." In We
the Students: Highlander Folk School, Winter Term 1939, edited by Students
of the Highlander Folk School,61-63. Mimeo Monteagle, TN: Highlander
Folk School.
Owens, William A. 1983. Tell Me a Story, Sing Me a Song: A Texas Chronicle.
Austin: University of Texas Press.
Panyella, Lluis, and Maria Josep Hernandez. 1995. Xesco Boix: Un amic, un
mestre. Barcelona: Edicions Raima.
. 2010. Xesco Boix: Histbria de la nostra histria. Barcelona: Publicaciones
de l'Abadia de Montserrat.
Parra, Isabel. 2009. El libro mayor de Violeta Parra: Un relato biogrdfico y testi-
monial. 4th ed. Santiago, Chile: Editorial Cuarto Propio.
Pearce, Matt, Maya Srikrishnan, and David Zucchino. 2014. "Protesters and
Police Face Off in St. Louis Suburb over Shooting." Los Angeles Times,
August 11. Electronic edition. Available at http://www.latimes.com/nation/
nationnow/la-na-missouri-st-louis-police-shooting-teen-20140811-story
.html#page=1. Accessed October 25, 2014.
Pecan Workers Local No. 172. 1938. "San Antonio: The Cradle of Texas Lib-
erty or Its Coffin?" Pamphlet contained in the George and Latane Lambert
Papers, AR 127-27-16, housed at the Texas Labor Archive of the Library of
the University of Texas-Arlington.
Peterson, Jan, and Terry Scott. 2005. "The UFW: Songs and Stories Sung and
Told by UFW Volunteers." Sacramento, CA: Farm Worker Movement Doc-
umentation Project. Available at https://libraries.ucsd.edu/farmworker
movement/media/Scott/INTRODUCTIONTOSONGSANDCOMMEN
TARY%28FINAL%29.pdf. Accessed July 3, 2013.
Pinto Vallejos, Julio, ed. 2005. Cuando hicimos historia: La experiencia de la
Unidad Popular. Santiago, Chile: LOM Ediciones.
Pitts, Walter. 1991. "Like a Tree Planted by the Water: The Musical Cycle in the
African-American Baptist Ritual." Journal of American Folklore 104 (413):
318-340.
Portes, Alejandro. 1996. "Transnational Communities: Their Emergence and
Significance in the Contemporary World-System." In Latin America in the
World Economy, edited by Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz and William C.
Smith, 151-168. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Preston, Paul. 2012. The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in
Twentieth-Century Spain. New York: Harper Press.


References / 185

Puche Macia, Ram6n. 2008. Himnos y canciones de la Guerra Civil. Available at
http://www.guerracivil1936.galeon.com/canciones.htm. Accessed July 13,
2013.
Pullen Jackson, George. (1933) 1965. White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands:
The Story of Fasola Folk, Their Songs, Singings, and "Buckwheat Notes." New
York: Dover Publications.
Ramirez, Francisco. 2013. "Las mil y una vidas de Luis Corvalin." Russia behind
the Headlines, July 31. Available at http://es.rbth.com/internacional/2013/07/31/
lasmil_y_unavidas_de_luis_corvalan_30643.html. Accessed June 25, 2014.
Ravest Santis, Guillermo. 2009. Preterito imperfecto: Memorias de un reportero
en tiempos chilenos de la Guerra Fria. Santiago, Chile: LOM Ediciones.
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. 1975. Songs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1955-1965:
A Study in Culture History. Ph.D. diss. Howard University, Washington, DC.
1987. "Let the Church Sing 'Freedom."' Black Music Research Journal
7:105-118.
. 1998. "Oh, Freedom: Music of the Movement." In A Circle of Trust:
Remembering SNCC, edited by Cheryl Lynn Greenberg, 110-126. New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
2001. If You Go, Don't Hinder Me: The African American Sacred Song
Tradition. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Reed, T. V. 2005. The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights
Movement to the Streets of Seattle. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press.
Reuss, Richard A., and JoAnne C. Reuss. 2000. American Folk Music and Left-
Wing Politics, 1927-1957. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
Rips, Geoff. 1983. "Living History: Emma Tenayuca Tells Her Story." Texas
Observer, October 28.
Ritzer, George. 2013. The McDonaldization of Society. 20th anniv. ed. Los Ange-
les: SAGE.
Robertson, Roland. 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. New-
bury Park, CA: SAGE.
Robeson, Paul, Howard Fast, Pete Seeger, Fred Hellerman, and Ronnie Gilbert.
1949. The Peekskill Story with Paul Robeson, Howard Fast, Pete Seeger and
the Weavers. Sound recording. New York: Charter Records.
Robinson, Earl, ed. 1937. America Sings. New York: Workers Book Shop.
Rodriguez Musso, Osvaldo. 1988. La nueva cancion chilena: Continuidad y
reflejo. Havana, Cuba: Ediciones Casa de las Americas.
Rolas de Aztlcin: Songs of the Chicano Movement. 2005. Washington, DC: Smith-
sonian Folkways Recordings.
Rosales, Francisco A. 1996. Chicano! The History of the Mexican American Civil
Rights Movement. Houston, TX: Arte Pnblico Press.
Roscigno, Vincent J., and William F. Danaher. 2004. The Voice of Southern
Labor: Radio, Music, and Textile Strikes, 1929-1934. Minneapolis: Univer-
sity of Minnesota Press.


186 \ References

Rosenstone, Robert A. 1980. Crusade of the Left: The Lincoln Battalion in the
Spanish Civil War. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Rosenthal, Robert, and Richard Flacks. 2011. Playing for Change: Music and
Musicians in the Service of Social Movements. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Pub-
lishers.
Rouse, Roger. 1991. "Mexican Migration and the Social Space of Postmodern-
ism." Diaspora 1 (1): 8-24.
Roy, William G. 2010. Reds, Whites, and Blues: Social Movements, Folk Music,
and Race in the United States. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Salmond, John. 2003. "Southern Struggles: Aspects of the Fight for Economic
and Social Justice in the Twentieth Century American South." Australasian
Journal of American Studies 22 (1): 49-65.
Salter, Daren. 2011. "Civil Rights Congress (1946-1956)." Entry in Online Ency-
clopedia of Signficant People and Places in African American History, edited
by Quintard Taylor. Seattle, WA: BlackPast.Org. Available at http://www
.blackpast.org/?q=aah/civil-rights-congress-1946-1956. Accessed January
3, 2013.
Sandoval, Efr6n. 2008. "Infraestructuras transfronterizas: Un concepto para su
analisis." Trayectorias 10 (26): 41-52.
Sanger, Kerran L. 1995. When the Spirit Says Sing! The Role of Freedom Songs in
the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Garland.
Schneider, Stephen. 2007. Organic Classrooms: Rhetorical Education at the High-
lander Folk School, 1932-1961. Ph.D. diss., Department of English, Pennsyl-
vania State University, University Park.
Schneider Arce, Victor. 2010. General Schneider: Un hombre de honor, un crimen
impune. Santiago, Chile: OchoLibros.
Scott, Allison. 2014. "Hundreds Protest Ferguson, NYC Rulings; Stop Traf-
fic in Clinton." Utica Observer-Dispatch, December 4. Electronic edition.
Available at http://www.uticaod.com/article/20141204/News/141209718.
Accessed December 15, 2014.
Scott, Glenn, and Maria Flores. 1979. Talkin' Union. Documentary 16mm film.
Austin: People's History in Texas.
Scott, John Anthony. 1983. The Ballad of America: The History of the United
States in Song and Story. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Seeger, Pete. 1965. "Some Songs of the Selma Marchers." Broadside: The Nation-
al Topical Song Magazine, no. 57 (April 10).
Seeger, Pete, and Bob Reiser. 1989. Everybody Says Freedom: A History of the
Civil Rights Movement in Songs and Pictures. New York: Norton.
Shannon, David. 1955. The Socialist Party of America: A History. New York:
Macmillan.
Shapiro, Harold A. 1952. "The Pecan Shellers of San Antonio, Texas." Southwest-
ern Social Science Quarterly 32 (4): 229-244.
Small, Christopher. 1998. Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening.
Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.


References / 187

. 2011. "Prologue: Misunderstanding and Reunderstanding." In Music
and Solidarity: Questions of Universality, Consciousness, and Connection,
edited by Felicity Laurence and Olivier Urbain, vii-xviii. New Brunswick,
NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Smith, Michael Peter, and Luis Eduardo Guarnizo, eds. 1998. Transnationalism
from Below. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. 2014. "Bernice Johnson
Reagon." Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. Available at http://
www.folklife.si.edu/center/legacy/reagon.aspx. Accessed June 28, 2014.
Sociedad Biblica Americana. 1926. La santa biblia que contiene los sagrados libros
del antiguo y nuevo testamento. New York: Sociedad Biblica Americana.
Sociedades Biblicas en America Latina. 1960. La santa biblia: Antiguo y nuevo
testamento. London: Sociedades Biblicas en America Latina.
Southern, Eileen. 1997. The Music of Black Americans: A History. 3rd ed. New
York: Norton.
Spencer, Jon Michael. 1990. Protest and Praise: Sacred Music of Black Religion.
Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
Stauffer, John, and Benjamin Soskis. 2013. The Battle Hymn of the Republic:
A Biography of the Song That Marches On. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Stern, Geoffrey. 1990. The Rise and Decline of International Communism. Hants,
UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Stoney, George, Judith Helfan, and Susanne Rostock. 1995. The Uprising of '34.
New York: First Run/Icarus Films.
Sweet Honey in the Rock. 1981. Good News: 7th Anniversary Concert, November
7, 1980: Recorded Live, All Souls Church Unitarian, Washington, DC. Chi-
cago: Flying Fish Records.
Taylor, Diana. 1991. "Transculturating Transculturation." Performing Arts Jour-
nal 13 (2): 90-104.
Tejeda, Armando. 2011. "En Madrid los 'indignados' responden: 'No nos
moverin' de la Puerta del Sol." Clarin, May 19. Available at http://www
.elclarin.cl/web/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1372&
Itemid=12. Accessed September 11, 2012.
Tenayuca, Emma, and Homer Brooks. 1939. "The Mexican Question in the
Southwest." The Communist, March, pp. 257-268.
Tippett, Tom. 1931. When Southern Labor Stirs. New York: Jonathan Cape and
Harrison Smith.
Tisa, John. 1937. The Story of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion. New York: Sheri-
dan Square Press.
1985. Recalling the Good Fight: An Autobiography of the Spanish Civil
War. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey.
Triandafyllidou, Anna. 2009. "Sub-Saharan African Immigrant Activists in
Europe: Transcultural Capital and Transcultural Community Building."
Ethnic and Racial Studies 32 (1): 93-116.


188 \ References

Turino, Thomas. 2003. "Are We Global Yet? Globalist Discourse, Cultural For-
mations, and the Study of Zimbabwean Popular Music." British Journal of
Ethnomusicology 12 (2): 51-79.
. 2008. Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation. Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press.
United Democratic Front. n.d. "Songsheets." Papers related to the Delmas Treason
Trial, 1985-1989, housed at the University of Witwatersand. Available at http://
www.historicalpapers.wits.ac.za/?inventory/U/collections&c=AK2117/R/8206.
Accessed June 27, 2014.
United Farm Workers of America. 1975. A Farm Worker Film: Fighting for Our
Lives. Documentary. Keene, CA: United Farm Workers of America.
. 1976. ;Si Se Puede! LP disc. Keene, CA: United Farm Workers of Amer-
ica.
Urry, John. 2000. "Mobile Sociology." British Journal of Sociology 51 (1): 185-203.
Valenzuela, Rub6n Adrian. 2009. "La verdadera historia de las cintas con las
nltimas palabras de Salvador Allende." Paskin, October 17. Available at
http://elpaskin3.lacoctelera.net. Accessed May 20, 2011.
Valladares, Carlos, and Manuel Vilches. 2009. Rolando Alarcn: La cancion en
la noche. Santiago, Chile: Editorial Quimant.
Varas, Florencia, and Jos6 Manuel Vergara. 1973. Operacin Chile. Buenos
Aires, Argentina: Editorial Pomaire.
Vargas, Zaragosa. 1997. "Tejana Radical: Emma Tenayuca and the San Antonio
Labor Movement during the Great Depression." Pacific Historical Review
66 (4): 553-580.
2005. Labor Rights Are Civil Rights: Mexican American Workers in Twen-
tieth-Century America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Verdugo, Patricia. 2008. Allende: C6mo la Casa Blanca provoc6 su muerte. San-
tiago, Chile: Catalonia.
Verrall, Krys. 2011. "The Aesthetics of Transcultural Revolution: Freedom
Songs in Halifax and Toronto, 1965 to 1967." Topia 25:51-75.
Vertovic, Steven, and Robin Cohen. 2002. "Introduction: Conceiving Cosmo-
politanism." In Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context, and Prac-
tice, edited by Steven Vertovec and Robin Cohen, 1-22. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Vicaria de Pastoral. n.d. El libro de salmos. Mexico City: Arquidi6cesis Primada
de M6xico. Available at http://www.vicariadepastoral.org.mx/sagrada_
escritura/biblia/antiguo_testamento/39_salmos_01.htm. Accessed May
17, 2015.
Villafane Santos, Luis Claudio. 2005. "American, United Statian, USAmerican,
or Gringos?" Ameriquests 2:1. Available at http://ejournals.library.vander
bilt.edu/ojs/index.php/ameriquests/article/view/15.
Virginia Writers Project. (1940) 1969. The Negro in Virginia. New York: Arno
Press and the New York Times. Sponsored by the Federal Writers Project of


References / 189

the Works Projects Administration and originally published by the Hamp-
ton Institute.
Waldron, Jeremy. 2000. "What Is Cosmopolitan?" Journal of Political Philosophy
8 (2): 227-243.
Walker, Wyatt Tee. 1979. Somebody's Calling My Name: Black Sacred Music and
Social Change. Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press.
Walwik, Joseph. 1999. "Paul Robeson, Peekskill, and the Red Menace." Pennsyl-
vania History 66 (1): 71-82.
Watt, Alan J. 2010. Farm Workers and the Churches: The Movement in California
and Texas. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.
White, Newman I. 1928. American Negro Folk Songs. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Willens, Doris. 1988. Lonesome Traveler: The Life of Lee Hays. New York:
Norton.
Williams, Raymond. 1977. Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Wimore, Gayraud S. 2000. "Black Religious Traditions: Sacred and Secular
Themes." In Upon These Shores: Themes in the African American Experi-
ence, 1600 to the Present, edited by William R. Scott and William G. Shade,
284-299. New York: Routledge.
Wood, Peter H. 2000. "Africans in Eighteenth Century North America." In
Upon These Shores: Themes in the African American Experience, 1600 to
the Present, edited by William R. Scott and William G. Shade, 83-101. New
York: Routledge.
Work, John Wesley. 1915. Folk Song of the American Negro. Nashville, TN: Press
of Fisk University.
Yarrow, Peter. 2014. "My Last Visit with Pete Seeger." The Stewardship Report:
Connecting Goodness, January 30. Available at http://stewardshipreport
.com/peter-yarrow-my-last-visit-with-pete-seeger/. Accessed June 25, 2014.
Ybarra, Felipe. 1932. "A Worker Writes: The Pecan Slaves of Texas." Papers of
the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers of America, AR 36-1-
13, of the Texas Labor Archive, Library of the University of Texas-Arling-
ton.
Yung, Judy. 1999. Unbound Voices: A Documentary History of Chinese Women
in San Francisco. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Zuckerman, Phil. 2000. DuBois on Religion. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press.



Index

Abrahams, Roger, 36, 130
Ackley, Alfred, 163n16
AFL, 53
African Americans, 54, 62-75; in labor
movement, 47-49, 131; in Lincoln
Brigade, 93; song style of, 33-34, 130
Aguirre Cerda, Pedro, 140
"Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me
Around" (song), 72
Alarc6n, Rolando, 140-142
Albornoz, Cesar, 20-21
Allende, Salvador, 17-23, 103; election
of, 22, 122
Alma (music group), 151-152
Almanac Singers (music group), 44, 49,
54-57, 118, 131
Als 4 Vents record label, 99, 122
American Federation of Labor (AFL),
53
American Field Service, 97, 121
American Legion, 57-61
Americas Disinherited (film), 49
Ames, Russell, 31-32
Anasco Arratia, Manuel, 23-24
Angola, 141

anti-Franco protests, 10-13, 25-26, 90,
95-110, 118, 141; Canci6n del Pueblo
and, 99-108, 121-122, 133; Grup de
Folk and, 96-99, 104, 121-122, 133.
See also Spain
apartheid, 150-151, 172n5
Appelbaum, Richard, 136
Armella, Jaume, 97-99, 168n12
autoworkers, 50-51
Baez, Joan, 70, 96, 100, 133; Chilean
tour of, 108; civil rights movement
and, 121; cosmopolitanism of, 151; in
farmworker movement, 87-89, 93; at
Newport Folk Festival, 97; Spanish
tour of, 90-91, 94-95, 98
"Ballad for Americans" (song), 56
Barcelona, anti-Franco protests in,
96-99, 101-102, 104, 121-122, 133
"Basta ya" (song), 108, 169n20
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic"
(song), 163n13
Beck, Ulrich, 143
Berriozabal, Maria Antonietta, 152
Bevel, James, 65, 165n2


192 \ Index

biblical allusions in songs, 27-29, 114,
132, 162n2
Birri, Fernando, 10
blues music, 36, 162n3
Boatner, Edward, 37
Boix, Xesco, 96-99, 101-102, 121-122,
168n10; cosmopolitanism of, 144;
politics of, 139; research on, 155-156;
Seeger and, 96-97, 115, 121, 133
Bourdieu, Pierre, 128, 144-146
Bravo, Jos6 Manuel, 101
Brecht, Bertolt, 106
Brigada Ramona Parra, 171n4 (concl.)
Brookins, A. B., 48
Brookwood Labor College, 43, 52-53,
93, 118, 119
Brown, Michael, 75
Bruce, Dickson D., 163n14
Bukovsky, Vladimir, 148
Burnim, Mellonee, 36, 163n9
Burton, Michael, 170n1 (concl.)
Burton, Phillip, 170n1 (concl.)
Camacho, Hilario, 99-100, 101
camp meetings, 33-38, 44, 67, 117, 129,
134. See also Great Awakening
Canci6n del Pueblo (music group),
99-108, 121-122, 133, 139; cosmo-
politanism of, 144; research on,
155-156
Capitol Records, 148
Carawan, Candie, 156
Carawan, Guy, 53, 54, 63-66, 144, 156
Carrasco, Eduardo, 141
Carroll, Peter, 92
Carter Family (music group), 25, 82
Cash, Johnny, 25, 82
Castaneda, Antonia, 152
Celdrin, Adolfo, 100, 101, 104, 133, 139,
169n18; Cajitas album of, 106-107, 142
Chambliss, William, 136
Chatfield, LeRoy, 156
chautauqua movement, 52, 53, 93,
164n10
Chavez, Cesar, 13, 83-87
Chicano movement, 82-89, 121, 132,

152, 156-157. See also Mexican
Americans
Chile, 17-26, 108, 122-123; Baez tour
of, 108; Communist Party of, 18, 19,
123, 139-141, 147-149, 161n9
Chile Rie y Canta (folk music club), 19
CIO. See Congress of Industrial Orga-
nizations (CIO)
Civil Rights Congress, 57, 58
civil rights movement, 62-75, 120-121,
142; anti-Franco protests and, 105;
Chicanos and, 83; communists in,
56, 139; cosmopolitanism of, 144;
Freedom Riders of, 71; Highlander
Center and, 62-66, 120; Ku Klux
Klan and, 57-60; labor movement
and, 126, 131
Clearwater (environmental organiza-
tion), 152-153
Coad, Mack, 93
coal miners, 39, 41-45, 52, 117
Cobb, William, 167n3
Cohen, Norm, 43-44
Cohen, Robin, 171n6
Commonwealth College, 51-52, 54,
93, 118
Communist Party, 137-138; of Chile,
18, 19, 123, 139-141, 147-149, 161n9;
of Spain, 139; of United States,
118-120,139
Cone, James, 29-31
Congress of Industrial Organizations
(CIO), 39, 47, 55, 93, 117; Highlander
Folk School and, 53; Lincoln Brigade
and, 91, 93; pecan shellers and, 79,
118-119
Conrad, David Eugene, 48
Corbin, David Alan, 42
El Coro del Pueblo (The People's
Choir), 151
Corvalin, Luis, 147-149
cosmopolitanism, 137-139, 142-145,
171n5. See also globalization
Coulon, Jorge, 3-4
Courlander, Harold, 162n6
Cuando hicimos historia (book), 4


Index / 193

Cuba, 127, 129, 139
Cuccioletta, Donald, 128
cultural deterritorialization, 114-115
cultural hybridity, 170n2
Cunningham, Sis, 54
Darden, Robert, 30-31, 34
Divalos, Eulogio, 22, 161n8
Davis, Angela, 140, 171n4 (concl.)
Debs, Eugene, 48
"Deep River" (song), 32
Delano, California, strike against grape
growers, 83-86, 93, 121, 132
de la Serra, Pi, 97
del Mar Bonet, Maria, 97
Denisoff, R. Serge, 41-42, 44, 56
Denning, Michael, 167n2
Diaz, Joaquin, 168n15
DICAP, 19, 21, 123, 139, 141
Dictionary of North American Hym-
nology (DNAH), 156-157
Discoteca del Cantar Popular (DICAP),
19, 21, 123, 139, 141
"Dispersos" (song), 123
DNAH, 156-157
Dombrowski, James, 53
Douglass, Frederick, 31, 32
DuBois, W.E.B., 28, 32
Durkheim, Emile, 11, 13, 41
Dylan, Bob, 2, 97, 100, 121, 133; "Ballad
of a Thin Man," 3
Editorial Universitaria Madrilena,
Sociedad An6nima (EDUMSA),
102-103, 122
EDUMSA, 102-103, 122
Eisler, Hanns, 95
Els 16 Jutges (music group), 97, 98,
101-102
Epstein, Dena, 36
Evers, Medgar, 72
Eyerman, Ron, 8, 12, 66, 74
"Eyes on the Prize" (song), 65
Fabregas, Angel, 99
farmworker movement, 12, 13, 76-82,

144, 151-152; grape boycott and, 12,
83-86, 93, 132. See also United Farm
Workers (UFW)
Fast, Howard, 58-59, 61
Featherstone, David, 171n2 (concl.)
Felipe, Le6n, 100
Fernandez Toca, Ignacio, 101-105, 122
Ferrus, Diana, 151
Fisher, Harry, 92-93
Flacks, Richard, 8, 11, 34, 69
Floyd, Samuel, 33
Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley, 54
"folk consciousness," 56
"Follow the Drinking Gourd" (song), 32
Foss, George, 36, 130
Franco, Francisco, 90, 96. See also anti-
Franco protests
Freedom Riders, 71
Freedom Singers (music group), 67-70,
85, 87-88, 120-121, 126, 144. See also
Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC)
freedom songs, 66-75, 120-121, 166n11;
Martin Luther King on, 62, 70
Friedman, Milton, 21
Friesen, Gordon, 54
Frith, Simon, 9-10, 34, 125
Fuentes, Lichi, 152
Galeano, Eduardo, 10
Garcia Canclini, Nstor, 170n2
Garcia Lorca, Federico, 100
Garland, Jim, 54
Garner, Eric, 75
General Motors strike, 50-51
German Democratic Republic, 25, 140,
148
Glazer, Joe, 163n4
Glazer, Tom, 54
globalization, 136-137, 171n2 (concl.);
cosmopolitanism and, 137-139,
142-145, 171n5; neoliberalism and,
21; transculturation and, 114-115,
125-134, 142, 145-146
G6mez, Antonio, 101, 103-105, 107
Gonzalez, Leopoldo, 95


194 \ Index

Gonzalez Lucini, Fernando, 105-106
gospel songs. See spirituals
grape boycott, 12, 83-86, 93, 132. See
also United Farm Workers (UFW)
Graves, Matthew, 126, 128
Great Awakening: First, 28, 29; Second,
13, 33-38, 44, 67, 117, 129, 134
Great Depression, 39, 48-49, 78, 117-118
Green, George, 79-80
Grimau, Julian, 141
Grubbs, Donald, 164n8
El Grup de Folk de Barcelona, 97-99,
101-102, 104, 121-122
Grupo Interdisciplinario de Investiga-
ci6n sobre las Amricas, 126-127
Guthrie, Arlo, 2, 153
Guthrie, Woody, 46, 54-56; Peekskill
riots and, 60-61, 164n14
Gutierrez, David, 83
Hall, Stuart, 143, 171n5
Hammett, Dashiell, 54
Harris, Michael, 165n3
Harris, Rutha Mae, 68
Hays, Lee, 44-45, 49, 52, 54, 118; "If I
Had a Hammer," 44, 60, 142; Peeks-
kill riots and, 60, 61; sharecroppers
and, 130-131; "Wasn't That a Time?"
135; on "zipper songs," 67, 131, 163n4
"Hemos dicho basta" (song), 22, 23,
148, 169n20
"Hermano lloraris" (song), 142
Hernandez, Maria Josep, 168n10
Hernandez, Miguel, 100
Herrera Petere, Jos6, 95
Highlander Folk School, 45, 53, 118,
156; civil rights movement and,
62-66, 120; pecan shellers' union
and, 81, 119
Hill, Joe, 40-41
Hille, Waldemar, 54, 56-57, 65
Hillman, Sidney, 53
Hoerder, Dirk, 127, 128
"Hold the Fort" (song), 50-51
Honecker, Erich, 148
Horton, Myles, 53, 62-63

Horton, Zilphia, 53, 118, 156; death of,
63; folk music collection of, 164n11;
on labor songs, 40; successor of, 54;
on textile workers' strike, 45-46
House Un-American Activities Com-
mittee (HUAC), 57, 171n1 (concl.)
Houston, Cisco, 60-61
HUAC, 57, 171n1 (concl.)
Huerta, Dolores, 83, 86-87; website of,
167n9
Hutchison, Kay Bailey, 152
hybridity, cultural, 170n2
Ibarruri, Dolores ("La Pasionaria"), 79,
90-91, 95
"If I Had a Hammer" (song), 1-2, 44,
60; Spanish version of, 142
Ignatieff, Michael, 143
ILGWU, 51, 53
"I'm Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table"
(song), 65
indignados protests, 95, 108
Industrial Workers of the World, 40
infrastructures, 14, 115-124, 137, 145
Interdisciplinary Group for Research
on the Americas, 126-127
internationalism, 137-139, 142-145,
171n2 (concl.)
International Ladies Garment Workers'
Union (ILGWU), 51, 53
International Monetary Fund, 21
Inti-Illimani (music group), 2-4, 141
"I Shall Not Be Moved," 6, 24-38,
147-154; biblical allusions in, 27-28,
114, 132, 162n2; Carter Family
recording of, 82; Cash's recording
of, 82; as freedom song, 72-75; social
transmission of, 113-124, 142; trans-
culturation of, 125-134; as union
song, 41-47, 61, 117-118
"I" songs, 74-75, 131
Ives, Burl, 54
Jackson, Molly, 54
Jackson, Pullen, 34, 163n10
"Jacob's Ladder" (song), 32


Index / 195

Jamison, Andrew, 8, 12, 66, 74
Jara, Victor, 2-4, 7, 139-141, 161n10;
arrest of, 24; "El martillo," 142; Dean
Reed and, 148; "Vientos del pueblo,"
3,4
jazz, 162n3
"Joe Hill" (song), 56
Johnson, Bernice. See Reagon, Bernice
Johnson
Johnson, Charles, 35, 162n8
"Join the Union" (song), 44
Jolaosha, Omotayo, 151
Jones, Arthur, 30, 129
Juventudes Comunistas de Chile, 19,
123, 139, 141, 148, 161n9
Juventudes Espanolas, 96
Keeney, Frank, 43
Keynote record label, 55, 118
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 30, 62; on
freedom songs, 62, 70; March on
Washington and, 69, 70, 87-88,
165n7; at Selma, 72
King, Richard, 70
Kissinger, Henry, 24
Koger, Harry, 73
Koppelman, Robert S., 42, 49
Korson, George, 41
Ku Klux Klan, 57-60
"Kumbayah" (song), 104, 133
labor colleges, 51-54, 93, 117-119. See
also Highlander Folk School
labor movement, 39-61, 117-118, 131;
civil rights movement and, 62-66,
120, 126; communists in, 139
Lafayette, Bernard, 65, 165n2
Lambert, George, 79-81, 119
Lampell, Millard, 54
Lanser, Susan S., 74
Largo Farias, Rend, 19, 155
Law, John, 114
League Against War and Fascism, 92
Leal, Luis Jos6, 102
Ledbetter, Huddie ("Lead Belly"),
54-56

Lenin, Vladimir, 138
Levine, Lawrence, 163n10
Lewis, Jerry Lee, 25
Lewis, John (civil rights leader), 62, 65
Lewis, John L. (labor leader), 39-40, 53
Lieberman, Robbie, 164n12
Lincoln Brigade, 91-95, 119-120, 135;
archives of, 156. See also Spanish
Civil War
Lira, Agustin, 83-85, 86, 88, 93, 121,
132, 133; cosmopolitanism of, 144;
research on, 156; Teatro de la Tierra
and, 152. See also Teatro Campesino
"Little Boxes" (song), 106, 133, 142
Llach, Lluis, 97
Lomax, Alan, 46, 54, 57
Lomax, Bess, 54
Lovell, John, 30, 31
Lowenfels, Walter, 135, 170n1 (concl.)
Lynch, Timothy, 50
MacColl, Ewan, 142
MacDougall, David, 126
Mandela, Nelson, 150-151
Manns, Patricio, 140-141
March on Washington (1963), 69, 70,
87-88, 165n7
Martin, Bradford, 67-68
Martin, Phyllis, 71
Martin, Waldo, 31, 33-34; on camp
meetings, 34; on gospel songs, 162n3
Marx, Karl, 27, 137
Mattern, Mark, 7
Matyas, Jennie, 51
McCarthyism, 57, 61
McDonald's restaurants, 169n2
McGuire, Meredith, 70
Mendezona, Ram6n, 107-108
Merton, Robert K., 171n5
Mexican Americans, 121; Chicano
movement and, 82-89, 121, 132, 152,
156-157; pecan shellers' strike of
1938, 13, 76-82, 118-119, 132, 137,
152; research on, 156-157. See also
United Farm Workers (UFW)
Mitchell, Bill, 47


196 \ Index

Mitchell, H. L., 48
Monitor Records, 2
Mujica, Jos6 ("Pepe"), 171n2 (coda)
"musicking," 8-12, 159n5
National Labor Relations Act, 45
Neblett, Charles, 68, 71
neoliberalism, 21. See also globalization
Neruda, Pablo, 88, 140, 141, 167n12
Newport Folk Festival, 97
New Song Movement. See nueva can-
cion movement
Nixon, Richard, 24
"No More Mourning" (song), 52
"No pasarin," 79, 94-95, 168n8
Nova Cand6 movement, 97, 99, 106
nueva cancion movement, 3, 18-19, 21,
88, 140-142; cosmopolitanism of,
97, 144
O'Brien, M. J., 72
Occupy Wall Street movement, 152-153
Ochs, Phil, 97, 100
"Oh, Brother, Did You Weep?" (song),
142
"Oh, Freedom" (song), 71
"Oigan muchachos" (song), 123
Orellana, Fernando, 171n4 (concl.)
Ortiz, Fernando, 126-127, 129
Panyella, Lluis, 96-99, 155, 168n10
Parks, Rosa, 62
Parra, Angel, 140-141, 148
Parra, Violeta, 88, 100, 139-141, 148
Partido Communista. See Communist
Party
Patria y Libertad (fascist group), 20
Paxton, Tom, 100
pecan shellers' strike (1938), 13, 76-82,
94, 118-119, 132, 137, 152; research
on, 157
Peekskill riots (1949), 57-61
Pena de los Parra record label, 123
penasfolcloricas (folk clubs), 19, 123
Perkins, Carl, 25
Peter, Paul, and Mary (music group),
1-2, 55, 70, 121, 153-154

Pezoa, Francisco, 167n12
Pinochet, Augusto, 17-21
Pintanel, Xavier, 94
Pitts, Walter, 37, 165n3
Popular Unity. See Unidad Popular
(UP)
Presley, Elvis, 25
Primera, Ali, 123
"El pueblo unido jamas seri vencido,"
21, 151 (song)
Quilapayun (music group), 141, 148,
169n20
Ravest, Guillermo, 19-20, 155
Reagan, Ronald, 21
Reagon, Bernice Johnson, 13, 29, 47,
149-150; on freedom songs, 68,
74-75, 144; scholarship of, 149-150;
on spirituals, 37-38; Sweet Honey in
the Rock and, 66, 149-150
Reagon, Cordell, 68
Reagon, Toshi, 153
Rechniewski, Elizabeth, 126, 128
Reed, Dean, 148, 149
Reynolds, Malvina, 142
Ritzer, George, 169n2
Rivera Noriega, Roberto, 21-23, 25,
123, 155; politics of, 139, 141, 170n4;
Dean Reed and, 148, 149. See also
Tiemponuevo (music group)
Robertson, Roland, 136
Robeson, Paul, 32, 57, 60, 88, 140,
167n12
Robinson, Earl, 54, 56
"Roll the Union On" (song), 44, 52
Rosenstone, Robert, 91-92
Rosenthal, Robert, 8, 11-12, 34, 69
Roy, William G., 14, 67, 116-117,
120
Rubia, Xoan, 169n17
Salmond, John, 45
San Antonio pecan shellers' strike
(1938), 13, 76-82, 94, 118-119, 132,
137, 152
Sanchez, Sergio, 25, 123, 170n4


Index / 197

Sanchez Padilla, Beva, 82
Sandoval, Efrdn, 14, 115-117
Sands, Rosita, 36
Sanger, Kerran, 73-74, 165n8, 166n11
Schutz, Alfred, 70
SCLC, 65, 66
Seeger, Peggy, 142
Seeger, Pete, 2, 46, 65, 92; Almanac
Singers and, 49, 54, 56, 118; Boix
and, 96-97, 115, 121, 133; cosmopoli-
tanism of, 144; death of, 153-154;
"False from True," 159n4; House
Un-American Activities Committee
and, 171n1 (concl.); "If I Had a Ham-
mer," 44, 60, 142; "Letter to Eve," 7;
Occupy Wall Street and, 152-153;
Peekskill riots and, 57, 164n13; Span-
ish tour of, 101; "We Shall Over-
come," 53-54, 97
Seregni, Liber, 148
Serna, Elisa, 100-101, 106, 139
Serrat, Joan Manuel, 97
sharecroppers, 41, 42, 93; history
of, 164n8; unionization of, 47-49,
130-131
Silber, Irwin, 55-56
"Si me quieres escribir" (song), 93
slave songs. See spirituals
Small, Christopher, 8-10, 125, 142,
159-160n5
SNCC, 62, 65-71, 120, 126. See also
Freedom Singers (music group)
Socialist Party of Catalonia, 139
"Solidarity Forever" (song), 41, 56, 80;
in Chicano movement, 84
sorrow songs, 32-33
Soskis, Benjamin, 163n13
South Africa, 150-151, 172n5
Southern, Eileen, 34
Southern Christian Leadership Confer-
ence (SCLC), 65, 66
Southern Tenant Farmers' Union
(STFU), 42, 48-49, 73, 93, 118,
164n8
Soviet Union, 138-139
Spain, 107, 108; Baez's tour in, 90-91,
94-95, 98; Communist Party of, 122;

indignados protests in, 95, 108. See
also anti-Franco protests
Spanish Civil War, 79, 90-95, 119-120,
135; refugee resettlement in Chile,
123; songs of, 167n6
Spencer, Jon Michael, 73
spirituals, 28-38, 44-45, 61, 129-130,
134; civil rights movement and, 62,
64, 120; definition of, 162n3; origins
of, 147; research on, 157
Stalin, Joseph, 138-139
Starr, Helen Norton, 43
Stauffer, John, 163n13
STFU, 42, 48-49, 73, 93, 118, 164n8
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 166n2
Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC), 62, 65-71, 120,
126. See also Freedom Singers (music
group)
Sun Records, 25
Sweet Honey in the Rock (music
group), 66, 149-150
Taylor, Diana, 127-128
Teatro Campesino, 83-84, 87, 93, 95,
121, 132; cosmopolitanism of, 144;
research on, 156. See also United
Farm Workers (UFW)
Teatro de la Tierra, 152, 172n12
Tenayuca, Emma ("La Pasionaria de
Texas"), 79-82, 91, 152, 156
Tereshkova, Valentina, 141
Terry, Sonny, 54
textile workers, 40-42, 45-47, 53, 69
Thatcher, Margaret, 21
"This Little Light of Mine" (song),
74
Thomas, Norman, 164n6
Tiemponuevo (music group), 19-25,
103, 108, 122-123, 133; Communist
Party and, 139-141; cosmopolitan-
ism of, 142, 144, 148; research on,
155
Tippett, Tom, 42
Tisa, John, 93
tobacco workers, 41, 42, 47
Toharia, Manuel, 101, 103


198 \ Index

Torres, Luis, 87
Totten, John C., 36
Townsend, A. M., 37
La Trigala (music group), 101, 169n16
transculturation, 114-115, 125-134,
142, 145-146
Tren Popular de la Cultura, 22, 123. See
also Unidad Popular (UP)
Triandafyllidou, Anna, 128, 145
Trotsky, Leon, 138
Truman, Harry S., 57
Tubman, Harriet, 32
Turino, Thomas, 142-144, 160n5
Turner, Nat, 31-32
UAW, 50-51
UFW, 12, 93, 144, 156; Chavez and, 13,
83-87. See also Teatro Campesino
UMWA, 39, 41, 43
Underground Railroad, 31
Unidad Popular (UP), 20-23, 122, 133;
Corvalan and, 147; hymn of, 21; Tren
Popular de la Cultura of, 22, 123
United Auto Workers (UAW), 50-51
United Farm Workers (UFW), 12, 93,
144, 156; Chavez and, 13, 83-87. See
also Teatro Campesino
United Mine Workers of America
(UMWA), 39, 41, 43
UP. See Unidad Popular (UP)
The Uprising of '34 (film), 45
Uruguay, 148
Valdez, Luis, 83-84, 86, 88, 93, 132,
133; cosmopolitanism of, 144;
research on, 156. See also Teatro
Campesino
Vargas, Zaragos, 79-81
Vasquez, Santos, 79-80, 119
Verrall, Krys, 68, 126
Vertovic, Steven, 171n6

Vietnam War protests, 101, 140-142
Viglietti, Daniel, 100
Vivian, C. T., 66
Vorse, Mary Heaton, 39, 50-51
"Wade in the Water" (song), 32
Waldron, Jeremy, 143
Walker, Wyatt Tee, 30
"Wasn't That a Time?" (song), 135,
170n1 (concl.)
Watkins, Hollis, 67
Watts, Isaac, 28
Weavers (music group), 44, 55
We Charge Genocide report, 57
Wells Sol6rzano, Patricia, 151-152
"We Shall Overcome" (song), 53-54,
63, 64, 74; Spanish version of, 84
Wesley, John, 28
West, Don, 53
West Virginia coal mines, 42-45, 117
"What Is That I See Yonder Coming?"
(song), 52
"Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"
(song), 2, 142
White, Newman, 35-36
Williams, Claude, 42, 48, 49, 73; at
Commonwealth College, 52, 118;
Hays and, 52, 53, 118; Hille and, 54;
Horton and, 53
Williams, Raymond, 12
Wilmington, North Carolina, 150
Wood, Peter, 29
World Bank, 21
World Social Forum (2001), 136-137
Yarrow, Peter, 153-154. See also Peter,
Paul and Mary (music group)
Yung, Judy, 164n9
Yupanqui, Atahualpa, 100, 108
"zipper songs," 44-45, 67, 131, 163n4


DAVID SPENER is Chairperson of the Department of Sociology and
Anthropology at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. He is
co-author (with Moises Chaparro and Jose Seves) of Canto de las
estrellas: Un homenaje a Victor Jara and the author of Clandestine
Crossings: Migrants and Coyotes on the Texas-Mexico Border. He is
also co-editor (with Gary Gereffi and Jennifer Bair) of Free Trade
and Uneven Development: The North American Apparel Industry
after NAFTA (Temple).