By Walter Hesford | FāVS News Columnist
It was beginning to spit sleet when Moscow’s valiant little Peace Band belted out “We Shall Overcome,” boosting the spirits of us gathered on Jan. 6 in Friendship Square to protest Trump’s latest tyrannous actions.
“We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome, someday,” we sang. Did we, do I, really have faith that this day will ever come?
Originally a gospel song, “We Shall Overcome” evolved into a protest song among African-American women fighting for higher wages in the mid 1940s. Pete Seeger heard it while visiting a progressive school in Tennessee, and in 1957 Martin Luther King. Jr. heard Seeger sing it there. From the 1960s onward it became the hope-giving battle cry of the Civil Rights movement and then of many people throughout the world raising their voices against the status quo (information from the Kennedy Center website, “We Shall Overcome”).
Biblical roots of ‘someday’
The view, the faith, that there will be a day when peace and justice will prevail may stem from Judaism and Christianity. The 8th century Hebrew prophet Isaiah, for example, looked forward to the day when swords would be beaten into plowshares (Isaiah 2: 4). He envisioned this as an historical development that would occur on earth. Such a perspective helped endow the West with the assumption that history was not cyclical, but progressive. Someday we will overcome.
A few centuries later severe oppression of the faithful led to the view in some Jewish communities that the Day of the Lord would only come outside of history, outside of time, in an afterlife, where the faithful would be rewarded. This view influenced the development of Christianity, and is common today among many Christians. Cynics hear this as a hope for “pie in sky by and by.”
Other Christians, drawing on some sayings of Jesus which suggest that the kingdom of God is at hand (see, for example Mark 1: 15), push the Day of the Lord back into history, making it something we can help happen. This perspective is promoted by scholars who assert that scripture offers a “realized eschatology,” so the promises of end times can be realized in the here and now since it is always “end times.”
The view that we can, we should, work for a day when peace and justice will prevail informs liberation theology, rooted in Latin American Catholicism, and Black theology, rooted in the Black church. In these religious traditions, the emphasis is on collective liberation rather than individual salvation. Hence the importance of “We” in “We Shall Overcome.”
It is also noteworthy that it is “We,” not God, who according to the song will overcome someday. Originally there were verses that evoked God’s aid, but they are now absent. Currently “We Shall Overcome” is usually sung among secular folk to provide solidarity and hope. Perhaps there is still something religious about this.
When ‘someday’ becomes ‘today’
As subsequent verses of the song suggest, what must be overcome are not only external threats, but also internal ones. “We’ll walk hand in hand,” we sing, indicating that racism and other divisive attitudes may dwell among us; by walking hand in hand we signify our desire to be united. “We are not afraid,” we sing, indicating that we need to conquer fear in order to stand up, speak up, for the rights of ourselves and others.
Every verse (except sometimes the last) ends with that elusive “someday.” As I suggested at the outset of this column, I sometimes have a hard time believing that this “someday” will ever come since in recent months racism, violence, oppression, and tyranny have been on the increase. Is history really moving forward toward a better world for all?
But then, I think, who am I, a wimpy old white male liberal, to throw in the towel when peoples of color, women, peoples with disabilities, and others, have struggled for centuries and kept their hope alive.
At our community’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day breakfast, we always end by singing “We Shall Overcome” and always change the “someday” of the last verse to “today.” As if by coming together and being inspired by those who have devoted their lives to civil and human rights we have at least temporarily gained the strength to overcome.
The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. FāVS News values diverse perspectives and thoughtful analysis on matters of faith and spirituality.
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Thank you for your perspective. It mirrors what I wrote this morning on a page of a friend that felt the need to finally speak out but questioning the impact.
I see too much of “woe to me, woe to us”, “I must do more”, with little understanding of world and Biblical history, both past and current.
I see the threat on the right, the right’s protest, is Doug Wilson fighting to bring in “his” version of “We will overcome”: dueling ideologies for the same self-centered goals of getting what “I” think is right by any means necessary.
I am not unmindful or unsympathetic to the violence being perpetrated on a class of people by an administration with a foul mouthed inciteful President. But I am not ignorant of the policies of both parties that swung the pendulum farther at each election creating the divide we have either. I can see a stark difference between states and cities where law enforcement work together and where they are in conflict (and that deliberate and by design to divide).
I feel I am in a time warp.
I grew up in Bonners Ferry Idaho in the 50’s and 60’s. I loved the National Geographics my grandfather subscribed to, but that was some other world, not mine. The same with the news my parents watched. Kennedys and MLK assassinations, race riots, Vietnam; that was the sci-fi channel, not my world.
I joined the Navy in 1971 to not be drafted into the Army or Marines with a naive notion that I wouldn’t have to go to Vietnam. But … that is where I spent two West-Pacs.
I have experienced history and culture and now pay attention to what is happening in the World. It has always been simmering under the surface here, those with money and power taking over finance and industry and guiding the projectory of our nation to where we are right now. Big money is in war and conflict, not peace. The pendulum between right and left swings wider with each election, each grabbing more power for themselves and taking more freedom from the populous.
The US has been lulled asleep to think that what happens in every century in every land will NOT happen here. Human nature does NOT change. It is only God that can change the heart and that, ONLY, when we give our will to Him.
We can give our will, now, to Him, to guide, to give our lives purpose by serving Him by serving others, pointing them (on both sides) to the only One that can save or we can be swept away by a world apposed to God and everything He stands for. IF you’re not trusting God, who are you trusting?
There is no hope in governments to end this chaos that they deliberately perpetuate. Revelation states plainly where the world is going. It is time to choose what side you are on.