Copyright and Royalties
"I'll Overcome Someday" written by Rev. Charles Albert Tindley, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, is the likely source of "We Shall Overcome," although the title, words, and tune differ substantially . Even had the two been more similar, Tindley's hymn was published in 1901, and in the public domain, according to US Copyright law. "We Shall Overcome" is an adaptation by Zilphia Horton, Guy Carawan, Frank Hamilton, and Pete Seeger, of a song that Zilphia Horton heard sung by union organizer Lucille Simmons in 1945. Horton's heirs, Carawan, Hamilton, and Seeger, share the artists' half of the rights, and TRO (The Richmond Organization, which includes Ludlow Music, Essex, Folkways Music, and Hollis Music), holds the publishers rights (to 50% of the royalty earnings). Pete Seeger explained that he took out a defensive copyright on advice of his publisher, TRO, to prevent someone else from doing so and "At that time we didn't know Lucille Simmons' name." Their royalties go to the "We Shall Overcome" Fund, administered by Highlander under the trusteeship of the "writers" (i.e., the holders of the writers' share of the copyright, who, strictly speaking, are the arrangers and adapters). Such funds are used to give small grants for cultural expression involving African Americans organizing in the U.S. South.
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