In Charlottesville, Lyrically Speaking

When I visited Greenbrier and Burnley-Moran elementary schools in Charlottesville recently as part of the Virginia Festival of the Book, I spoke to assemblies of second and third graders about my book We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song.  We talked about the profound unfairness--the Jim Crow racism--that blanketed our nation not so very long ago.  The students seemed positively astounded by photographs I showed of whites-only drinking fountains and signs marking whites-only restaurants, swimming pools, and movies.  We worked our way around to the idea of being frustrated and angry and fighting back against injustice--but with your brain and your voice, not with your fists.  With sit-ins and marches and persuasion and bus rides and, of course, songs.In one of the schools, the kids all knew the song "We Shall Overcome," because they had just learned it as part of their Black History Month activities.  In the other school, most kids didn't know the song.  But one of the great strengths of "We Shall Overcome" is how easy it is to learn, so they learned the tune  with me in a jiffy.  Then, after hearing verses such as "We are not afraid. . ." and "We'll walk hand in hand" and "Black and white together," they came up with their own lyrics--my favorite part of the day.  Some of their words:We shall all be kind. . .We shall seize the day. . .We shall never stop. . .We shall come together. . .Don't these lines just make you want to sing out?  That's how I felt, anyway.  And I did.  Into the microphone, no less.  And my singing voice is not something that is exactly a joy to behold.  But that's another great thing about "We Shall Overcome"--it doesn't care if you can sing well or not.